Here's a magazine that is upbeat and full of great tips.

Why did I drop my subscription in the first place?

Every writer’s workshop I attend recommends Poets & Writers. The reason given—every time— is that it’s the only true magazine that gives you real insight into real writers and real writing.

Uh, huh.

I duly subscribed. All I can say is that it’s a rather depressing read. Look at the photos. Every writer tries his or her hardest to look terribly solemn. Or maybe terribly downtrodden. Certainly miserable. I suppose they all think they won’t be taken seriously unless they look as though they’re in enough pain to write wondrous prose. Oh, and there’s this undercurrent through all the articles and editorials that unless you’re just as miserable you can’t possibly write publishable prose. Look how these authors suffered! See how misunderstood they’ve been all their lives! We can teach you how to suffer in ten easy lessons!

This is not for me. For one thing, I’m bipolar, so I can get depressed all by myself without any help from a miserable writer. And is writing really such a lonely and miserable activity? I don’t think so. Frankly, writing the Broom series was a blast! I enjoy writing and I enjoy getting positive feedback from my readers that they enjoyed reading the books!

“Well,” huff the hard-done-by writers. “You certainly don’t want to subscribe to Writer’s Digest [sniff] because it lets publishers advertise.” Ok, fair warning, I thought, so I picked up a copy for careful forensic evaluation (with tongs and gloves). Everyone in the magazine is smiling, I noted. Gee, the publishers must’ve paid off these people. “Craft a foolproof story plan: 3 simple steps.” “101 best websites for writers.” “Conversations with Stephen King.” “Your publishing survival guide.” Hmph. Sounds like a generic hobby magazine. The stories could’ve been “Model train track layout explained.” Or “How to climb that steep hill with your dirt bike.” Or “Raising chickens for fun and profit.”

Now I will warn you that publishers indeed do populate the magazine’s advertisements. Rather thoroughly. And to be perfectly frank, I think lots of these “assisted self publishing” schemes are either scams or at least are certainly ways to help you part with your money, probably to no avail. And, the tone of the magazine is relentlessly positive: keep trying, trying, trying and you will be published. I’ve already posted on what I think of that little piece of fiction. (See Your Odds of Finding a Publisher.) So, as you smile your way through Writer’s Digest and pick up great (if basic) tips that’ll help you get started and keep you motivated, just remember that writing is your hobby and your real job pays the mortgage (and always will).

When I decided to “self publish” the Broom series, I pored through the ads in Writer’s Digest and tore out ads from several likely publishers. I found, with only one exception, that they follow the standard business plan of at least $1,000, but more often closer to $2,000, to “set up” your book. Then, after paying that up-front fee, you could then pay “only” $10 to $15 dollars per copy to get your book and then marketing was up to you. Needless to say, this is a great way to spend lots of money. I decided I could do better. I made a list of the services available for that $2K “setup fee” and found I could do all of them myself for a fraction of the price. And…here’s the best part…the last ad, the one that wasn’t for one of these “self-publishing” houses, was for a printer. A real, live, honest-to-goodness printer. I found I could get my Broom books printed for about $4/copy. And with that I found a way to self-publish Broom with a minimum of investment. And…having done that…I found myself in a position to help others. I offer web fulfillment for local authors— (see Extended Catalog); something they find hard and I find easy. And, for a small number of carefully chosen projects, I’ve helped some local authors become published (see Our Catalog). The Railroad Book is particularly popular.

Anyway, I’m not writing here to complain about those who would prey on unsuspecting authors, but rather to say you have a choice of magazines. If you’re miserable and like the company of miserable people, subscribe to Poets & Writers. If, however, you want to be inspired and are somewhat immune to the blandishments of those who would take your money and not help you all that much, try Writer’s Digest. I’m sure there are other magazines out there for aspiring writers—please leave a comment with a link to your favorite magazine!

Here's the best way to get into the Colorado High Country. I stopped at this viewpoint, with the Cimarrons in the distance, to do a five senses exercise.

And decided I should use the time wisely.

With sight blocked out, I concentrated on smell, touch, taste, and sound. And what a rich panoply to (not) see! I used my cell phone voice recorder to track what I noticed. I’ve jotted them down here as an example of how you might do a five senses exercise yourself.

Sound. Here’s the order I heard things. A jet, far overhead on its way to some important city—yes, it was that quiet that I could hear the jet. A multi-engine propeller aircraft (this one made me get up and look—such are rare around here). Once the aircraft were gone, I heard three kinds of wind. First, the wind as it swept through brush and trees some distance away, sort of mournful. Second, the wind in the trees nearby, more strident. Third, the wind boxing my ears. It took awhile to separate these sounds. A creek, somewhere in the distance, not terribly far away, just loud enough to be a constant noise. Lots of water too—the sound rushed. Finally—and I’m surprised it took this long to stop filtering it out—dozens of birds! Judging from the different calls, many species, too. Several went tit-tit-tit-tit-tit-tit-tit rather rapidly. A mating call perhaps? Lastly, once I’d sorted through all these sounds, I could listen to the silence. A beautiful silence.

Touch. I had to work on this one. I moved my hands around (gloves still over eyes). The first sensation was damp grass. Not wet—just damp and cool. I fanned my hand over the grass and felt the blades tickle my palm. I rubbed a grass blade and discovered one side is smooth and the other side is a bit fuzzy. I concentrated more: My motorcycle clothing (quite new, along with the dirt bike) is extraordinarily comfortable—presumably made that way, very different from street bike apparrel. Oh, and lying on my back and using my Camelback as a headrest, I felt the earth’s coolness, again remarkably comfortable. I could feel the gloves on my face, the sunshine on my cheeks, a little bit of dirt at my fingertips, and, lastly, an ant crawling on the back of my hand (that one made me open my eyes).

Smell. I’m not real good in this category since I’ve never had much of a sense of smell. After considerable concentration, I decided the predominate smell was that of grass, unsurprising since I was lying in a rather lush sample. The vista point has few trees, so I didn’t smell pine or really anything else. But I could smell the newness of my motorcycle garb. All rather subtle.

Taste. No, I didn’t shove dirt or grass in my mouth! But I did eat some cheese crackers (salty, an undifferentiated cheesiness, crunchy) and drink some water out of the new Camelback (plasticky).

Sight. I left this for last because this is where we tend to concentrate when describing a scene. I saw the Cimarron mountains, which you can see behind the motorcycle in the photograph. Ah, the clouds—so dramatic! Fortunately, they were to my east and receding from me. To the west was nothing but sunlight. I should mention the overwhelming sense of green. It’s mid spring here and we’ve had a fair amount of rain, so everything that can turn green has done so. But green was not the only color. Purple, violet, and yellow wildflowers abound. Mostly they’re tiny things, with blossoms about a half inch across. Oh, and the long views—I was at about 8500 feet, so I had views up and down the mountain range. Let’s see, what else. Well, there’s the motorcycle itself (Yamaha XT-250), the gravel (dirt, really), and brilliant sunshine.

So, there’s my little five senses exercise. Referencing several senses is a great way to make your scene come alive. Lay back on the grass, put your gloves over your eyes, and poll your senses. They’ve got lots to say!

That’s 1M words. 1,000,000 words.

At least according to the Language Monitor, a blog that’s in love with the language. Or at least it’s in love with the words. I guess real language has to have lots of words, but there are other things here and there, such as parts of speech, grammar, pronunciation, and all those little details, to get to a real language.

But it is still nice to think that we have about double the number of words of any other language.

According to the Language Monitor (which has a countdown clock to when we hit 1M), we add a new word to the language, such as “greenwashing” or other such trendy things, every 98 minutes. Apparently a word is “official” when it’s used 25,000 times in the media. We’re scheduled to go over the top on June 11th, 2009, at 10:22 a.m. British Summer Time, which is 3:22 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time. (I may wait until the sun is up to celebrate.)

Unfortunately, however, the Language Monitor site doesn’t have a list of the words. So I can’t check if “hooferah” or “complexification” made the cut. I doubt it. But new words can be oddly attractive. I once did a consulting gig for a company in Alexandria, Virginia, and was told that “complexification” swept through the building like wildfire. So perhaps I’ve had more of a mark on humanity than merely writing the American Flying Broomstick novels.

Sadly, the trend in writing (in America) is to dumb things down. Few syllables. Short sentences. Common words everyone understands. In my opinion, this impoverishes the language and saps its strength. Subtleties are lost.

And, it’s my opinion (I have lots of opinions, all free and worth what you pay for them) that the language a person speaks is also the language in which the person thinks, which means that the language structure itself guides (and limits) what a person can think. The fewer words we use, the more limited our ability to think. The book 1984 includes this little trick in the government’s propaganda campaign to substitute simple feel-good phrases for actual thought. I think both major US political parties have mastered this technique.

Fortunately, the British seem immune to this problem, at least for now. I read extensively, mostly on the history of technology, and British books seem to revel in exploring the obscure corners of the language. I head for the dictionary frequently and gratefully. Gratefully because if I have to look something up, I’m learning. Some of those words found their way into my novels.

I love the C.S. Lewis Chronicles of Narnia series of children’s books. But they were written under the assumption that little kids really don’t understand grown up concepts too well. In fact, I thought the Disney interpretation of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe actually improved on the book by adding a depth not found in its pages. J.K. Rowling laid the assumption of children’s inability to grasp complex concepts to rest with her Harry Potter series. She didn’t exactly reach for the dark corners of the language, but she didn’t mince words, either. Children’s books reaching 800+ pages? Can you imagine? But kids read them. And understood them.

So I don’t dumb down the American Flying Broomstick books. And children have read them. And understood them. I wrote them as though speaking to an intelligent adult and they assume a fairly clear understanding of what the working world is like, but kids have been able to reach past that and enjoy the story anyway. I never thought I was writing to children, but by accident I did. I guess some themes need no experiential background to understand.

Anyway, do please put June 11th on your calendar and celebrate the most diverse language mankind has ever known.

Oh no. Not this time. I came down with the cold on Friday. That means I caught it Wednesday, which is the day we flew from Montrose to LAX. Thank you, dear traveling public.

Well, we were due to return Sunday. The worst was probably over, but I hacked and coughed through breakfast. We made a command decision. We abandoned our airline reservations (they were free anyway—frequent flyer miles), called Hertz to extend the rental, and started the drive home.

There were two issues. First, TSA is looking for sick travelers. They would’ve spotted me immediately. Second, if I whine about others traveling while ill, to do so myself is just plain hypocrisy. We got as far as Richfield, Utah, on Sunday and came the rest of the way today. I’m better—my colds are usually short—but still hacking. Alas.

I forgot to mention one thing in the last post. Cell phone antennas. How attractive, you say. Well, they’re not. But in California, which fairly drips infrastructure, cell phone antennas are posted everywhere disguised as—you guessed it—cell phone antennas. Yep, they’re forthright about it. No hiding. Odd really. I guess it’s been so long since I’ve been to California that I didn’t notice them last time. In the rest of the U.S., people want them hidden. I don’t see any around here, but our cell phones work just fine.

(Oh, we did see one decked out in fake palm fronds. Must’ve been some local requirement.)

Spring may be yet to come in Southwestern Colorado, but it's sprung in Southern California!

I’ve been away from LA for several years. As the United Airlines Boeing 757 descended into LAX, I watched a familiar/surreal landscape unfold below me. The Tehatchapi Mountains that form the northern border of the LA Basin are just the same—covered with chapparel (low trees, juniper bushes, various other hardy things that don’t need much water) and the usual firebreaks scraped along ridge lines. The weather was partly cloudy with very low clouds (below the tops of the mountains) broken into little cotton balls, none very big. The air underneath the cloud layer was blue rather than brown—not yet smog but more than fog. After awhile I could pick out landmarks. The Harbor Freeway, downtown Los Angeles, the San Diego freeway, and then landing on the south runway.

The airport was built when I was a child. I remember attending its grand opening. The airport authority had picked a spot well away from LA—in farmers’ fields, in fact—there was no little controversy over its location as it seemed so far away. Ah, the airport was so modern! One walked through tunnels from the parking lots in the middle to get out to the terminals, all of which were round and featured maybe 10 gates each max. There was no security in those days, of course, nor did you have to have a ticket to gawk. The centerpiece of the airport was the big arch in the middle which held a suspended restaurant that slowly revolved so one could get a view in every direction. Like everything else in LA at the time, things were laid back.

The arch is still there, but scaffolding covers it, presumably for restoration. It’s too iconic to be removed. The airport is jam-packed with activity as the much-larger aircraft jocky for docking position in between the terminals, which are not as far away from each other as they need to be. And Terminal 7 has changed. It’s more like a traditional airport concourse, although I could still see evidence of the original circular terminal. The 50s-ish modern design with all its swoops and aerodynamics is gone, replaced by standard garish airport kitsch and fast food joints. The noise level is high and one has to hike to get to baggage claim. Remarkably, our bags were there before we were!

Hertz is a mile or so away, so we took the bus. Hertz hasn’t changed anything since I was last in LA. IBM pays for my Gold membership, so we walked to our car and drove off.

We traveled up Airport Blvd toward the San Diego Freeway as I wanted to be sure I knew which exit we would use when returning on Sunday morning. La Tijera. It’s been years since those words last crossed my brain.

It was mid-afternoon, so the freeway was relatively empty, which means jammed but going the speed limit. Or, really, rather more than the speed limit. One drives in California entirely differently from Colorado. All of Colorado is one big speed trap, so I routinely set the cruise control. Not in California! If you don’t want to be run over, you’d better stay up with traffic! Even if traffic is doing 80. Traffic speed is highly variable, so a sharp eye helps avoid hitting the car in front. We had to change lanes several times, an experience that will put hair on your chest. Having learned to drive on California freeways, I think I have most of the moves under control. We arrived in one piece.

The color of the light is different in LA. Bluer, probably due to the early morning, just-dissipated fog. (When Los Angelenos speak of fog, they mean low clouds. Real fog is rare.) And then there are the trees. Very different from our evergreens and pinions. I was struck by all the eucalyptus trees. Eucalyptus grows widely in Australia and was imported to the U.S. by the Central Pacific Railway in hopes of creating a source of fast-growing trees to supply railroad ties. Well, the eucalyptus is much to soft for such duty, but the trees nonetheless settled in for the duration. They grow along the coast from roughly San Diego to Santa Barbara. I grew up with these trees. I love the look and smell of these giants. In reality they’re horrible trees–constantly shedding all sorts of junk on whatever is underneath, but I don’t care. They represent my childhood, and just seeing and smelling them brought memories out of my mind’s attic. Oh, and there’s ice plant along the freeways (originally placed there for slope stabilization), and these are just finishing their bloom season. When the early freeways were put in (during my childhood), planners thought they should be pleasantly landscaped and they were—winning design awards. But during a particularly nasty drought, “they” made the decision to stop watering all this. (Southern California is desert—no water, no growth.) But by then the trees had taken deep root and remain stout and strong. Much of the original landscaping—now grown rather wild—still thrives.

Oh and then there are the palm trees. Palms aren’t native, of course, but they sure do abound! Palms are iconic. Like eucalyptus, palms are weed trees. They drop fronds (occasionally hurting someone) and need trimming every year, otherwise most of the fronds (now dead) hang on along the trunk with green only at the top. There are zillions of palm types; I don’t pretend to know any of them. There are tall, skinny palms and short, stout palms. Take your pick.

Part of our journey was along surface streets in the San Fernando Valley. Traffic! Oh, my, the traffic! The signals are long enough to move large amounts of traffic before changing; careful signal coordination is required to prevent gridlock. I quickly learned, or rather remembered, that it’s impossible to keep track of what other cars are doing. One drives along, hoping all those other hundreds of cars within a few yards do what they’re supposed to do. It’s a grand leap of faith. Back in Ridgway, I can see all the cars approaching an intersection and make plans if one of them misbehaves. That’s impossible here.

As we worked our way east through the Valley on Victory Blvd, the neighborhoods would change character completely every few blocks. We go through a section where the homes and businesses were well tended with their flowers and well-maintained buildings. Then there’s be a seedy stretch with weedy brown lawns and business locations clearly in need of urgent repair. Then back again! All the Valley towns (technically all of it is Los Angeles) merge together, so one knows where one is only by reference to a map. The neighborhood names trace back to the original farming communities back when the San Fernando Valley was some of the most productive farmland in the United States. When I was in elementary school, Los Angeles County produced more dairy products than the entire state of Wisconsin! No more.

Houses are jammed together with little space between, usually just enough space to push a lawn mower or drag a trash can. Many homes showed evidence of being islands, surrounded by ornamental iron fence with locked gates. I’m afraid in LA one doesn’t know one’s neighbors, but rather is part of some larger social group based on affinity, such as work or church or a community group.

My folk’s home, which seemed so large to me in 1966, is nowhere as big as I remember it. They raised five kids in this house! We’re all long gone, of course, but they have a busy guest room which we’re occupying at the moment. I’m pleased to say that although they’re in their mid-80s, they’re spry and healthy. We jabbered. We ate. I fixed Mom’s new TV so it actually received HD signals, which required a trip down to the cable company’s office to swap out a converter box. Today Dad and Loretta, both artists, enjoyed the art walk and a visit to a “real” art store. (“Real” meaning it serves a customer base far larger than Montrose or Ouray!)

So why do I keep these notes? Well, I might have to include a trip to LA on the broomstick in some future novel. No amount of looking at Google Earth or at old photographs can quite capture the shapes, smells, noise, and feel of the big city. Not to mention my visit to see a good high school friend and his wife. Alas, Roger’s hair is long gone and what’s left is gray! That didn’t mean we didn’t have stories to swap—far from it—we were at it until well after 10:00 p.m.

Oh, and California’s not laid back anymore. No…not at all! Busy, busy! Rush, rush! Get there first and get out of the way!

It’s wonderful coming back and reviving old memories, but the Southern California I grew up in no longer exists. The artifacts remain—shapes, sights, smells, noise, humidity, etc. But my home is in Colorado. Ridgway, to be exact.

Why the workshop? I credit a dynamic teacher, Leslie Nichols, with organizing this event. It draws students from nearby schools (nearby being a relative term) both to the workshop and the associated competition. I was told that in addition to teaching a workshop on “The Essentials of Fiction,” I (along with other workshop presenters) would judge “some” student writing. You can therefore imagine my surprise when I opened the mail and out poured dozens of submissions. A stack over an inch thick! Several evenings were devoted to crawling through each piece.

A few observations: First, writing talent knows no grade. My favorite piece was by a 7th grader who wrote about the hunting trip on which he bagged his first elk. Now I’m no hunter (and, being bipolar, should stay away from firearms), but his enthusiasm burned through. His piece had “voice” and was well-written to boot. Another favorite piece was from a similarly-aged girl, who wrote about tagging along with her father on a trip to revisit Viet Nam—this time without the war.

Now, based on what I saw, I thought I’d jot down a few things I’d love to pass onto all the kids:

• Punctuation matters. Commas. Periods. Apostrophes. All that and more. I had to punctuate several pieces just so I could read them. This should not be. Standard punctuation rules are there for a reason. That reason is to make writing intelligible. After all, you know far more than you write, but your reader only knows what you write. If it’s impossible to sort out, no communications takes place. And, no, there’s no such thing as “creative punctuation.” Get it right!
• Characters need to be characters. Fiction is about conflict, and generally the conflict is between people. Those people need to be introduced, fleshed out, and made believable. No one is perfect, or for that matter anywhere close. The good guys have faults. The bad guys have virtues. When characters are thought through properly, the conflict becomes believable.
• Don’t go to the big battle scene immediately.  Apparently kids like battle scenes. That would explain why the (excellent) movie version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe has such an extended battle scene. In the book it hardly merits a page. But even the movie spent an hour and a half building up to it. Before we see the conflict play out, the reader needs to understand what’s at stake and, more important, why it’s at stake. That means first building characters who come into conflict based on character flaws. The conflict builds. Then something changes, which could be a character’s growth or change, or perhaps there is a change in circumstances. But however it’s done, if a reader is thrust into the story’s main conflict without any forewarning, the battle will be unfathomable.
• Foreshadowing matters. Several of the student pieces failed to foreshadow, so a sudden development at the end of their story seemed out of place and not believable. If the villain is to die in a sword fight, then swords and fighting had better make an appearance early in the story. That way, when the evil villain draws his sword, we don’t say “hey, where’d the sword come from?” but rather we sit on the edge of our seats to see how the hero will defend herself.
• Put yourself into your story! The best fiction came in those pieces that clearly reflected the writer’s life experiences. Several students wrote about horses—rather common around here—and wrote convincingly. Why? Because these kids are in ranch country and ride horses. Every day! Their love of these marvelous animals (which I think remain something of a mystery to them—after all, horses are much, much taller than kids!) shows in their word choice, their verb choice, the choice of subject, and the way things are done. All fiction is just autobiography. My Broom books are a testament to that; most scenes are grounded in one of my own life experiences.
• Research matters. One writer tried to put herself into a NYC ghetto, imagining it to be pretty much a dog-eat-dog battleground with bodies everywhere. Well, no, we try not to let kids starve to death on the streets, and no, middle-school kids don’t run around the streets unsupervised killing each other every night. Yes, some seriously bad things happen in ghettos (and elsewhere), but I couldn’t get through this piece because my willing suspension of disbelief took such a beating early on. A couple of student pieces imagined what it would be like to be captured by slavers and hauled across the oceans. This is an interesting idea, and a good one for a youngster to imagine. However, the heros sure sounded like Americans! Twenty-first Century Americans at that. I was just waiting for one to pull out an iPOD. The fundamental problem with historical fiction is that the facts need to be dead accurate. And that includes customs (which in historical times often revolved around religion of some sort). I would suggest that while these exercises are mind-expanding, one should stick with a subject one either knows or has thoroughly researched.
• Consistency matters. If you write fantasy, you can construct your own world. But if a framistan is used to cut down trees, then a framistan later in the story should be cutting down trees and not building fairy castles. A wood nymph, however you define him/her/it, needs to behave like a wood nymph throughout. Even if your characters can morph, they have to morph in consistent ways. One otherwise delightful piece had a person getting himself lost in Kansas and then suddenly turning up in a mountain town (a town that sounded suspiciously like Collbran, in fact). Sorry, this isn’t consistent. Kansas and the mountainous parts of Colorado are hundreds of miles apart—the hero would at least have had to get gasoline somewhere in between.
• Scene setting matters. Some of the pieces I read were promising, but others took me awhile to figure out just where/when the piece was set. All I want to know about a scene is just enough to move the story along. For example, suppose we note that Bill’s bedroom has a dresser he received as a gift from a former girlfriend. That’s an interesting factoid. But, if that girlfriend is never mentioned again (or if the dresser is never mentioned again), what does that tell us? Are we supposed to have learned something about Bill? The rule is simple: omit scene-setting details that don’t matter to the story. One I ran across in a student story was the hardwood floor. I kept reading “hardwood floor.” But it had no relevance to anything. So just say “floor.” Or not even mention that the hero had to have a floor to stand on.
• But do put in scene-setting details that matter. For example, if your hero will later be in a sword fight, decorate his castle with swords or armor. Describe your hero’s visit to the village smithy to get his new sword, which the smithy hasn’t quite completed. Tell us about the hot fire and the tempering of the steel—remind us how noisy these places are. This gets your reader excited about swords and builds up tension, because the reader knows that swords will be crossed at some point.
• Don’t bother with flowery language. It gets in the way. Some students talked about the awe-inspiring, reddish, early-morning sunshine that lay across their closed eyes like an invitation to see the morning before our hero gave into the seductive sunshine and rose delightedly from his cozy bedroll beside his gently-grazing horse. Give me a break! That list of adverbs and adjectives is so long it fumbles over itself. Just say that the sun’s warmth woke your hero. If your hero is of an artistic bent, then describe the scene the way an artist might see it—perhaps a color or two. But again, only include those scene descriptors that are relevant to the story. (Personally, I’d be unhappy because I couldn’t sleep late, the bedroll would have frost on it, and the ground would’ve been lumpier than my first attempt at making mashed potatoes.)
• Passion is wonderful, but back it up with facts. Some of the student papers were essays. An essay is simple. Somewhere in there you state your thesis, or main idea. Then you persuade your reader that you’re right, usually by providing examples or some closely-reasoned argument based on examples. Without the specifics, it’s not an essay; it’s a rant. Rants are no fun to read unless you agree; even so, it would be nice to have an example or two. Yes, be passionate! But help me understand why I should be passionate too! And, OBTW, not everyone will agree with your assertions. I can spot assertions from a good distance away because they all seem to contain the word “should.” People should be kinder. People should not discriminate on the basis of skin color. People should get better educations. People should save money for the future. Every one of those is an unsupported assertion. Your job in an essay is to persuade me that your assertions are grounded in facts and logic.
• You must, you must, you MUST attribute your quotations! Quoting someone else is no bad thing; we all do it. But if I include some factoids from Wikipedia, then those need to be attributed to Wikipedia! Put quotation marks around quoted material. Even if you rephrase it, if it follows from some source of yours, you must attribute it also. Anything less than this is plagarism! I don’t think any student was trying to plagarize. But it sometimes came out that way. Just be careful with your sources and you’ll avoid the problem.

Well, that’s enough for now. What did I think of the writing overall? I enjoyed the variety, which simply showed that even young kids aren’t alike; they all have different things to think about and different passions. I loved the passion, whether for hunting, riding, loving their heros, or just plain argument. So what do I say to these kids? Keep at it! After reading, writing is the most enabling skill you’ll ever possess. You can’t persuade others to follow if you can’t convey your vision. Write early, write often! My hat is off to these kids.

(I just hope that my critiques don’t cause them to feel anything less than motivated!)

I pushed open the door, walked to the car, drove a few miles past farmer’s fields, and found myself at Myra’s house.

Well, I suppose it gets the job done. And perhaps you want your reader to concentrate on something else. But what about this?

The old screen door squeaked and protested as I pushed it open; it slammed shut behind me. I jumped the three steps to the gravel path and swished through the unraked leaves downed during yesterday’s thunderstorm. My poor little MG, so impractical on Nebraska’s many dirt roads, sat muddy and forlorn; I hopped in and turned the key. It never does like to start. Just as the battery was almost dead, it coughed into life, complaining loudly through the hole in the muffler. The road, still muddy from the storm, was not kind to my MG, splattering mud everywhere, and I slid a little more than I liked around the sharp 90-degree bend near the massive oak. Thumping up and down over the washboards, all that remained of the corn crop was stubble, not yet plowed under. After a few more equally sudden turns, I caught sight of Myra’s farmhouse, mightly lonely on these flat western Nebraska plains. The outbuildings had long given in to nature, but Myra had worked miracles to bring the old homestead back to life. A bit of woodsmoke drifted skyward from the red brick chimney. Her driveway was more a hole in the fence; I turned in and skittered through the mud, almost too deep for the MG to find any traction. Myra appeared on the porch, clearly alerted in advance by that rusted muffler. She leaned against the sole pole holding up the sagging porch roof and waved as I drew closer.

So, I ask, which is more interesting? Which excerpt sets the scene? Which draws you into that old house along with Myra and Jim? I daresay the second.

Why? It’s full of specifics. Not a door, but a screen door that squeaks. Not a yard but a yard full of fallen leaves. Not a car, but an MG with a bad muffler and poorly-tuned engine. Not a road, but a muddy, slippery dirt road. Not a corner, but the corner by the old oak. Not a driveway, but a hole in the fence and then slip and slide through yet more mud. Not a house, but the sole surviving structure with a sagging porch and a red brick chimney. Oh, and we’re not just anywhere. We’re in western Nebraska where it’s mighty flat. And it’s autumn, after the crops have been harvested.

So, do the same. You can overdo it, of course, throwing in detail that doesn’t help set the scene. (“I switched on the light in the bathroom, pausing to appreciate the three compact fluorescent lights where normally round bulbs would be. I felt the smooth porcelain sink and savored the aroma of the crushed flowers Myra so thoughtfully placed on the little table.”) Well, I guess the presence of compact fluorescents might say something, but most sinks are smooth and porcelain and crushed flowers usually smell good. I think it might be more honest to say something along the lines of “the crushed flowers fought to overcome the bathroom odor, but I’m afraid they lost the fight.”

Instead of telling us about your character, describe him or her by specifics. The colors. The smells. The furniture. The books. And so on.

Hmm…I wonder just what Myra and Jim did after that old MG clattered to a halt? I might have to think that through.

Your outline (you do have an outline, don’t you?) says that Jack, Mary, and Jane meet each other at the Post Office. Jane is excited about her new movie role. Mary is upset because she didn’t get the role. Jack is courting Mary, so wants to advocate for her. The scene begins stiffly as Mary offers her grudging congratulations to Jane. Jack tells Mary she should’ve had the role. Mary starts to cry. Jane, embarrassed, tries to leave but Jack starts explaining why Mary should’ve won.

Okay, how can you describe this? I can think of three ways. You may think of several more (if so, please comment and describe them). First, you can play the scene live. You set the scene and record each line of dialog just as it was spoken. Second, you can summarize the scene with exposition. Third, you can have a character describe what he or she remembers; in fact, this could be interesting. Each character can remember it differently.

We’re usually tempted with option 1. Spell it out. Lay on the dialog. Create the dramatic tension. Make Mary angry. Jane looks for an exit. Jack is assertive.

Jane jumped when she saw Jack and Mary in line behind her. The noisy Post Office lobby was crowded with the lunchtime crowd.

“Well, I guess I should offer congratulations,” murmured Mary.

Jane knew how badly Mary wanted the role. And she needed the money, too.

“I’m sure you could’ve done as well,” said Jane, looking at her feet. “In fact, I’m surprised they didn’t pick you.”

“You’re right about that!” snapped Jack. Mary swiveled to face him. “Mary was made for the role. If you were any kind of friend, you’d go back and tell them Mary should have it.”

That’s certainly okay. And your readers expect crisp dialog (remember, every line of dialog should push the story along). But what if the things needing said make for an endless scene? The dialog above could stretch on for pages.

So you can try option 2.

Mary and Jack climbed the steps slowly as Jack reassured her that her audition was great and that the casting director was a biased, red-necked jerk. Without taking in their surroundings, they joined the long queue to see the lone clerk. But fate was not in their favor that day, as they found themselves in line behind Jane. The temperature dropped a good ten degrees. Mary blushed as she offered her reluctant congratulations, but Jack was intent on a scene. And a scene he got! Within 15 minutes, three burly policemen hustled a handcuffed, struggling Jack into a patrol car as both Jane and Mary stood crying.

Ok, so maybe you want a little bit of dialog, but the point is you can summarize when you need to.

Now here’s a third. I use this in About Dan (see here). I thought through the scene several ways and decided it would take too long to include all the dialog. And anyway I wanted to show Dan’s reaction. So we see the scene through Dan’s retelling to a rather skeptical friend.

“Well,” he began, “I decided I’d take Tania up on her offer.”

Peter groaned. “I was hoping you were joking!”

“I couldn’t think of a way out of it! I forgot all about it until after school today. Tania reminded me. She was talking so fast I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Then she ran off. I mean, she literally didn’t give me a chance to say no. She gave me a map with directions to her house and everything. She swore her brother and her folks would be there.”

Peter rolled his eyes. Jesse and Marilyn merely bent forward.

“She lives up in North Boulder, about a mile from my dad’s condo. It’s a nice neighborhood, you know, big houses and all. Her folks must be rich. The house has a circular drive. The grass is really neatly trimmed and there are flowers out already. They must have a gardener because everything looks so pretty–.”

“Moving right along,” said Peter.

“Yeah. Anyway, my first clue should have been there were no cars in the driveway. So I park right in front, on the circular drive. It’s just barely starting to snow. I ring the bell, but at first it seemed like no one is home…”

“So you left? Tell me you left right then!” interjected Peter.

“Shush, Peter!” said Marilyn. “He’s telling his story.”

“I think…” started Peter.

“Shush!”

“So, anyway, finally Tania comes to the door. She’s wearing a long gown of some sort, like a house dress. It covers her from her neck all the way down to her feet, with long arms. Maybe it was pajamas, I don’t know. It’s not what I expected. She invites me in.”

Peter closed his eyes in disbelief. “You went in,” he said quietly. Marilyn pushed Peter’s shoulder hard, knocking him over.

“Yes, I went in. The house is full of the smell of Mexican food. I was hungry, you know. Come to think of it, I’m still hungry. You’ll see why.”

That’s just an excerpt, but you get the idea. The bottom line is you have options. Mix them around to best effect.

So what’s my problem? The writer, clearly in awe of Tyndale, seems unable to leave out adjectives. Here’s the first sentence:

In God’s panoramic vision of the history of the earth, some significant events have been singled out for seers’ eyes to preview and prophetic pens to record.

Uh, I thought I was reading a history book. And it goes on. Here’s another:

The world proved much more vast than the sea-weary mariners fathomed. Their advancing footsteps, quickly washed smooth by the rising tides, foreshadowed the conquest and civilizing of two continents. The host land for the rolling back of the Apostacy’s centuries-old dark curtain loomed out of the ocean waves, a new haven for the old world’s captive spirits.

Oh my goodness! Just how flowery (or florid) can language get? And the hidden pun (mariners fathomed)—I wonder if the writer caught it himself. There’s a word to describe such language: cloying.

Now I admit the author finally gets to some meat. And I’m glad I stuck with it because I’m learning things I didn’t know. But I tell you, it was like wading through a swamp to get there.

So how might I have started? How about with Tyndale himself?

William Tyndale was an unlikely man to throw the establishment of his time into turmoil.

Ok, so I gave into an adjective: “unlikely.” But the fact is he was an odd man. A recent article in the Economist describes him as possibly a bit autistic. His social behavior was certainly not such as to win friends in high places. This behavior is described in the book, but not explained or interpreted.

What’s all this got to do with novel writing? Simple: Keep it simple. Direct. Not like this:

My languid eyes floated over the dreamy, carefree horizon, taking in the the regular, white-capped waves that whispered to me from unknown wild windstorms across the hazy, indistinct seas. Surely, I carefully thought after extensive and thorough reflection, perhaps my ultimate fate lay far beyond the sun-drenched sandy beaches, crashing across my nimble mind like wood nymphs on speed.

Well, actually I like the “wood nymphs on speed.” Nice imagery. I use it in Book 3 of the Flying Broomstick series. But you get the idea. Perhaps something more like this?

Momentarily unsettled, I looked down at the sea, about 300 yards to the east. Waves crashed on the rocks, but only whispers reached me. I wondered what lay beyond the surf. Tomorrow I’d know; my ship was to set sail at 10:00 a.m. I pulled myself back to the present and resumed packing.

So what’s the difference? The complete absence of adjectives and only one adverb. The words convey the same message. The scene is set through verb use: crashed, wondered, know, sail.

What’s my point? Review your draft and cross off all the adjectives and adverbs. Try to avoid adjectives entirely; you may have to reinsert a judicious adverb here and there. Let the scene be flowery if you must, but create it in the reader’s mind through simile and metaphor. Or a sound. A smell. Keep the words straightforward.

William Tyndale is interesting enough without embellishment. Let history speak for itself. Help me understand the setting. Show me the people Tyndale knew. Don’t tell me why events are significant; weave them together toward a conclusion.

Alas. There must be other Tyndale biographies. Perhaps I’ll find one that treats the man even-handedly.