But that really happened!

When my novel City of Demons came out, there was a scene in particular that pulled people out of the story because it was just too unbelievable.  The scene in question was one in which one of the lead characters discussed learning martial arts from a legit grandmaster who happened to teach at the college she attended. Magic murder, they can deal with.  But learning a devastating fighting style in a college?  Too much. Yes, in a book where a killer can crush a person without touching him and a cop can feel the last few seconds of a dead person's life by touching his corpse, the moment that was too big of a stretch was one that actually happened to me.

See, when I went to college, I signed up for a karate course. I thought "it's a college karate course...how hard could it be?" Then I met this guy.

...

That's Dann Baker, legit Grandmaster in Kajukenbo. And one of the best martial arts instructors on the planet.

We've all been there.  Writers are told every day to use real life experiences as fodder for their stories.   Write what you know, and know what you write! And yet, there are certain experiences that, if we use them, we're told they're too unbelievable. Your story may contain magic, demons, monsters, and superheroes, but coincidental things that really happened to you are considered too unbelievable to go in a book of fiction. It's enough to drive you mad.

Don't call me crazy...

It's happened in other situations too.  Students of mine have replied with passionate anger when I tell them that a scene in their thesis is unbelievable. "But it really happened that way!" they scream. "You just don't know what you're talking about!" Fair enough. You're right, I've not had that particular experience that seems to defy logic or physics. The coincidental continuum seems to have collapsed on a convergence conveniently. And it's still unbelievable. "But here's proof!" they shout. They wave photos, articles, protestations and proclamations all day long. And, in the end, I concede, yes, it happened the way you said it did. 

But here's the problem:  If I thought it was unbelievable, it's likely that everyone else who reads it will find it equally hard to believe. And what are you going to do? Run around and wave proof at everyone who has purchased your book?  Accompany your manuscript to the acquisition editor and prove your story to him? Take out a full 60-second ad during Superbowl halftime to explain that this scene in your book really happened that way and that's how you know it could happen? No... Probably not. What's more likely to happen is this:  You send your manuscript out, your agent or editor reads the scene, snorts derisively, and tosses your legit memory into the trashcan. Why? Because it came off as too unbelievable. 

Pictured:  You.

The following are a list of unbelievable things that I've actually done or have witnessed:

• Honked a live squirrel's tail.
• Tailed a 9' Texas Black rat snake
• Skidded on a wet road and done two complete 180-degree turns, banging my car on the rail both times, and gotten away with no discernible damage
• A person backflipped off a second-story balcony to impress a girl - Survived
• A person survived having a full-sized telephone pole hit him in the head
• Had an 800lb roll of plastic fall on me. Didn't die
• Shot a near perfect round my first time shooting a pistol
• Studied with a real grandmaster that I met at college
• Rescued a 1-week old deer and let it sleep overnight in my bathroom
• Rescued an equally young possum

"How dare you, sir?!?"

I have proof of every one of those items, yet I know that if I put them in a novel, someone would cry bullshit on it because, while people can suspend disbelief in the fantastic, their belief in the mundane needs to stay constant. In turning the world inside out and molding it to our peculiar vision, we need to make sure that we give the reader a foothold. A talking squirrel, sure. Sneaking up behind a normal squirrel and honking his tail?  Bullshit. 

The point I'm trying to make here is simple:  If it comes across as too much of a coincidence to one reader, it might do so to the rest of them. I'm not saying you can't include unbelievable life stories in your fiction.  What I'm saying is to be careful. "But it really happened" isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card. It's a tantrum. It's a child's argument. You will never get the chance to explain that it really happened or how to an agent, editor, or to your audience. Once you've lost their interest, you've lost them. So make the best of it. 

Until next time, write on!

SAJ

The Haunting of Hill House

This term, I'm teaching an online reading course for Seton Hill University's Masters in Writing Popular Fiction program.  I teach one every semester, but this term, the emphasis is "The Haunted."  So that means, of course, a subject near and dear to my black little heart:  Ghost Stories.

As part of the course, I get to choose books and movies that I feel best exemplify the genre in question.  The first book on the list?  Shirley Jackson's classic, The Haunting of Hill House. While some of my students don't particularly care for the book, there was a reason I chose it, and I'm going to use this blog to explain why.

Reason number one:  While those who read this book in modern times may find it cliche, or even boring at times (guilty), one thing that folks have to remember is that this book was first published in 1959.  Think on that for a moment.  That's more than fifty years ago.  Think about other things that just plain didn't exist in 1959.  I didn't.  My brother wasn't born until ten years later. Man had not yet reached the moon.  Women had the right to vote, but were still largely considered second-class citizens.  And, with a few notable exceptions, the haunted house book was largely unheard of.  If this book comes across as cliche, it's because it is the reason for the cliches.  You read that right.  So many writers that came after Jackson aped her style and plot points.  Why?  Because they were, for the time period, terrifying.  Sure, the work is dated.  Read any of the dialogue and, chances are, it comes across as forced or, at the very least, really old fashioned.  Well... Yeah.  But that's because it is old fashioned.  But keep in mind, it's not the cliche.  The tropes were born in The Haunting of Hill House, which makes it the original.

The second reason (which is actually closely related to the first one) is Jackson's treatment of her characters.  Okay, again, it was 1959.  It was quite bold of Jackson to put a character who was (arguably) gay (Theo) in such a prominent role. Also, look at the character of Elenor.  She's so very damaged, isn't she?  Even without the house doing its best to scare the holy bejeebers out of her, she's got issues.  She has so many deep-seeded psychological issues, it's little wonder the house preyed upon her as the weak link.  Again, things that weren't often done during the time period. I'm not saying her handling of the characters was terribly masterful (look at Mrs. Dudley), but having female protagonists, having protagonists that are damaged, having people with real problems... That was ahead of its time. 

Reason number three is that this story is a very good example of using a setting as a character in the story.  They way she describes the house, without a single straight line or plumb wall, gives the place its own foreboding nature.  The house itself makes the characters (and readers) uncomfortable just by existing.  No matter what happens between the walls, it's all the more horrific because those walls are inside Hill House.  The whole place has its own atmosphere.  It breathes, watches, reacts...  It could be argued that the house, not the ghosts, is the main antagonist of the story.  Granted, we'll be looking at another (and, in my opinion, better) example (Hell House by Richard Matheson), but this was a good primer that predated the next great portrayal by a dozen years.

The fourth reason is really very simple:  It's history. I'm a huge proponent of going back and rediscovering the roots of the genre.  Lovecraft.  Poe.  Blackwood.  Dickens.  Shakespeare.  Believe it or not, there is a great deal to learn from the old masters.  Gaston Leroux, Victor Hugo, Mary Shelly, Bram Stoker.  They all were very much before my time (and yours), and yet there is a wealth of knowledge to be gained from studying their works, especially if you want to be a writer.  

So, yes, Shirley Jackson's little haunted house story is a little dated, a little old, and maybe doesn't relate well to the modern age.  But I feel like it still works.  I'm of the opinion that it was one of the first truly great ghost stories.

Common Mistakes: The Ten Deadly Sins

Just because I'm a writer and have been published doesn't mean I don't make mistakes.  I do.  I make 'em all the time.  In fact, some of the worst mistakes I make in writing, I don't even see until someone smugly points them out to me.  Usually, that person is one of my current or former students, and more often than not they are pointing out a mistake for which I've beaten them about the head and shoulders.  So I'm not perfect.  In fact, if it weren't for beta readers and editors, a great many writers would never make it to print.  What I want to do, however, is point out a few of the most common mistakes with the hope that you will learn to avoid them.


See, I'm not saying "be like me" or "do as I say, not as I do."  What I'm saying is, I want you to be better than me.

Had - Had is bad.  I've typed that phrase over a thousand times.  Several professors questioned me on it.  But I stand by it. "Had," when used in anything other than the indication of former possession (he had a ball, but now he doesn't) or distant past is just plain wrong. Here's the thing... If you're talking about something that happened just moments ago, "had" doesn't work.  It's not the word you want.  "He had come into the room" vs. "He came into the room."  See the difference?  The first one was an example of something he did repeatedly over a long period of time.  The second one, he walked in just a moment ago.

Excessive Adverbs - We've all been told that adverbs are just a way of defining a verb.  He ran quickly or whispered softly or screamed loudly.  the problem with adverbs is that they're largely superfluous, and they are perhaps the most overused part of speech since the "had."  To wit:  How does someone run?  Quickly.  Do you know anyone who runs slowly?  Okay, yes, some people do, but the expectation in the written form is that, if a character runs, he's doing it quickly, thereby making the word "quickly" superfluous and redundant.  Of course there are exceptions, but they apply when something happens that is out of the norm.  For example, "He ran slowly.   In this case, slowly is not the expectation, so it's necessary.  You also run the risk of what we used to call "Tom Swifties," which is an adverb that so mimics the meaning of the verb it modifies as to render it superfluous, but comedically so. For example, she sang musically.  Well... Yeah.  Singing is, technically (in most cases) musical. If it's not, there's something wrong with your character's singing voice. "I don't know where we are," said Tom lostly.

Right or Left - Who cares?  Does it really matter whether a character's right or left hand is the one that got slapped?  Do we say that when we speak?  Do we say "I hurt my right hand?"  No, we don't.  Right or left, it doesn't matter.  What matters?  Hand.  I hurt my hand.  I got hit in the temple.  I put the keys in my hand.  He stepped on my foot.  See?  Right or left, who cares.  It's a superfluous piece of information that really does nothing more than muddy up your writing.  Unless there's a specific purpose for the mentioning of right or left, leave it out.

You - When you write, typically, you're writing in 3rd or 1st person.  And as such, the reader (or the audience) is stuck behind what we call "the fourth wall."  This is the invisible wall that is removed so we can get a glimpse into the lives of characters that sit in that three-camera set-up of sitcoms.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, go watch an episode of The Big Bang Theory.  See how we only see the apartment from one side?  Ever wonder what's on that 4th wall?  The audience, that's what.  So when you, the writer, use the word "you" (as I'm doing here frequently), it should only be done when directly addressing the reader.  In theater, this is called an "aside."  In literature, this is known as "annoying" and "distracting."

Starting - More often than not, I come across statements that say "he started to run..." or something of the like.  Perform an experiment with me.  Start to run. No really.  What you'll see is that there is actually a moment between not running and running, but "starting" to run is nothing but intention.  There's no movement there.  So if someone "started" to run, I'm left to wonder what stopped him.

Distancing and Filters - Look, I get it.  We all want the reader to know what our characters saw, felt, heard, etc.  It's called description.  But we also want the reader to become thoroughly absorbed in the story, right?  So writers tend to use filters.  "He saw," "She heard," "they knew..."  They're all sensory of one sort or another.  But here's the thing:  Every time you use one of these, you're reminding the reader that "hey... You're reading a story, and being told the story second hand."  There is a way to draw the reader in further, to deepen the POV:  Remove the filters.  Consider the difference:  "He heard birds sing" vs "birds sang."  In the first instance, we are told what he heard.  But in the second, we are there with him.  We hear it when he does.  We know what's going on.

Weak Words - I see words like "this," "these," and "those" all the time.  And guess what.  They're a cop-out.  Words like "this," "these," and "those" are lazy.  They're weak.  And worse, they make your prose read like stereo instructions. The three words listed have their proper places, but their place is not in your narration.  Ever.

Its vs It's - It's really quite simple.  "IT'S" is a contraction.  It means "it is."  "Its" is used in all other cases.  Period.  There's no debate here, no questions, no exceptions.  It's simply how it is.

Your vs You're - Again, easy.  "Your" means possession.  Something that belongs to you.  Your ball, your bat, your nervous breakdown.  "You're" is a contraction which means "you are."

There, They're, and Their - I see this one butchered all the time, and, frankly, it pisses me off.  Someone wasn't paying attention in junior high school.  So for those who still haven't grasped it, "there" is spacial.  "Here or there," "go over there," "what's that over there."  "Their" means "belonging to them."  "Their car."  "Their rugby team."  "Their funeral costs."  "They're" is a contraction which means "they are."  "They're going to murder me when they find out what I've done with their schnauzer, which a buried over there."

So there you have it.  Ten of the most common mistakes I come across in creative writing classes.  There are more.  Sooooo many more.  But these are the most common, outside of basic grammar and punctuation (which are for a whole 'nother blog).  Hope this helps someone.

Chairs

While mentoring young writers, I often come across similar issues.  One of my favorites is when the writer in question has a brilliant imagination, but clearly hasn't thought things through enough.  I teach a module called "Evolution of the Species" in which we discuss this type of issue, but here' i'd like to focus on a small problem that turned huge pretty quick as an illustration. 

For the purposes of this exercise, let's assume you're a writer.  

Your genre is fantasy (or "high fantasy").  You've created a race of people who have wings.  You have a gift of description that leaves your readers breathless with the beautiful images of purple feathers and soft collars of down.  In fact, this race is so ancient that you have no real reason to create a complete backstory for them because they "have always been."

Submitted without comment...

Then one sits in a chair. 

Now, for a moment, lets ignore all the other issues this world has, such as your winged people living in houses.  Let's just focus on that one detail for a moment. 

In your home, you have chairs.  No, really.  Don't believe me?  Go look.  I'll wait.  See?  Told you.  Now, in your description of these chairs, you go on and on about highly decorated ornate backs of wood and employ your gift of descriptive imagery to its full extent.  The chairs in your world are beautiful and realistic to all the readers.  

Pictured:  Your character's chair.

They're also wrong.  Here's why. 

Follow my thought process here.  Intelligent species first begin designing object to use out of utilitarian need.  We design things that fit our bodies, and if it doesn't, then why on any world would we create them?  Do you see the problem yet?  Okay... Here it is:  If your character, which you describe as the size of a roughly good sized human, has wings large enough to bear him aloft in accordance with the laws of physics, he could not physically sit in a chair because he would break his wings.

"Dammit!  This is why we can't have nice things!"

The same thing applies to every aspect of this new world in which the dominant species has a twelve-foot wing span.  So now it becomes your job as a writer to build your world backward, so you can see what would've been built how, and why.  A species with a twelve-foot wing span would not, for example ever build anything that would necessitate the crushing of one's own wings.  In fact, if you take into account physical limitations, this particular species would, likely, have invented the bar stool long before it ever invented something as obviously meant for torture as a "chair."

See?  No backs, no wing crushings.

Now apply this to other areas.  For example, a "bedroom."  What's the first thing you like to do when you wake up in the morning?  Stretch, right?  Now take a good look at your bedroom.  Hard walls, low ceilings, etc.  If you had a twelve-foot wingspan, would you ever be caught inside something like that?  Chances are, no.  Chances are, it would be torturous for you.  Small windows, roads, vehicles... None of it would even exist in a world where the dominant species had wings.  Hell, roads might not even exist. 

The point is this:  You need to think it through.  Build your world from the bottom up with the dominant species in mind.  There's a brilliant joke that the late great Douglas Adams wrote in The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy which involves a multi-limbed creature that was unique in the universe in that it invented underarm deodorant before it discovered the wheel.  Necessity.  It's why we create things.  Your species would do the same. 

When you build a world, start with your species.  Then ask yourself a series of questions:

• What are its needs?
• What are its limitations?
• How are they like me?
• How are they dissimilar?

Make good choices for your characters and make your world more believable.  I don't mean make your readers think the world is real, but at least make them wonder at the possibility.  Otherwise, you have creatures who are doing incredibly uncomfortable things for their anatomy.  Like sitting in chairs. 

Things I'm Tired of Seeing

I recently returned from Seton Hill University (where I teach in their MFA Writing Popular Fiction program...  Go look it up), and the powers that be handed down a topic of conversation.

What are you tired of seeing in your genre?

It's actually a very complex question that deserves a great deal of examination.  No matter your genre, there are tropes, cliches, overused situations and rip-offs that drive writers and readers up a wall.  If you are writing, it is your responsibility to try to constantly improve, to elevate the genre, if you will.  So, taking a cue from Rob Hart in his blog-post, I thought I might share ten things that make me kitten-punching angry when I read them for the millionth time.

10.  Weak Female Characters - Women that "need" a man, women that are incapable of making decisions on their own, and women that exist for no other reason than to be a damsel in distress, lead me to ask one question of the writers who create them:  Where the hell do you people live?  I'm in Texas, and women here don't act like that!  Point me to the city of simpering gyno-Americans and let me open up a Kajukenbo school there!  Please!  Look, when you create a character, you want that character to be real, right?  You want people to resonate with them?  You want them to be loved?  Maybe?  The women I've always found attractive, or even mildly interesting, have never been the "oops-I-fell-down-please-help-me" type.  They've been the "oh-no-he-DIDN'T" type that has opinions,  strength, and enough intelligence to accomplish her goals.

9.  Sex for the Sake of Sex - Look, I'm not a prude.  Really.  But if your manuscript reads like the plot to every bad porno that's out there, you're doing something wrong.  Sure, it's fine to have your characters bonk like rabid weasels.  But in your book, there has to be a reason for it.  It should advance the plot.  It should define the character.  It should not be "Well, I haven't put a graphic description of someone's wang in for about fifty pages..."  Even in erotica, the sex should do something to advance the story or character.

8.  Magic Without Consequence - Magic, by definition, is the manipulation of energy to influence an outcome.  That's the truncated version, and I don't feel like typing the whole thing when I'm ranting, so go with me.  That energy has to come from somewhere, right?  I mean, Einstein said so, right?  So that means it has to come from either an outside source or the user's body.  If it's from the body, that energy has to be generated by the consumption of food, otherwise the body will wither and die, so that character is going to be hungry all the time.  If it's outside, where's it coming from?  The plants?  Okay, they'll wither and die.  Gods?  Better believe they'll want something in return.  And if you're directing the energy through the character's body, how much energy can that body handle without going into "HOLY-SHIT-I'M-ON-FIRE!!!" mode?  Think these things through, people.  Please.

7.  "The Chosen One" - If I had a nickel for every story I've read (both published and not-yet published) where some kid is revealed to be the SAVIOR OF THE WORLD! (cue music) who has been hidden in plain sight for fifteen or so years, I'd have a rather large sack of nickels.  Please, people, I know it's a time-honored storyline, but it's been beaten bloody lately.  Let is rest for, let's say, ten years?  Fifteen?  That might be nice.

6.  Monsters who Aren't Monsters Anymore - Quick as you can, think of the last time you've been really scared by a zombie?  Or a vampire?  Or a werewolf?  Sorry, but we (I'm in America, BTW) just can't seem to have monsters that are, you know actual monsters anymore.  We have to make them fluffy.  We have to make them brooding and sympathetic.  We have to take away what made them scary in the first place and make them emo-kids or whining little snots that deserve our contempt and not the legions of lovesick sparkle-pants that flock to see their movies.  How 'bout this:  What about a monster that is (gasp) evil?  That is scary?  Would that be so bad?

5.  Chisel-Chest - You know damned well who I'm talking about.  The perfect hero.  The guy.  Former special ops, long flowing hair, damaged with a good heart, strong jaw and a body made of rock-hard granite just waiting for a squishy female (see number 10) to come and drill through to his ooey-gooey center of love and creamy nugat.  BLECH.  How about a real person?  Real people are overweight, out of shape, have bad hair and skin, and are constantly being told they're not good enough by mainstream media.  Why contribute to that problem?

4.  Poor Research - Guys and Gals, if you rely on what you see in movies and/television to tell you how things work, news flash:  You're wrong.  Your writing will show it, and people will point and laugh.  Your book will become the butt of every literary joke in the world.  For example, in an enclosed apartment, a man fires a gun three times, then whispers to his partner "you go around back..."  Guess what?  If he whispers, his partner will never hear him because guns are really freaking loud.  Espeically in an enclosed space.  Wanna know about a particular religion so you don't sound like a bigoted schmuck (or ignorant)?  Read a book.  Do some research.  Talk to people who know the subject.

3.  Ultra-Boob - Related to Chisel-Chest, Ultra-Boob is the female version.  Spunky, gorgeous, vivacious, always described as under 5'5," under 110 lbs, and able to beat the snot out of a mountain troll with nothing but high-heels and attitude.  Really?  Your (insert angry stereotype minority heritage that writers are constantly trying to prove how cool they are by perpetuating it) blood makes you more than a match for something twice your height and six times your weight?  Yeah, right.  Sorry, but it reminds me of one of those annoying yip-dogs that people all hate, but no one kicks because it wouldn't be worth the effort.  Yes, we all know she's a joke, and that one good backhand by an ogre would send her crumpling (possibly with internal hemmoraging and/or a mild case of death), but no one does it because... well, why?  What would be the point?  Writers, this person is annoying in real life and doesn't come across as a "strong female character."  She comes across as a bitch.

2.  M-Night-Shayammalammadingdong Endings - The twist.  Lead the reader through the whole book, and then, in the last ten pages, (gasp) he was the bad guy all along!  Or (gasp) it was all a dream! Or (gasp) insert-your-annoying-plot-twist-of-choice!  It's lazy.  It's lying to the reader.  It betrays the reader's trust and you need to form that trust relationship with the reader so he or she will continue on your journey of insanity.

1.  Vampires (and, to a lesser extent, Zombies) - Seriously.  Stop it.

Bonus:  The Mash-Up - We've all played the drunken game of "What book would be made better with zombies/vampires/leprechauns/smurfs," and for a while it was amusing.  Now it's old and played out and, really, did we need a version of "Moby Dick" in which the whale was white because it was an undead zombie whale?

So that's my list.  Feel free to share yours in the comments.

Thanks for reading.