Being a Writer--Is It Worth It? Inkblots

"[Writing] holds all the hope there is." EB White

Stormy Pacific Northwest day, heavy rain, dark and gray, power outages in region, brown-outs here--a good day to hunker down, drink tea, and write. Six Blots braving the dark and bluster for two hours of vigorous literary time together. It was well worth it.

Hear what the collaborator/refiner of Elements of Style wrote about being a writer: "I’m glad to report that even now, at this late day, a blank sheet of paper holds the greatest excitement there is for me—more promising than a silver cloud, prettier than a little red wagon. It holds all the hope there is, all fears. I can remember, really quite distinctly, looking a sheet of paper square in the eyes when I was seven or eight years old and thinking, ‘This is where I belong, this is it.'" E. B. White

Does your writing journey concur with White's? This is not my testimony. My first book was published when I was forty. Sydney concurred with E. B. White. None of us were surprised at that bit of intelligence. But what about his words, writing "holds all the hope there is"? If not hyperbole, it is very sad, indeed, when my hope is in any work I do with my own hands, mind, imagination. I do agree about the fear part, though. If you write, you will fail, and there will be a lineup of critics to inform you and the rest of the world about your failure, real or perceived. Is it worth it?

Rachel Ng leads off with her 1941 yarn, just as the US entered WWII. She feels like she's made major progress. How? By consistency. Getting up and going to work, writing work. Daisy Bishop... saucy, pendulum rhythm. I like it. I agree, your dialogue is lively, realistic. And you are still giving it layers with description of people and inner worries. I wonder how much is gained by nearly identical uniforms; just identical uniforms, but even that is redundant, uniforms being already identical wear. What are you actually wanting to feature in this description? I feel like the closer connection with Walter the lieutenant and Daisy your female protagonist happened too suddenly. Maybe I missed something. Is quality control too modern a phrase for the historical period? We discussed for some time the age of Daisy for 1941. Seventeen would not have been too young for marriage. I suggested that Rachel make her 15. Rachel H suggested 16 to avoid the modern creep factor, which would not have been there in those days. My mother in law was married when she was 16, 60 years ago.

Sydney up next. Picked up after Fynn was dragged out of the prison. Far better fate than God, or god is it? I want you to come back to this in other places and have this be a doctrine that gets revised as the story unfolds. Almost, pain in the word almost. I think the first person is working so well for Sydney in this sobering tale. I want to suggest that you break up lengthier passages of dialogue with more natural interjections, as in human conversation, where people interject, if not interrupt. The best dialogue is like a relay race, the baton passing smoothly, logically, fluidly from one speaker to the other. Dialogue is the place for sentence fragments, and filling in the blank from one speaker to the next. I love Sydney's as ifs. Especially with the descriptions of the crosses in the cemetery. And the door opened. Intrigue in every dependent clause. Rhythm and cadence in the prose, Rachel H commented, poetic feeling prose. Cheyenne liked the transition from the last chapter, grim array of crosses and death, to this chapter. Sydney was able to outline forward, plot the future of the story. 

Cheyenne wrote this yesterday and feels like this passage needs help. Brave soul. Chapter 13 of book 2. She revised this based on input that it leapt too much, not enough character development and setting development. Historical fantasy, medieval Japan-esque. Other worlder, more goes on than you know. Quiet stillness of the air. Is this a redundancy? What feature of the atmosphere are you wanting to share with your reader here? Cheyenne has her protagonist ask internal questions, inner conflict. This only works in first person point of view, one of the strengths of this pov. Faces, faces. I feel like this might be too internal. John liked the part about the dreams. Sydney had read this before the dream was included. Alisa thought the pace was good, but she had a couple of ideas. Oblivion, could she actually answer some of her questions. Should she remember more of the cause of the dream? Cheyenne wrote about her protagonist's remembering of the dream, and Sydney thought that she should have more vivid recollections of the specific details. The questions she is asking will be answered as the plot unfolds. Rachel H suggested that there be eyes or a ring or something that symbolizes the dream or the conflict of the dream. 

Alisa finishes us up for this evening, reading from The Emblem, forthcoming in 2019. Nobody I know is as thorough and persistent as Alisa. she has the drive and work ethic of a master storyteller. It shows in her work. Chapter 3, Callie ran all the way home, working for the Burke family. Could she remember her father's injury more graphically, or more immediately, as in how he walks now, or how he winces with the weather changes? Something that makes her sadness about her father's injury have a more tangible feel for the reader. I thought you handled Sam's answer so well. And her longing for her father to have more of Sam's attitude about his injury and work in the mines as the years pass and aging makes the hard labor harder. Mt Pisgah Presbyterian, is this a real church in Roslyn? FDR's fireside chats--could you have a brief excerpt he was hearing, crackling from the radio on the sideboard, maybe? This is powerful, seeing a man declining in health and age, the verve dwindling. Five perspectives. Press on. Looking forward to reading the whole book.

There are going to be a number of remarkable writers, there are already, coming from this fine group of people sitting around the Scriptorium this evening. 

This just received from a post-publication reviewer of my newest release: "The Resistance is quite a work. I read it in one sitting--all the way through. You have an extraordinary ability to capture the nature of minds at war. All the ambiguities. All the inhumanities. All the stress of war and flying in it, and the camaraderie of those aircrews. The sense of responsibility in Evans is brilliant throughout." Marvin Padgett, Executive Director of Great Commissions Publications 

My host, Richard L. Pike on my speaking time in Western Australia in September, turns out to be a remarkable C. S. Lewis look alike and sound alike. Here's one of the clips I did of him reading a segment heard by the French Resistance in The Resistance: 

Special 2-book bundle of my War in the Wasteland and newest release, The Resistance at bondbooks.net. CS Lewis plays a significant role in both books, though more subtle in The Resistance. He is antagonist in the WWI yarn and "the voice of faith" on the BBC broadcasts heard by the French Resistance in my newest. 

Anatomy of Fiction: Overturn the status quo (Inkblots)

Create round characters with real problems,
like readers have

Seven of us for Inkblots this fine warm summer evening in the Scriptorium, cattle lowing in the background.

I led off reading from Augustine about how our love of our own opinions bars us from accurately interpreting a text: "For if he takes up rashly a meaning which the author who he is reading did not intend, he often falls in with other statements which he cannot harmonize with this meaning. And if he admits that these statements are true and certain, then it follows that the meaning he had put upon the former passage cannot be the true one; and so it comes to pass, one can hardly tell how, that, out of love for his own opinion, he begins to feel more angry with Scripture than he is with himself. And if he should once permit that evil to creep in, it will utterly destroy him.” – Ch. 37, Book 1 

Bob leads off reading from his second adventure of Sinbad and Silassie, the first volume, in print, The Crescent and the Cross (a very good book, I might add, having had the privilege of reading it at verious stages of its creation). This yarn will feature a Christian critique of Hinduism, whereas the first volume exposed the fallacies of Islam. This is a sailing yarn, a journey story genre book, delightful, with an obvious Christian perspective, no apologies. Bob writes in first person, almost journal like in its tone, to my ear. Bob has obviously done a great deal of research on Middle Eastern religions and culture and history, though the tales are what I would call historical fantasy, Jules Vern step aside. The opening scene begins in the midst of what appears to be martyrdom, then flashback for much of the story. Rachel commented on Bob's evocative description of the sea and ships. I agree it was solid and appealed to multiple senses. Cheyenne chimed in on Bob's reading: loved description of the sea and boat, felt like I was right there; there were parts that seemed a bit choppy, maybe hard to follow for a younger reader, but loved ending of chapter. This is the opening chapter of a new book. Bob uses semicolons as opposed to comma conjunction structure. Cheyenne felt like it was jumpy.

I read my furthest in chapter (at Bob's suggestion for me to read my least refined chapter) and received some very helpful critique and suggestions from 'Blots. I particularly appreciate Alisa and John reading the whole thing (as far as I've gotten) and offering valuable perspective before this evening. I'm looking forward to absorbing the critique and recasting and rewriting tomorrow morning. Thank you! I wrote a while back that I was having significant trouble with this manuscript. I was. But I took my own advice and kept reading, writing, rewriting, rewriting (did I mention rewriting?).

Alisa tells us about The Emblem, an interracial love story set in the 1930s. She was invited to Roslyn's interracial picnic, but doesn't want to crash someone else's party. But they invited her so we all seemed to agree she should go, and eat! She is struggling with sorting out the historical accuracy of the sources. There are inconsistencies in the history. Should she go to the picnic? This is research with integrity, made all the better by the fact that Alisa isn't finally doing it just for research to make a good book. "It's not about me anyway; its about telling a good story." And writing a good story means getting it right, getting it the best that she can. Alisa feels that she is torn by having drafted the book eight years ago, first draft, and then the heightened racial tensions of the moment. Write for what is timeless and enduring, not shaped by the priorities of the moment. That's not a call to be careless about racial issues, by no means. But to have a perspective that rises above transient verbiage and ideas, popular spin and opinion filtering and dictating how we are to think (unless we want to have hateful vitriol hurled at us for not being in lockstep with the current narrative). Write what is timeless, characters that rise above it all. Oppressed, downtrodden, abused, but who find grace and true strength, and who are able to look for ways to love their neighbors through the pain and deprivation.

Cheynne has pulled up a manuscript from her trip to Japan a few years ago and is reworking things. She is getting help from an editor. First chapter. Dystopian fantasy fiction base loosely on things she experienced in Japan. The forest stretched... around me. We have a character to care about in the opening line. Amanda is the main character? Juliette, is she the main character? Roots sprawling into the air instead of into the ground, not dying, but thriving roots. Very good description of falling. Can you give us sounds, feels, smells, more senses involved as she was falling? Back to the roots like Medusa's hair. I, so your are writing in first person, but who is the first person perspecive? Amanda, or Julliette? I could have missed this, but I am not clear from whose perspective I'm experiencing the irreality. Maybe I missed it. I realize it is dystopian so there is the dream-like, hazy, ethearial atmosphere, but I think you will need to give your reader a normal, a status quo, a hard reality from which the dystopian irreality can be compared. You do a good job of visual description. Can you beef up other senses, smells, sounds, tastes, from the old west town you describe otherwise so well. Can you give us a clearer problem for the main character? What does she want but can't have? What is she afraid of most? Where is she going?

John suggested more dialogue and Alisa agreed. The first chapter is where you need to set the hook, says John, questions to be asked, make it more intriguing. I would strongly suggest that there be a status quo, a beginning epsposition of the normal, then an enciting moment, that launches forward the rising action, the protagonist trying to solve the problem. I'm not hearing at this reading, granted it is a fairly brief reading, a rooted normal that gets changed by some force acting against the protagonist, who then has to try and solve the problem, hence the plot to follow.

Great time this evening, iron sharpening iron. I was benefited by hearing the readings and the critiques of fellow 'Blots. I've got work to do and will get at it in the morning. I will post after this post tomorrow, a sample chapter from La Resistance. Promise!

Life and Writing: Tragedy, Tumult, and Triumph--INKBLOTS

March 13, 2018 INKBLOTS (two for one)

My next fiction book? WW II French Resistance?

I told about my birthday lunch with my venerable mother (March 13, her 81st birthday), and then about listening to her read aloud vignettes she has been writing from her life: dysfunctional family, bi-polar mother, adultery, illegal abortions for her mother (there's no need for adjective before abortion; they're all illegal in God's sight), she and her siblings separated and placed in various foster homes, older brother chronic trouble with the law (ends up at Ft Leavenworth, then years later dying at mental hospital years later, alone, except for my mother's regular visits), one foster home for my mother, a believing Lutheran family, in the providence and mercy of God, where my mother regularly attended church for the first time, heard the gospel, compensated for the domestic disaster that was her family by excelling in academics, orchestra, student government (she was the first female student body president of RA Long High School, Longview WA), and graduation day was awarded outstanding senior by the faculty (and by student body awarded most likely to succeed, and class clown--she does have a great sense of humor). How to format these vignettes of her amazing life? 

John leads off with a rereading of last chapter of Saving Grace, just edited and proof read by, you guessed it, my venerable mother, and literary wise woman. John has gotten push back from Inkblots before for this being to0 pat, everything works out just hunky in the end. Suicide theme. Did you really try to kill yourself--can you show her incredulity rather than state it like this. Grace's tantrum seems stiff, forced. Nora's comforting feels formulaic, too superficial. And Grace comes around awfully quickly, considering she was about to kill herself a few minutes before. I know, I'm just feeling sorry for myself. And then Grace suddenly gives God glory, seemingly out of the blue, considering the suicide context. I think the reader will be most moved, changed, by seeing the soft, fleshy cheeks of a newborn baby, a teem mother cuddling her real human being, created in the image of God, precious life. Observe a mother with a newborn (Monica in France) and write down all sensory material you observe. This is where this book needs to end. Not everything will be easy, make clear, but everything is now right, new life and new light. Overwhelm readers with the wonder of birth, new life, regardless of and without diminishing the sin and crisis that conceived it. End with cooing baby spitting up, a metaphor for the delights and challenges of life in a broken world.

Patrick thinks that the mom comes around too quickly. Alisa thought there was a huge change from suicidal thoughts and words to settled calm.

So my marriage non-fiction book--what to do with it? Marriages Through the Ages: Delightful, Disappointing, and Dreadful Ones (working title). I received some good counsel from Greg Bailey (editor at Crossway and good friend; and Marvin Ink-in-the-veins Padgett over breakfast last week in Atlanta. Both were cautious about the book, great idea, but difficult to package and sell on large scale (I'm not Keller or Tripp, big names in marriage books along with others). Patrick thinks I should imbed it in story form, a pastor counselling parishioners, meanwhile, the pastor has his own struggles. He gives advice to others but is missing the big issues looming in his own home. Could use dramatic irony, the reader seeing what the pastor is blind to. Made me recollect The Confession by Grisham, featuring a Lutheran pastor caught in the middle of the courtroom thriller; I was handed the book on a plane by a woman whose husband bought it at the airport but she had already read it. Is this where I should invest my writing energies right now? I'm just not so sure. Maybe package as blog devotional material. 

Or there's my WW II French resistance yarn idea, with CS Lewis, the voice of faith, breaking through on the BBC from time to time throughout. This would pair well with War in the Wasteland. I'm enthusiastic about this idea. Then again, I have my long standing Bunyan era historical novel idea still very much on the agenda, but is this the right time? It would follow The Betrayal, The Thunder, The Revolt, and Luther in Love in my adult historical novel category. And I've toyed with the idea of writing another Hand of Vengeance like whodunit, but this one set in 1066 era Norman Conquest France and England. For the time being, I have tabled my American Civil War era novel idea, under counsel from respected publishing peoples; far too much flapdoodle in media and general society to invest energy there, for now; it always had carried with it the potential to alienate blocks of readers arrayed against one another already in the entrenched encampments. Someday.

Patrick has rewritten his Adam and Steve satire yarn, speculative fiction. He feels much better about it. We did heaps of chatting and good conversation this evening. Maybe that's what we all needed. It was warm and pleasant, from my perspective. I trust for everyone else too.

[Previous unposted 'Blots meeting material]

Maybe too close to Valentines Day, but Inkblots, four strong, charges onward and upward. Rachel (whose computer died just as she started to read last time) leads off with another of her scrumptious food-centric yarns. I gain weight just listening to Rachel read her work.

Manhattan setting, shopping outing, with food? Third person, with thoughts, and backstory. Miss Dahlia. Rachel's characters are so unique and human. There is a hint of Ramona. Mysterious, powerful girls you read about in books. Delightful metaphoric doctoring and thrifting. Allusion to Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Lots of chatty dialogue. John wanted to know how much the shoes cost. Rachel said Miss Dahlia gave her a discount. I want to hear more about that exchange. When did the story occur? We tried guessing based on clues from the reading. I thought it reminded me of Beverly Cleary's Ramona yarns, so set in 50s. Rachel said she was up in the air, maybe 90s, but then maybe taking in the Cold War and Communism, or even earlier when the stock market crashed. Might be a good idea to narrow that down. The grandfather is a saddle maker and could have memories of the Depression and its effect on the saddle making business. 

Sydney picks up on her reading, shifting to chapter two and twenty years later. We had discussed the challenges of a twenty year gap from opening episode in prelude to here chapter one. The hour between sunset and dark... soft shadows of dusk. Sydney writes like a Pre-Raphaelite, but unlike many I have heard who write in an archaic style, she pulls it off with ease and authenticity; it sounds like it could be Gothic romance, Jane Eyre-esque. 

girdle, and shilling from under his boot? I was a little confused by both of these description. Sydney has actually improved on the Gothic romance feel, as she stays on intentional trajectory, without the seeming excercies. There is also a Dickensian feel, narrative heavy, with dark mystery, layers of intrigue, and a sense of impending doom around the next dreary dark corner, the gas street lights casting eerie shadows on the cobblestones, oily and reflective in the evening drizzle. 

John wonders where Sydney is going, how long is it going to be? He wondered about the pace. He felt it moved slowly, but he loves Sydney's writing. Intricate detail described. Rachel said she can see everything clearly. White skin and chiseled features, but chews his moustache, which seemed out of character with his chiseled features; buff hunks shouldn't chew their moustache. John wonders why

Good crowd tonight, seven, the number of perfection. We chatted (read, I chatted) about my birthday lunch with my mom for her 81st birthday today. Such an extraordinary woman on so many levels. Her story is the material for Hollywood, but they would slaughter it's outcomes, outcomes ordained by a merciful God who providentially rescued my mother from being another tragic statistic of the materialist naturalist mid century last.

Brain Surgery and Writing--INKBLOTS

Inkblotters after I read from intensely rough opening chapter

Inkblots on this hint-of-spring evening (It's been raining for something like 24 of the last 25 days, fairly typical for this time of year in our region). But this evening "...When comforts are declining/He grants the soul again/A season of clear shining/To cheer us after rain," from my favorite poet, William Cowper, one of his finest Olney hymns, encouraged by John Newton. A brilliant sunset just fading in the west.

Alisa reads from her 1890 historical fiction set in Roslyn mining. I love the way Alisa celebrates her (our) region and its colorful, rough-and-ready, and rocky history (sorry for the mining allusion). This is narrative beginning exposition, setting up the novel. Rich, narrative description, but I wonder if we're missing something. I feel like I am almost there, can see what the characters see, feel like maybe we need more sounds, smells? Let me think about that. This first chapter is a prologue, then chapter one launches the reader decades forward to the 1930s. We asked Alisa to give us the 40-year transition by reading some paragraphs. Alisa captures the difference in language in 40 years, clearly evidenced, which is not easy to do. The story will explore issues of race, and of how some prospered during the Depression when most lost everything.

Alisa started writing The Emblem seven years ago and the novel is 30,000 words fewer now than originally, upped the pace as a result. F Scott Fitzgerald did a similar chainsaw edit of Great Gatsby. I've found that when anything I have written does not seem quite to work, cut unnecessary words. Be brutal. It will almost always be better. Here is Alisa's synopsis of The Emblem:

We ended up talking for awhile about racial issues and tensions between race.

John read from his novel Violeta. A chapter with conversation about God. Russian novel set in 1917. On the run for their lives with her French Huguenot governess. I like how you used the crow cawing bringing her thoughts back to the present. Can you have Violeta unwilling to tell what she is thinking, and have her governess draw it out of her. Otherwise, the dialogue seemed a bit forced. The butter is a good touch, appeals to readers' taste buds. Praying in fiction is hard to pull off. Have Violeta responding to her words with taunts and criticism.  

I yapped for a bit about the nonfiction project I've tentatively, haltingly, anxiously (I despise adverbs) began, my pen quavering (not quaveringly, I'm improving, maybe). But I decided to read from my latest New Reformation Hymn effort on the blessings of fearing of God, temporal and eternal blessings on the man, the woman, the sons, the daughters, the home, and the church:

How blessed the man who fears the Lord!

Who daily feeds upon his Word,

And falls down at the mercy seat,

And casts his fears at Jesus’s feet. 

How blessed is she who fears the Lord!

Delighting, trusting in his Word:

She fears no danger, threat, or harm

While resting safe in Jesus’ arms. 

How blessed are sons who fear the Lord!

Who hear and heed the Spirit’s Word.

No tyrant’s heel can hurt them here

Since they the Sovereign Lord revere. 

How blessed when daughters fear the Lord!

And love God’s ways, his holy Word.

Disease and dying hold no fear

Since Christ who conquered death is near. 

How blessed the home that fears the Lord!

Adoring the incarnate Word;

Like cherubim and seraphim,

In humble awe, God's praises hymn. 

How blessed the church that fears the Lord!

Her Savior’s work, her sure reward;                        

With wondrous voice, high praise repeats,

And bows in awe at Jesus’ feet.

          Douglas Bond, copyright, January 4, 2017

Rachel's computer died just as she was about to read to us. She'll be up first next week. So I then did go ahead and read from opening chapter of my non fiction book on the Delightful, the Disappointing, and the Despicable Marriages of Church History (working title, but you get the idea). I have never read anything at so rough a stage of the writing process as these opening paragraphs. They stared unblinking at me as if I had lost my marbles, and were very gracious. Now to rewriting. I am so glad that writing is not like brain surgery. With writing you can try getting it right the second time, and the third, and the fourth... Brain surgeons get one shot. I'll stick with writing.

Follow progress on new book at bondbooks.net and follow my new podcast The Scriptorium at blogtalkradio.com/thescriptorium I'm featuring on-going writing tutorial along with author interviews and historical vignettes. I may have a future Inkblots broadcast on The Scriptorium, so follow and share.

Symbols, Suffering, and Showing (not telling)--INKBLOTS

Gargoyle straining under the weight of the world

After many weeks away and apart, Inkblots reconvenes, at last. Good to be back together again. Let's make sure we don't have gaps of this size again (my fault really, busy fall speaking schedule largely to blame, though a rich and  beneficial time, at least for me it was). We read from Psalm 131 and discussed some of the things that are too marvelous for us to grasp, and talked about God's providence, his will and way, so often mysterious to us, certainly always high above us. And about calming ourselves before the Lord's marvelous mysteries, sometimes, perhaps often, painful to feeble sinners in a broken world, longing for life in a world of death.

SYMBOLS

I led off reading a paragraph from Rosemary Sutcliff's Shield Ring, which I just finished reading with my daughter Gillian this evening before 'Blots (while she worked on her CC science project spread all over the living room; multiple reads over the years with the bigs). Sutcliff deftly elevated a ring on Bjorn's finger to the level of a symbol, a collector of meaning, a tangible connector to his past, a symbol of his heritage, of his Saxon ethnicity, of his identity and place in the new Viking world that he now lived in, now imminently under the threat of being crushed by Norman invaders (Reformation France/Armistice 100 Tour will be visiting William the Conqueror's birthplace in charming Bayeux and the Medieval tapestry, and where he is buried in Caen at Abby des homes--a few spaces still open, but not for long).

WRITING AND SUFFERING

Sidney will lead off with a portion of a novel she is writing, a passage that is informed in part by the death of her brother Isaiah the day before Thanksgiving. It is emotional and personal. This is clearly white-hot out of suffering and the immediate experience of loss and grief. But very much in control. there's no blubbering here (though there is absolutely nothing wrong with blubbering in our grief), no exploiting, only writing what she needs, as Lewis urges all writers to do, "Write what you need." Sidney is doing so brilliantly. There are so many rich uses of words here: Silent whisper of life; low moan, rattling of the throat, hastened footsteps (this reminds me of Lewis's description in Surprised by Joy of the night his mother died when he was nine); candles, their wax frozen mid drip; kiss of a ghost; silently giving up his soul to the blackness; a tender reed upon which life had trampled, and much more. 

This passage demonstrates the power of fiction. Sidney could write this as a non-fiction blog post (I've been reading her posts, and she has done so, very ably, with maturity beyond her years), but here there is a transcendence as if we the reader are looking from on high at the tragic and dramatic scene, and at the same time we are transported into the hospital room, the sights, sounds, smells (I think you could give us more of the smells), the wailing, the painful intake of breath. It is so painfully real, I am torn. I want to be there, and yet I want to run away (you want to be careful in an opening chapter to not be so weighty that your reader feels they need to run away or be crushed). The word painting is incomparably wonderful. But none of us are perfect. I have a few suggestions. Help readers have a clearer sense of from whose eyes we are seeing the world through. Mostly it is the boy, but then it seems to shift to the woman, the mother, who appears to take her own life, to the anguish of her son. Some of Sydney's description dangles, is not tightly connected to and affecting the protagonist. And there needs to be greater clarity on who, the protagonist actually is. I lost the thread of the boy's point of view. It may be in part your use of Time personified in the feminine and hence the shift to "She" pronouns. Compound that with the She pronoun for the mother. Clarify pronouns. "I hate and mistrust pronouns, every one of them as slippery as a fly-by-night personal-injury lawyer." Stephen King, On Writing

Patrick commented that there is a problem of whose world we are seeing things from, and, I'm interpreting him, maybe it is overly dense for a first chapter. I agree on a certain level. I think Sidney gives us too much in the opening chapter; it is lengthy for a first chapter, probably too lengthy. For a nine year old, the boy has intensely mature perspective and processes the action going on around him like an adult. I'd suggest giving the nine-year-old a legitimately mature vantage point on what is going on by making it clear that he is looking back on it all from an older perspective. Leave some of the backstory for a later chapter. You don't have to cover it all in the opening chapter, in fact, it is best not to do so. Maybe mapping it out would be helpful at this stage. Where are you going, at least in broad strokes. This will give more direction and clarity to how you use your artist brush in each chapter and episode.

I interviewed a young writer on my podcast The Scriptorium the other day and cautioned her that being a writer meant being a sufferer. Suffering is not a smorgasbord. There's no menu with lots of options. We don't get to request the particular flavor of suffering we would like, or how we would like it cooked. God chooses for us. He is sovereign over suffering, over all things; he is all-wise in the exercise of his sovereignty, and he is motivated purely by love for his children. Hence, "What ere my God ordains is right." Sidney, who is passing through some very deep waters, is writing what she needs in her suffering, as so richly illustrated in this passage she shared with us this eveing. Wonderful writing!

SHOW DON'T TELL

Patrick read next, his sci-fi futuristic yarn. Welcome to Mars. I love it. familiar hiss, I think that needs more work; maybe a simile or metaphor for the hiss, one that relates to and further intensifies the Mars context. Patrick does a fine job of keeping the action and pace moving forward. It's clearly his strength. But there's some work to do on showing rather than telling, creating depth and breadth to the narrative as it moves forward. For example, he writes, "The idea thrilled him." Could you show his thrill, his reaction, hastening of his pulse, sharp intake of breath, or better. Let the reader read what you have shown and say "he is thrilled." Another example, "Cloudless sky." Could you describe the color of the sky over Mars, with a comparison to a vintage car color, or?

"But first he had to introduce himself." You don't need to announce things like this. It's far more effective to do it, than to tell us you're going to do it, then do it. You could nuance this by showing body language that shows he forgets basic human relational interactions; silly me. Or the woman he needs to introduce could say something that jolts him into introducing her. I would also like to hear more dialogue. Patrick has lots of narrative sequential description, but it feels static. I feel like I am seeing a series of still photographs, with changes between shots, but not smoothly connected like the minute and fluid movements of a movie camera. As to introductions, when you do have them near the end of your reading with Joanna, it feels stilted, unnecessary to maintaining the pace. "Defiantly," avoid adding adverbs to attributions (Stephen King says that the road to hell is paved with adverbs). Show defiance in the words themselves, his posture, or tone, or a gesture.

We talked about the length of speculative fiction short stories, "short" is fairly long in this genre (9,000 words). How to create episodes and natural pauses without chapter breaks?

Where did the two hours go? Great to be back together with Inkblots. See you in a couple of weeks. Check out my new and improved (improving) web page bondbooks.net. Thanks to the amazing work of my summer marketing intern Sionna Spears.

Douglas Bond, author of more than twenty-five books, is husband of Cheryl, father of six, and grandfather of four. He is Director for the Oxford Creative Writing Master Class, two-time Grace Award book finalist, adjunct instructor in Church history, advisory member to the national committee for Reformed University Fellowship,  award-winning teacher, hymn writer, speaker at conferences, and leader of Church history tours in Europe. He broadcasts weekly at The Scriptorium. Follow him here and at bondbooks.net

INKBLOTS--Writing with the most prolific author of the 19th century

Seven ‘Blots tonight (Justin arriving after work, so eight), seated around my scriptorium. I began by sharing CH Spurgeon’s seven pieces of writing advice (one of the most prolific writers of the 19^th century, if not all time). Much to consider here: 

1. Write to Help others
“We are very mistaken, if our work does not prove to be of the utmost value to purchasers of books…no object in view but the benefit of our brethren…it will be remuneration enough to have aided the ministers of God in the study of his word” (Sword & Trowel, March 1876).
2. Write Short
“Long visits, long stories, long essays, long exhortations, and long prayers, seldom profit those who have to do with them. Life is short. Time is short.…Moments are precious. Learn to condense, abridge, and intensify…In making a statement, lop off branches; stick to the main facts in your case. If you pray, ask for what you believe you will receive, and get through; if you speak, tell your message and hold your peace; if you write, boil down two sentences into one, and three words into two. Always when practicable avoid lengthiness — learn to be short” (Sword & Trowel, September 1871).
3. Write for God
“Courteous reader, throughout another year we have endeavored, month by month, to provide for your entertainment and edification. For both, because the first is to the most of men needful to produce the second, and also because God hath joined them together, and no man should put them asunder” (Sword & Trowel, Preface, 1875).

4. Write Clearly
“So I gathered that my sermons were clear enough to be understood by anybody who was not so conceited as to darken his own mind with pride. Now, if boys read The Sword and the Trowel it cannot be said to shoot over people’s heads, nor can it be said to be very dull and dreary” (Sword & Trowell, November 1874).
5. Write to Compel
“It was an ill day when religion became so decorous as to call dullness her companion, and mirth became so frivolous as to demand the divorce of instruction from amusement. It is not needful that magazines for Christian reading should be made up of pious platitudes, heavy discourses, and dreary biographies of nobodies: the Sabbath literature of our families might be as vivacious and attractive as the best of amusing serials, and yet as deeply earnest and profitable as the soundest of divines would desire” (Sword & Trowel, Preface, 1875). “If the writer had possessed genius and literary ability, this might have been a highly interesting work; but as the writers’ sole qualification is his honesty of purpose, the work is most reliable and dull” (Sword & Trowel, November 1882).
6. Write, Write, & Write
“Many of our hours of pain and weakness have been lightened by preparing the first volume of our book on the Psalms for the press. If we could not preach we could write, and we pray that this form of service may be accepted of the Lord” (Sword & Trowel, January 1870).
7. Read to Write
“Read good authors, that you may know what English is, you will find it to be a language very rarely written nowadays, and yet the grandest of all human tongues” (Sword & Trowel, August 1871).

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Doug Mac led off our Inkblot's time this evening, reading from Return to Tarawa, his intriguing WW II Pacific Theater yarn. Cosmic epic scale, world war is big, but seen through the eyes of ordinary young men trying to figure it all out and survive. We discussed the challenges of the vague attribution, we, us, they, etc, and the importance of sticking with a dominant perspective (which Doug Mac largely does throughout), and what to do with the other men without names from the squad, platoon, etc. There is reality at work here, because we don’t know the names of lots of the people we rub shoulders with on a given day, but how to make the contrivance in fiction come off as genuine. Great progress on this manuscript, given the highest rank that Writers Edge reading service gives a manuscript, and soon to be another Inkblots Press release.

Rachel Y read, with some urging, from her cheese yarn, a fascinating, detailed, mouth-slavering story about smuggling cheese from Italy to Russia. We are all hungry, salivating, craving cheese. And thinking about how devastating government regulation of the economy is (especially when it comes to good food). We discussed the use of the almost, nearly qualifiers. John brought up how we deal with criticism. Take what is being offered, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the critic is right, but they have helped the writer by pointing out an area that needs attention. Embrace the criticism, keeping in mind that the person who just heard you read doesn’t know the larger context, what you wrote in the last chapter, where you’re going after what you just read.  But swallow pride, and welcome criticism (or hang up your pen and take up underwater basket weaving).

Josh Y puts us in context in his post-apocalyptic drama. Lodges and outside of town. It seemed like an odd mixture of the primitive and the civilized. Sort of shirt, is it sort of or the real deal? Blouse or tunic might be better. Mouth sweetly shaped, could this be a more specific comparison? Sweetly is a vague descriptor for a physical feature, rather than a character quality or a taste. Where are you going with this story? Is it part of a larger yarn. Josh explained that it is a series of books. The female interest in the yarn loses her toenail. John thought that sounded odd. Josh explained that it would come into the story later. Rachel PH and the other women present offered valuable perspective to a young male writer who would rather be writing a fight scene than a tender romantic moment in the yarn. Thanks, ladies.

INKBLOTS PRESS New Release! WW I yarn

John S reads from Saving Grace, his contemporary fiction work, a novel that exposes the evil of abortion. This is a moment where the protagonist is pondering a moral dilemma. If she doesn’t have an abortion she will lose her job, scholarship to college, pressures exerted by a manipulative parent. Someone had to be thrown under the bus. What about clichés in contemporary fiction? If a character is using it in dialogue then it makes sense to use it, but in narrative, the use of clichés is off limits. Are there other mannerisms that Grace would have when she is talking with the counselor? Does she cross her legs and bob her leg up and down, or ring her hands, or tuck hair behind her ear? The interaction between the counselor and the counselee seems kind of wooden, and the prayer is good, but I think it works better to give us only part of the prayer and then summarize the rest in narrative, how it was heard by Grace. I think there’s some overwriting here. I promise to be quiet, thank you Sarah. It seems to pat. Things worked out for her. Maybe there’s hope for me. Seems too pat. Sarah’s story is profound, but seems too much. For now. Justin commented that it seemed too fast forward, too much happening to fast. 

I finished off (no time to read from my Drama of the Reformation, audio theater project) by sharing about the final process to finished book with WAR IN THE WASTELAND, now available in print and ebook. Order a signed copy here and get free domestic shipping and a free download of the comprehensive study guide.