Month: June 2021

Talking about Writing on the Story Kitchen Podcast

It occured to me recently that we haven’t really talked about the podcast on the blog yet, and that we probably should! Maureen and I started the Story Kitchen Podcast this spring. The project came out of our twice-weekly co-writing sessions on Zoom, during last year. We met up so we could ostensibly work on our manuscripts, but would often end up talking about writing, sharing tips, debating technique, and thinking a lot about how people learn to write (we’re both teachers, so this is something that’s on our minds a lot!)

Thus, the podcast was born! I try to keep the Podcast page on this site updated, but you can listen to it at a lot of places: Apple podcasts, on Spotify, on Google Podcasts, on Spreaker, Podcast Addict, Podchaser, Castbox–on almost any plaform that distributes podcasts!

The latest episode is about fanfiction, one of our favorite topics. You can listen to it below:

I also wanted to give a shoutout to this awesome episode of Fansplaining, The Craft of Writing Fanfiction, which is a wonderful episode, and I discovered after we recorded ours, but it’s a great discussion and it reflects a lot of our experiences in writing and reading fanfiction!

Other episodes we’ve recorded:

In the first episode, we talk about how to think about feedback on your writing. Not all feedback is useful. How do you decide? And what do you do with the feedback that isn’t helping you?

How to develop creativity is a particular interest of mine, something I’ve studied and experimented with for the last several years. What I’ve learned is that creativity is a skill, and like any other skill, it can develop with practice. In this episode we talk about what to do when you’re stuck and how to develop your creativity.

In the episode, Our Favorite Writing Techniques, Maureen and I share the best practical writing tips that elevated our writing. Even so, growth as a creator isn’t always steady. In When You Hit a Plateau we discuss a time in our evolution where we felt like we weren’t growing, and what we did about it.

And last week, we realized we hadn’t really defined what “technique” is so we tackled that topic in What Exactly is Technique Anyway?

And now you’re all caught up! See you next week!

Shaping the Scene: Ways to Approach Scene Structure in Prose

There’s no real standard for scenes or even chapters.  The rule is really ‘if it works, it works’.  William Faulkner, Nobel Prize Winner for Literature, has a chapter in his novel As I Lay Dying, that is five words long.  “My mother is a fish.”  So how do you know how long your scene should be?  The answer is, you don’t.  There are novels that don’t have chapters.  They’re just one long continuous story.

            But there are ways in which scenes are often structured.  If you’ve got a scene that isn’t working for you, then you can try structuring it.

            First, if you don’t mind, go watch a ten minute short film.  It’s animated, and it’s about a puppy.  It’s called Feast and I swear, it’s charming.  https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2icqx7 

            I’ll wait.

            Charming, right?  It’s made up of several scenes (a scene in a screenplay changes every time there is a change in location or a jump in time, but scenes in prose work differently.)  But it’s structured in a classic way. 

            It opens with the lost puppy who is adopted by a Dudebro.  Dudebro and dog live an idyllic life and then Dudebro falls in love with a girl who makes him eat healthy.  A scene starts with two characters wanting different things.  The dog wants to eat all the good stuff but the girlfriend wants everyone to be healthy. 

            A scene progresses with obstacles.  In this, the dog wants both all the food AND the Dudebro to be happy.  When Dudebro and girlfriend break up, dog gets all the food.  But that’s an obstacle to Dudebro’s happiness.  Dog makes active choice to help Dudebro and girlfriend get back together. 

            Dog gives up pizza for happiness.  Dudebro and girlfriend get married.  Then they have a kid who is messy and feeds dog junk so dog gets happiness and pizza, and meatballs and cupcakes.

            So how does this particular structure work?

  1. Set up a situation with obstacles to resolution.  A good way to do this is by having two characters who want different things.  But any situation will do: the Jack London story “To Build A Fire” is about one guy trying to get a fire started.  In winter.  In Alaska.  In the middle of nowhere.  It’s a life or death situation.  But really, fiction is easiest when you’ve got two characters who want different things.  In this story, the Dudebro wants his girlfriend and even to be healthy.  The dog wants French Fries.
  2. Play out the negotiation between the main character and what they want/need.  In the case of “Feast”, the dog wants what feels like incompatible things.  He wants Dudebro to be happy because he loves Dudebro.  But he also wants Fettucine Alfredo.  His obstacles are internal (want versus need) and external (how does he get them back together?)
  3. Resolve the situation.  The best resolution does two things.  It sets up the situation for the next scene.  Since “Feast” is a complete short, it doesn’t do that, but if this was a scene in a longer work, imagine that the resolution involved a further complication—maybe as the kids are running around, we see that the wife is pregnant and the boy is upset and jealous.  A good scene both provides an immediate resolution but reminds us that the overarching issue isn’t solved.  The other thing that the end of “Feast” does is it is inevitable but unexpected.  We are surprised by the baby, not because it’s completely unexpected that a married couple might have a child, but because we’ve been concentrating on something else.  So the ending of “Feast” surprises us, but in an ‘oh!  Of course!’ kind of way. 

Often a scene does that with a ‘button’, that is a line that feels like the end of a scene.  So in a heroic quest, a scene might end with a line that reminds us of the stakes of the story.  ‘It was a wonderful moment, but she remembered with a chill that the Dark Lord was still out there.’  Anything that feels like it ‘buttons up’ the scene is good, and there are an infinite number of ways to do that.

Another way is a cliffhanger.  Endings of scenes and stories is an art, and at the end of the day there are suggestions, but no real rules.

To sum up, one way to structure a scene is to set it up, play it out, and stick the landing.  But that’s not really a formula so much as a guideline.  I don’t think I’ve ever read a story or book where every scene was structured this way.  Doing this, it’s hard.  Endings are especially hard.  Good endings are amazing and have a strong effect on the reader.

I said I’d show you a way to structure a scene.  I didn’t say it would be easy.    

Where is the Despair, Where is the Hope?

I’m a big fan of writer youtubers. There’s something about seeing and hearing a writer talk to me, with a shelf full of books behind them, that I find soothing and inspiring. A few weeks ago I came across a new-to-me writer on Youtube, Shaelin Bishop, who posted a video which shared their top 12 writing tips.

There are great tips in the video, but the one I’d never heard before and which really stood out to me as something profound and interest was this one:

Find the despair in the hope, and the hope in the despair.

Shaelin describes this (as related by a writing professor) as a source of tension: “If a scene is only despair, there’s actually no tension because there’s no possible way forward.”

This made me stop and think a lot. I’ve heard people talk about scene craft as driven by objectives — as in, your protagonist wants something! And other people (or elements) in the scene want something else! But this idea of the tension between despair and hope is a big picture, more holistic way to think about it, something that transcends character goals. It suggests that each scene is a microcosm of the despair and hope in the entire story: will the main character resolve the story question, or not? Where is the hope that they will? And where is the despair if they don’t?

This framing also suggests stakes, which I like, since that’s something that I often forget to illuminate for my reader. What do readers hope for? And what do they despair about?

Based on my thinking about this this week, I decided to give myself an assignment: go through a couple of scenes in my current WIP, a novella, and look for the hope and the despair. How can I play those against each other? Can I use this question to highlight stakes where I need to?

Happy writing!

Write a Story in a Weekend June 26th

Maureen and I have been talking for almost a year about how we would incorporate all of our ideas about teaching and writing into a series of classes and we’re so excited to announce the first one! Story from Beginning to End is an intensive short story clinic where we write a complete story in one weekend. It’s suitable for writers who already have the basics of writing but who are new to the short story format, or what to explore another method of approaching writing short stories.

Why did we decide to format a class like this?

  1. There’s a clear goal: Finish a short story in a weekend! It’s ambitious, sure; but it’s not something you have to do every weekend — just try it once as an experiment.
  2. The compressed time for writing lets you be deeply immersed in the process of writing for an intense burst of activity, which can lead to insights about your process (as well as the story itself.)
  3. It’s a fun challenge!

Does this sound exciting? You can enroll here! Check out the syllabus for more details. Scholarships are available to BIPOC writers and writers of color around the world. Please email storykitchenstudio@gmail.com for more information!

Date and Time: Saturday, June 26th and Sunday, June 27th. 11am Pacific – 3pm Pacific (with breaks). Cost: $129.00

The Advantages and Pitfalls of Camp Nano

NaNoWriMo in November is the challenge to write a draft of a novel in a month.  Lots of people have done it and communities have sprang up to talk about how to prepare for the challenge, how to do the challenge, and how to join with other people to do it. 

Camp Nano, in April and July, is a similar challenge but instead of writing a novel in a month (because face it, some people just can’t, whether because for example, they have a job and a toddler, or because writing 2,000 words a day doesn’t work for them) the writer sets their own goals.  The goals usually involve a daily practice. 

Is it a good idea?  Depends.

Camp Nano has some really cool aspects.

  • Community.  It’s easy to find people setting goals and supporting each other.  It’s a giant group effort and humans a social animals.  It’s why some of us care about our local sports team, even though there is rarely a moral difference between Manchester United and Real Madrid.  We thrive on connection.
  • Set, clear goals:  Setting goals is often a good idea.  A goal means that progress is measurable—either you’re meeting goals or you aren’t. 
  • The commitment can make someone write and as they write, they can learn about what works and what doesn’t work for them, not only in their writing technique but also in how they write—better at night or better to get up at 5:00am before work and write then? 
  • Discovering that it’s possible to write and hit a goal!  Four short stories in a month, or 20,000 wds in a month!  It can teach the lazy and recalcitrant brain that it’s really possible to write.

Camp Nano Drawbacks

  • Setting up an artificial schedule and sticking to it for a month can be a little like a crash diet.  It’s unrealistic, and if it doesn’t fit your life, it can create unsustainable habits.  Just as a 1200 calories a day diet is a bad idea, thinking that writing ‘x’ number of words a day (or whatever your goal is) is ‘the right thing to do’ can lead to burn out and a belief that if those goals aren’t hit, it’ means that you’ll never be a writer.
  • Life is complicated, and predicting what someone is going to be able to do in three weeks is a bit of a crap shoot.  Remember March of 2020?  The world has a way of reducing plans to rubble.

Camp Nano and NaNoWriMo might be just the thing someone needs.  If you want to do them:

  • Take control.  Figure out what you want from the experience, and set expectations accordingly.  Even if you’re doing NaNoWriMo you don’t have to write 50,000 words.  Set your own goals.
  • Be thoughtful about balancing commitment and flexibility.  If the goal is to write a publishable novel, well, writing fast may mean not writing well.  The work of revising the novel may be much harder if 75% of the draft has to be pitched.
  • Think about what you want. 

Camp Nano is a great thing for a lot of writers.

Set goals that are easy, you can always do more, but you’re going to feel shitty if you do less.  And use it for who you are, where you are, and getting to your own goals.