Author: Miyuki Jane Pinckard

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

What is Genre Fiction?

It’s sometimes useful, when you’re starting to write and define yourself as a writer, to think of broad categories of fiction, because it can help you understand what the reader expectations are (and decide whether you want to deliver them or subvert them!) If this kind of thinking is not useful for you, I absolutely do not believe you have to think about it at all — write what you want to write, and let the market and your agent figure out where and how to sell it!

But for me, as part of the study of fiction, it’s been instructive to look at the differences and similarities between different categories or markets. One of broadest is genre fiction and literary fiction.

I think the easiest and incidentally the most useful way to think about genre fiction is, it is writing that intentionally serves the expectations of a certain genre. Those expectations can be plot-centric, as in murder mysteries where we expect that the murderer will be revealed by the end, or emotional, as in a thriller when we expect to be thrilled, or both, as in a romance, where we expect the emotional fulfillment of a happily-ever-after ending that also ties up the love plot.

While literary fiction can have any or all of these elements, it also tends to be harder to categorize in a particular genre; it is also, quite often, more invested in exploring theme or as aspect of narrative technique rather than focusing on plot or emotional impact.

The main thing to remember about such categories is they are not prescriptive; at least, I don’t think it’s fruitful to treat them in any way as prescriptive. There’s no real formula for “mystery” other than the genre expectations, and even that can be broken by a skilled and confident writer, to good effect (that one mystery story where the narrator turns out to be the murderer, for example!) Instead, I use categories to help me think about my story after I’ve written a draft. It can help me focus on what I realize is most important, or it can help me understand a potential reader for the story, and what they’d expect. For me, the most helpful way to frame genre questions has been to ask myself, what other books or texts is my story in conversation with?

What’s interesting to study is when novels work in both categories. Erin Morgenstern’s novel The Night Circus is a genre fantasy romance novel about young star-crossed magicians. It is also a literary novel of surrealism exploring the power of dreams and imagination, with themes of family legacy and professional rivalry that threaten to destroy innocent lives.

Another example is the short stories of Kelly Link, who is a spectacularly gifted and literary writer whose dazzling style is as much a hallmark of her work as is her uniquely fabulist, surreal imagination. See also Carmen Maria Machado, a fantastic writer who’s published in both literary magazines like Granta as well as genre publications like Nightmare. She’s also written a memoir, In the Dream House. So don’t ever feel like this genre exploration needs to lock you in to one field or another!

One way to start understanding your own work is to read what other people write. Read a lot, read across different genres. I learned so much about emotional scene-building from reading romances, for example, and so much about plotting from reading mysteries. I learned a lot about subtlety and letting small details do the heavy lifting from reading literary fiction.

And I learned that ultimately there’s really very little difference between these categories, at least in terms of the broad outlines. I found that very comforting — it freed me up to write what I wanted and trust that there will be readers out there for it, regardless of what genre my story ends up in!

Playing with a Story Idea

By the way, we have a new project coming soon! A podcast! Maureen and I are recording it now and will be releasing it later this spring. We’re so excited! We’ll be announcing it here on the blog and on our newsletter, so sign up at the link at the bottom of this page if you haven’t, so you can stay in touch.

The Story Kitchen Podcast

Before I was a writer, I worked in the video game industry (and in fact Maureen and I met teaching in a games program at a university!)

One of the things I learned from working in games is an attitude of playfulness towards my creative work. To me, this is related to the ideas of rapid prototyping and the “fail fast” mantra. It kind of forces you to not take your work too seriously.

How I apply that to writing is, as Maureen wrote last week, just try it! But for me, I don’t necessarily need to *write it* to try it. I do a lot of, I guess you could say, daydreaming. I think about the story, I ask myself questions about it (usually questions like, what if this happens? Who’s the protagonist? Why do I like this idea?) I’ll watch or read media that reminds me of the idea I have, either in tone or theme or plot points. And sometimes I just take a walk and talk about the idea out loud to myself.

At some point, of course, I go to the page and write. At this stage I try not to let my editor inside my writing room. (You know, the one who says things like, “This is a stupid idea. What is this even about? This makes no sense.” No time for that, keep her out of the room!)

I write down whatever little bits I have. I really like timed writing for this — I set a timer for five minutes, or ten minutes, and just write while thinking about the idea. At the end of that time, if I feel like it, I keep going. If not, I save the file (or the notebook — I’m a big fan of writing out ideas at this early stage in longhand) and save it for later.

I’m a big advocate of writing down random bits of ideas, by the way! You never know when that random bit will spark off another random bit! Keep a notebook around so you can scribble these stray thoughts and observations.

Sometimes an idea is so interesting and so exciting to me that it kind of takes over for a while. When that happens, I try to chase it. If it’s a short story, I try to get a draft down in one sitting. Or at least, get to an idea of what the ending is. (Endings are the hardest part for me.) If the idea starts looking like a novel-sized idea, I do what Maureen does, I just start writing for a while, and then I look back at what I’m writing, and start asking myself questions about it:

  • Who’s the protagonist, what does she want? What’s the worst thing that could happen to her?
  • What’s the theme of this? (It’s totally okay if you don’t know that — themes often emerge much later.)
  • Why am I interested in this story? What about it is exciting? What kinds of scenes would I be excited to write?
  • What are some exciting things that could happen in this story?
  • How could this story end?

Give yourself permission to play in the story world for while! Play with your characters, get to know them. Play with the setting, start getting a feeling for its mood, its tone, its geography. Keep writing as you go. Chase those stray moments of glee, indulge your curiosity.

And have fun!

P.S. Do you want to try playing with a story idea in a guided way? I’m running a short story clinic in June, Story from Beginning to End, in which we’ll write a story in one weekend! Check out link for more details.

The Case for Taking Classes as a Writer

I had a revelation this past year: artists take classes all their lives.

Dancers are always in class. Painters still drop into life drawing sessions. Musicians take masterclasses and attend rehearsals. If you’re an artist, you’re always learning and working on your craft, testing the boundaries of your limits and gently expanding them.

But I think there’s often an expectation that classes for writers are for beginners. That once you achieve a certain level of professionalism, or craft confidence, you simply write on your own. You might have a critique group, or a couple of trusted beta readers, but there is no expectation that writers receive formal instruction after they achieve a certain level.

But I think that might be a mistake, at least for some writers.

This past year, partly to relieve the stress and anxiety of being trapped inside and partly because I missed writing communities so much, I took a bunch of online classes, some pre-recorded but most of them live, run by an instructor. While some classes definitely fell into the category of covering basics I was already confident in, many opened up new avenues for me, prompted story ideas, gave me new tools for storytelling and story generation. I grew more aware of my weaknesses and more able to create a self-study program designed to strengthen my shortcomings.

So that’s why we started The Story Kitchen, so we can examine the ingredients of story and practice our craft in a formal, systematic, but playful and open-ended way, like in cooking! There will be content here that is for beginners, because we all start somewhere. There will also be content here for emerging professional writers, and for experienced writers. Because learning never ends and a formal practice of instruction can be a valuable part of maintaining your creative spark, honing your skills, and opening you up to new explorations you didn’t access in your writing before.

Lots of writers have said this, but it bears repeating: there is no one right way to write. Just like there is no one right way to cook. But searing a cabbage has a very different effect on the vegetable to boiling it, and adding miso has a very different impact on the palate versus adding vinegar. Both great! But different! So we thought, this could be applied to writing, too. Understand the ingredients you’re working with, understand the techniques of handling those ingredients, and then you’ll understand what dishes you’re putting together and how the flavors will blend or contrast, and you’ll become a much more confident chef — er, writer — with a great range. Plus it’s fun to play!

(I just made myself hungry. This is a thing that happens a lot, because I write about food a lot? Literally and metaphorically?)

If this sounds interesting to you, sign up for our newsletter below! Our first one goes out today, and it’s one of the main ways we’ll deliver notes on writing craft, advice, tips, and writing prompts. We also include what I started calling an Unrecipe because they’re about techniques, not recipes, as well as writer quotes, links to books we like, and other fun tidbits. Join us!

Happy writing!

-Jane

Welcome to Story Kitchen

Story Kitchen came about because Maureen and I met while both teaching at a university, and we started getting together to talk about writing, fiction, and teaching. Pretty soon we had a critique group and a couple of weekly co-writing dates. We also had ongoing conversations about craft and books and how to help other writers.

Add to that mix the fact that we both love to cook, and Story Kitchen was born! We conceived of a place that was like getting together with your friends around a kitchen table, sharing stories, tips, techniques, commiserating and celebrating.

In our view, the way we learned to write was similar to the way we cook. Recipes are a good starting place, but what really changed the game for us was learning techniques and how to apply them in different contexts. Learning to handle POV is a technique. Voice is a technique. Literary devices are techniques — and once you understand how they work and what impact they deliver, you can create your own recipes for stories, knowing that each one is going to be different, too.

We’re planning lots of exciting stuff coming out this summer and fall! We’d love it if you’d stay in touch by joining our newsletter, where we’re also going to feature a ton of useful context, including tips and craft essays and a recipe (naturally!). Sign up for our newsletter, and get a free PDF guide, 10 Things to Try When You Feel Stuck.

Happy writing!

-Jane