Glenn’s Comments (group member since Jun 25, 2012)

Glenn’s comments from the Q&A with Glenn Cheney group.

Melinda, it's great to see you've been developing characters and are working on a story. Bear in mind that it might not work out. Sometimes stories don't. I mention this because I don't want you to think that just because this first attempt didn't work (and it very well might), that doesn't mean it will never work. What I do, as I write fiction, is try not to push the characters into doing things. You've created them as real people, so let them do what real people would do in their given situation. And if they aren't inclined to do anything,m well, give them more background, more character traits, and then let the phone ring...

Don't worry about grammar. Just keep the story moving. Don't stop and think. Just keep following the characters, keep writing. Toss in stuff even if you think you don't need them in the story. You never know what you'll need. Later you can always go back and cut stuff out. Remember that writing is one of few activities that you're supposed to get wrong the first time around. If you don't get it wrong, you weren't pushing the limits enough. The trick is to get it wrong the first time, then go back and do it a little better, then revise some more.

And in your spare time, read E.B. White's Elements of Style. And after you've finished a draft, read Theodore Cheney's "Getting the Words Right." It's about revision.

Who knows, maybe all those characters will someday get together of their own accord and start trouble.

Yes, by all means write some shorts to see how it goes. Definitely a good idea.

As for a sheet about characters, you could open a file on each one. I know a writer who does that. He keeps creating and collecting characters and starting stories about them, and if the story doesn't work, he just puts the character in a folder to save for later, perhaps in a different story.

And it's Gardner. Author of" The Sunlight Dialogs" and "Grendl. " You might want to read his "On Becoming an Author."

I thought of his name. E.L. Doctorow.

Melinda:

You seem to be asking several questions here: How to start? How to transport the reader to that unreal world? How to know it's coming together? Whether to do an outline, etc.?

All good questions. The first and last are kind of the same, so I'll start there.

Some writers do a detailed outline. John irving is one of them. he says he knows absolutely everything that will happen before he writes the first sentence. Other writers do what [I'll think of his name in a moment] does: go forward like a car in the night that can see no farther than the shine of its headlights, yet is able to cross the continent.

Neither way is right or wrong. Either can work. And of course you can do both.

Planning and outlining is a great way to procrastinate. Rather than sit there trying to commit and act of literature, you can just jot down ideas as they come, anything from sentences to character descriptions to lists of events that have to happen to details about a place or a fantasy world. You could make a list of details that are absent in that world. You could make a list of lists you want to make.

I kind of do both. I make all those lists and collect a lot of details as i create a place in my mind. At some point, I start. I might develop and outline as I go along, but basically I depend on my characters to get into situations which they, being real in my mind, will then work themselves through. I just have to ask myself, "What would these people do NOW?" Of course you can be asking yourself that as you lay out an outline and track how the characters deal with issues. In a sense, both these methods are the same. The writer isn't really directing a world. He or she is simply describing what his characters, given the characters they have, would do.

Remember this: Fiction is not about fantasies or plots. It's about people. don't write about a fantasy world. Write about people in a fantasy world.

The bigger, tougher question is how to perform that miracle of a reader looking at little black squiggles on a page but seeing a realistic world. John Gardiner (Gardner?) called it a dream world that is inspired in the reader. There are infinite tricks for accomplishing this, but the main one, if you ask me, is details, details, details. Close-up, sensory details that the reader can see, smell, hear, etc.

Here's an example. In one of my creative writing classes, a student wrote about an old woman, a survivor of the holocaust. He tried hard to get readers to care about 6 million people murdered. You'd think a big number like that would horrify people. But it wasn't working. I doubt 7 million would work any better. I suggested, in class, that he have some nasty boys catch the old lady's cat and pour gasoline on it and string it up over a telephone wire and light it on fire, with all attendant sensory details, which I shall spare you here.

The class went nuts. They said that was disgusting. One called me sick to think of such a thing. Another said it was indecent to write about such a thing.

But note how the idea of a dying cat horrified them more than the 6 million dead people. Why? Because we can't imagine 6 million people. But we can imagine the cat.

Lewis Lapham wrote editorials for Harper's magazine. I thought of him b/c I'm reading "Democracy 101," a set of essays from Harper's, and he wrote one of them. It's good. Ebook only.

Hemingway's good, of course. I also like the nonfiction of John McPhee, Joan Didion, Lewis Lapham, William Hoagland, some others I can't think of, sometimes for their short sentences, sometimes for the beauty of their long sentences.

I suppose evenings will work as well as mornings. I think it helps a lot to write every day, even on weekends, and at the same time of day, so your brain is kind of ready for it.

Reflecting just now on this question, I can see various reasons why I became and (the bigger question) continued to be a writer. None of them related to my difficulties reading except one. I have a hard time reading because I have a hard time focusing. If a piece of writing is any good, it sets off my imagination, and off I go. One day (in college) I realized that my wayward imagination might actually be a good thing to have if I'm trying to write.

My difficulty reading also inspires me to write for people like me, people who need to be constantly gripped by the writing. So I write short sentences of short words and lots of images. Consequently some of my writing for adults is interesting even to young teens. I take this to be a great accomplishment.

Though it just so happens I know Wally Lamb (a little), I've never read any of his books. Too long and dense for me. I'm a lousy reader.

History's a cool thing to major in. It's certainly a branch of nonfiction. And it can be creative nonfiction. "Creative" doesn't mean you make stuff up. It means you try to create scenes and personalities as well as you can without deviating from the truth. It's even possible to bring yourself (not just your voice) into it. To write about Gettysburg, for example, you could start with yourself wandering the once bloody meadows, expressing or hinting at your feelings as you relate what happened there. You want people to give Gettysburg the tears it deserves? Don't write that 51,000 men were wounded or killed. Get down on your knees and put your nose to a dandelion and tell the reader that a dandelion may have been the last thing a wounded soldier saw.

As for your voice, per se, you can certainly adopt a style that lets you express things in an interesting (and consistent) way. It doesn't have to be that dispassionate journalistic voice of newspaper articles, though that voice has its place. It's hard to say what'YOUR voice and what's a voice you simply create, but in either case, it's a special voice appropriate for whatever you're writing.

I don't mean to plug my books here, but my "Thanksgiving: The Pilgrims' First Year in America" has a kind of special voice that is unique to me and to that particular book. You can read part of it at cheneybooks.com . If you have an e-reader, you can read that book and another, unpublished, about a nation of fugitive slaves in Brazil.They're in a book titled "A Cheney Sampler." It's available only as an e-book, 99 cents for Kindle, free for the iPad.

Yes, it seems we're alway writing around other jobs. I sort of exaggerate when I say all day, every day. When something has to be done (go to the PO, pick up the kid, go to the bank, go fix the car, whatever, I'm the one who has to do it. (My wife's work pays money, so I'd rather have her keep at it.) But on the other hand, I'm writing even when I'm driving a car or taking a nap. Always thinking about something, sometimes directly related to what I'm writing, sometimes a wandering of the mind that might relate to something I write.

You're actually lucky to have a job that pays money and also the desire to write. If you didn't have a job, you'd always be writing to make money *(and damned little of it). I say set a schedule that cannot be interrupted, which probably means a few hours well before dawn. Make ti an unbreakable habit. Do it Saturday and Sunday, too. The pages will add up quick.

I don't see any reason at all why a work of genre fiction can't be literary, but I bet the more literary it is, the more it transcends the boundaries of the genre.

I say that without having anything to offer regarding the definition of a given genre or where to draw boundaries or what qualifies as "literary," nor can I think of any reason to do any of that. The only reason to define genres would be to help somebody find the book. I would also worry that boundaries could function as restrictions. If a writer of westerns opts not to let a cowboy suffer depression because westerns don't do that, he or she is not doing literature, or readers or the world, much of a favor.

Good luck defining good fiction. Although we can list qualities that might be found in good fiction, we can also find good fiction that lacks or abuses those qualities. The only answer I can offer is one of total subjectivity. If a piece of fiction appeals to, or perhaps I should say touches, a reader, then for that reader, it's good fiction. It has succeeded in doing what fiction can and should do. But I'm uncomfortable saying even that, because I'd hate to suggest that some piece of vampire crap is in some way as good as the novels so widely considered great. But if we get into judging a work of fiction by its appeal to the most people, or to people over the most time, or most to certain (e.g. smart) people, we'll end up spinning ourselves into meaningless dizziness.

In the early part of the 20th century, the so-called Russian Formalists tried to devise an objective means of measuring fiction. In the world of literati, these were heavy-duty dudes, dudes in the end smart enough to know that they had failed in their pursuit. They pretty much decided it couldn't be done.

In other words, I just don't know how to define it. I don't even know it when I see it. I'd love to hear what you and other readers have to say about it. Not that we're going to get where the Russian Formalists couldn't, but it's always fun to try.

Glenn Alan Cheney is a professional writer. He works at it all day, every day. He has taught writing at Fairfield University, Connecticut College, Albertus Magnus College, and Three Rivers Community College. In this discussion he shares thoughts on how to write, how to find and use inspiration, how to get around "writers block," and anything else that fellow writers would like to talk about.

What makes fiction "good"? How can a writer engage the reader in that "dream state" wherein the print on a page produces realistic images and genuine emotions in the reader's mind?

There are no definitive answers to such questions, but that doesn't mean they aren't worth discussing. Glenn Alan Cheney shares his thoughts on questions about the nature of fiction and the challenges of writing it. He's very interested (even mostly interested) in what readers and writers have to say about such questions.

Glenn Alan Cheney writes books in the genre known as creative nonfiction and literary journalism. Nonfiction of this type is different from the style of traditional journalism. It often includes the author's voice. It tends to look at the human side of the topic. It attempts to touch the emotions of the reader. This style tends to be more readable than standard journalism, and readers tend to remember more about it.

In this discussion group, Glenn Cheney addresses questions about the genre in general and about how he specific books in this genre.

Please note that I have no idea why this topic says "This topic is about I Know This Much is True." The discussion isn't about that.

Welcome, my Goodreads Friends. I'm very glad to see that you're interested enough in my books, or in the topics i write about, to join a discussion. Please be assured that I am eager to see your questions and comments. I'll be glad to answer any questions on any topics, even topics that have nothing to do with my writing or writings. (If I can't think of anything to say, I'll at least say so.)