Q&A with Glenn Cheney discussion

I have like 4 series going around in my head. I just don't know how to start. I have a feeling I need a good synopsis, keep character backgrounds of all, or most of the players, and a general outline of what is going to happen. But, where do I turn these mechanics of book writing into a good reading book. I want to transport the reader of my book into a world not quite real, but I want the hold on the reader to be sucked into my imagination and just get lost in the book. We all want that, I'm sure, but is there a feeling you get when it's coming together in the background work , or do you just sit at the writer and start and hope that the flow is right and use the as just that, an outline.

Thanks
Melinda

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.

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

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

Ok, will get the book and read it. I guess more of what I was asking is if one needs to have a sheet on the characters in the book. Some things I will be able to remember but, say, things from their mysterious past, etc., and that type of small stuff that need be kept handy, least for me, so I won't forget something about the 'person' that is or can be useful. I'm afraid I won't remember things. As for somethings, I doubt you can't forget those. I'm mostly thinking it is for the little personality type details that can end up playing a big role.

And, yeah, it is procrastination... I would love to be able to sit and write by the seat of my pants, I'm just afraid I will lose track of things.

So, I guess first I should write a couple of shorts just to see how it goes? ;)

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.

I think my next project, or first if you don't count poetry, will be some shorts. And the characters files is great! It will surely keep me from forgetting things that could turn out to be integral to a story line. Thanks

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

I've got 3 character sheets written and I think I will use these for my first short story. I'm getting pretty excited to get on with the story now. By the way, know any good books on grammar, I have a pretty good grasp on it but it has been years since I actually studied it.

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.