Survivalist Guide to the Rejection Letter Blues

Between interviews and reviews, I've been reading other people's blogs.

I stumbled across one post by Sloane Taylor by way of Sharon Ledwith.  For the record, I agree with everything Sloane says:  editors (probably) aren't evil, and you do need to brush off the dust and to carry on.  After the rejection, review your manuscript again and make it ever stronger.

But Taylor glosses over what to do during what she calls the "blue period."  So, I'd like to amend this by proposing a few tried and true survival tactics. Now that I'm approaching my 20 year mark in "not getting a single full-length project published", you can count me as something of an expert in this regard.

So, allow me to present my three-step Survivalist Guide to the Rejection Letter Blues!

Step One:  Keep Score.

Award yourself special prizes every time you hit 100, 500 and 1,000 points.

- 10 points for every hard copy (snail-mailed) rejection letter that has your title and name on it
- 10 points for every electronic form rejection letter that has your title and name on it.
- 25 points for every hard copy rejection letter sent on 1/2 of a standard 8.5" x 11" letter
- 25 points for every electronic form rejection letter that does not include your name or title.
- 50 points for every hard copy rejection letter that has been photocopied askew by some nose-picking, cross-eyed lackey.
- 75 points for every rejection letter that has specific feedback addressed to you (or to your agent, if applicable)

- add 5 points every time your title is misspelled
- add 10 points every time your name is misspelled (I have an unfair advantage here!)
- add 15 points for every spelling error (aside from your name or title); be careful not to mistake a cultural variant for a spelling error:  you say color, I say colour; I say tire, she says tyre...

Suggested prizes:

- 100 points:  favourite non-alcoholic beverage in your local eatery/cafe, favourite candy/chocolate, thirty minutes of computer games...
- 500 points:  re-read your favourite book from childhood, dress up in your best formal wear and go out on a date with yourself...
- 1000 points:  play hopscotch at a bus stop, wear a Halloween costume around the house...

Step Two:  Allow yourself to react

Choose actions from each of the following lists - denial, angry, sad, oblivious/altruistic, eccentric-genius.  For fun, try a different combination each time you receive a rejection letter.

Denial Reaction (Choose One)

a) Laugh.  Point at your screen and/or letter and laugh again.  When someone asks you what you're laughing about, point and laugh at them, as if they didn't get the joke.  Bonus points if you can make them laugh with you.

b) Choose to believe that there has been a gross and laughable error on the part of the editor:  surely, there were two authors with your name, and two projects with your title, and simply by accident, you received the rejection letter that was clearly intended for the talentless hack who plagiarized both your name and your working title.

c) Recognize that this rejection letter was meant for your evil twin, and clearly wasn't meant to be addressed to you.  You get their mail all the time.  Especially around that time when you get your post-Christmas credit card bills.

d) Research the Illuminati. They have a blacklist of certain geniuses and will do everything in their power to ensure their ideas are stifled (aka never published), because in the near future those geniuses will unite and free mankind from the Illuminati's global domination.  Clearly, you are on their list, and you are the greatest threat to their power.

e) Write yourself an acceptance letter in the style of the editor who sent the rejection letter.  Mail it to yourself.  Celebrate when you get it in the mail.

f)  Celebrate all the book signings, contrived marketing campaigns, awkward live readings and reviews you don't have to endure yet!  Think of all that free time!

Angry Reaction (Choose One)

a) Make two copies of the rejection letter; if this is a rejection letter sent by mail, make photocopies; if it's an email rejection slip, print two copies.  Take one copy and tear it to shreds; use of teeth is strongly encouraged, but proceed with caution, because paper cuts between your teeth are ugly, painful and really hard to explain.  File the other copy for future reference.  You'll probably need to blog about the blindness and callousness of the rejecting editor once you've attained the success you so obviously and richly deserve.

b) Repeat after me:  "They couldn't handle teh awesomeness that is me!"  And this is true, because if they attempted to publish teh awesomeness that is you, their presses would be overwhelmed by the magic of your words, and the instead of printed paper, unicorns and rainbows will spew forth, and those are devilishly hard to bind in a standard 6"x9" paperback.  (And the use of "teh" in this case is deliberate.  It's an internetism.)

c) Shout, "No, I reject YOU, sir!"  (Substitute "ma'am" where applicable.)

d) Make up a list of the funniest substitutes for "Drat, I didn't get accepted".  Note:  this is a lot more fun when you don't use any of George Carlin's Seven Dirty Words.

e) Make anagrams of the rejecting editor's name (i.e. Carol Green = Coral Regen) or puzzle-fy the name (Carol Green = Harmony-Noel Verdant).  Use this name in your next book.  Make sure the new character is put into awkward and embarrassing situations.  Use with caution!  And beware of karma.

f) Yell "Hulk Smash!"  Extra points if you do this in a grocery line-up.

Sad Reaction (Choose One)

a) Go cry, you sad-face.  Blubbering is totally encouraged.  Ensure that you attain new volumes of post-nasal drip.  Unintelligible noises while pointing to and/or thwacking the rejection letter are advised.

b) Slouch in your chair while chewing bubble gum and vacuously watching YouTube videos of cats trying to jump into progressively smaller boxes.  Videos of giggling babies and/or of goofy dogs are also acceptable.

c) Wrap yourself in a blanket, sit in a chair in the corner, and blow bubbles in your spit.

d) Hum "Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, might as well go in the garden and eat worms."

e) Go watch this short film.  You'll thank me for it later.

f) Go make sad faces in the mirror.  Exaggeration of facial expressions is required.

Oblivious and/or Altruistic Reaction (Choose Two)

a) Go to your local cafe or eatery.  Pay for the non-alcoholic drinks for the next four people in line.

b) Find a sad, lonely stranger.  Tell them the funniest (and cleanest) true story that comes to mind.  Ask them how their day has been.

c) Write a totally random but encouraging email to a close friend, extolling at least three of their virtues.  Provide examples.

d) Go for a walk.  If you have any, take with you:  small child(ren), dogs, ferrets, cats, spouse(s), stuffed animal(s), toy firetruck...

e) Go to YouTube and find clips of your favourite cartoon from childhood.  Freakazoid is required viewing.

f) Give old books to a local charity, social organization or shelter.

g) Help a little old lady/old man across the road.

h) Do one random act of kindness.  Bonus points if no one sees you do it.

i) Spend time with family and friends, away from the computer.  They are now your primary focus.  Put interesting people between you and the rejection slip.

Eccentric-Genius Reaction (Choose Two)

a) While in a public location, give yourself a standing ovation.  'Cause you deserve it, man.  *sniff*  You so deserve it!

b) Spend the whole day as a superhero (or villain) in disguise.  Don't let anyone know they're talking to a real-life superhero (or villain).  Wear a secret smile, because this rejection letter is the one little defeat that propels you to righteous greatness!  Yes, you may wear your superhero underwear.  You have my blessing.

c) Write a parody of your own story.

d) Take one dialogue section of your story and save it in a separate file.  Change only the genders of all the characters, then regenderize the names (i.e. Charlie = Charlotte, Carla = Carl).  Re-read the scene.  Let the hilarity ensue.

e) Take one action scene and save it in a separate file.  Change all the weapons and projectiles into something ridiculous, i.e. guns = automatic bubble machines; bullets = spit balls; knives = overripe bananas.  Let the hilarity ensue.

f) Go to your personal library.  Pick up five books at random.  Write rejection letters for the authors.  (But for goodness sake, don't send the letters!  Sometimes you never know if you'll actually meet this person.  It's happened to me many times, and once in a New York City Indian food restaurant!)

g) Write down five reasons why you think your work wasn't good enough to be accepted.  Next, write the opposite of each of those five reasons; always end the positive phrases with an exclamation point.  For example, if you wrote "because my dialogue is formal and cludgy :( ", then write "because my dialogue is realistic and it totally flows like a real conversation that I can hear in my head!"  Recite all the opposites aloud, preferably with a bloody bold English accent as if you're narrating a rousing good game of rugby, football or polo.  Now, using all those positive phrases, go back to your project and prove yourself right - even if that means revising whole chapters to make it so.

Step Two and One Half:  Suggested Diet & Exercise

Recommended food stuffs.  For those of you with dietary restrictions, you might want to skip this part.

a) Sandwiches made of chocolate chip Eggos smothered in Nutella.
b) Ice cream, but only for breakfast.
c) Cotton candy and/or taffy and/or candy apples.  Any sugary snack that came from a country fair will do.
d) COOKIEEEEEES.
e) Like Sharon says:  wine and cheese.  I add, *in moderation!*  Because too much cheese can give you gas.
f) Eat dessert before the main course.  Go on.  Live dangerously.
g) Added by popular demand - and recent practice:  shawarma.  It's Avenger-approved!

Exercise.

a) Air drum / air guitar / sing along with the Muppet's version of Bohemian Rhapsody.
b) Dance to the Village People's YMCA.
c) Do the Funky Chicken and/or the Hustle (or this version, which is probably better known.)
d) Attempt one of the All Blacks haka, as shown here.  Or here. 

Step Two and Three-Quarters:  What *not* to do, ever!

Do not...

Take it personally.

Take any of this process too seriously.

Assume that all publishers are stupid, blind and/or too busy to have actually read and appreciated your manuscript.  If you do assume this, you'll carry that attitude with you if and when you meet prospective publishers, editors and agents.

Assume that editors don't actually care about culture, art or innovation; assume that editors are only after the bottom line and will never pick up a new, unestablished author again.  Same reasons apply from the previous point.

Assume that everyone is waiting to see you fail.

Believe that you are doomed to a life of dead end jobs and poverty.

Assume that you'll never succeed at anything, ever again.

Assume that all other "successful" (aka published) authors were only accepted because of who they knew, not what they know or how well they write.

Let this letter become the existential crisis of your life.  Writers are more than tinkerers of words; they are people who experience life, and life (I'm led to believe) is somewhere outside.

Assume that you suck and you should never have bothered writing it in the first place.

Drown your sorrows in self-harming behaviours.  No one is worth it.

Quit.

Step Three: The Post-Rejection Period

If and when all your outstanding submissions have been returned:

a)  Collect all the feedback to see if there are any trends (i.e. problem characters, superfluous scenes, flat narrative.)
b)  If you did write "five reasons why this book might have been rejected", add those to the feedback list.
c)  Write out your synopsis from memory.  Do not cheat.
d)  Re-read your book, making special note of any times your attention wandered - or when you were completely sucked into the story.  Highlighters are your friends.
e)  Prioritize what needs to be fixed:  Plot comes first. Characters come second.  Setting and mood come as a result of the first two.  Theme happens usually by accident, but you can highlight it in the second pass-through.
f)  Give yourself a goal of how many submissions you want to make this time around.  Create a plan.  Then, keep score and promise yourself prizes!
g)  Repeat Steps 1-3 as required.

Survival vs. Thrival

If you have received all of your submissions back and currently have nothing outstanding, congratulate yourself.  You have endured the hardest trials any writer can ever face (except for everything that comes after publication, of course).

If you can get through a series of rejection letters without crumpling into a big, whiny, alcoholic, sniveling bunch of nerves curled up in the foetal position under your desk, then you have what it takes to be a rejection letter survivalist.

However...

If you can get through years of rejection letters, if you can incorporate what sketchy feedback you receive, if you can knuckle down and dredge up the most awe-inspiring, most bittersweet, most powerful narrative as a result of rejection, then congratulations:  you are a thrivalist.

Thrivalists grow with every rejection letter.  They go through the same reactions and sadness and anger that every other survivalist does.  The difference is:  they thrive in adversity.  They take their lumps and they come back swinging.  After every rejection letter, their next project is better, more solid, more fleshed out, more powerful than ever before.  And their rejection letters come back with progressively more detailed feedback - which only adds fuel to their spiritual fire.

So what are you?  A quitter?  A survivalist?  Or are have you got what it takes to be a thrivalist?

Hulk Smash!

Springboards and pratfalls

A quick search of Amazon.ca using the words "How to Write" returned 79,549 results.  I may have purchased and/or read about 10 of those titles.  There's certainly value in learning from the experience of others; to some extent, you can learn from their own successes and mistakes.  And since there are close to 80,000 volumes out there, to say nothing of the blog posts, online articles and free-radical quotations, there's bound to be something you can learn, no matter who you are.

And Tobin Elliott, I'm happy to say, will be adding to that list, when he launches his eBook "Tweet You Write."  I'm looking forward to picking up a copy - and not just because he was my Creative Writing teacher aeons ago.  I like the whole concept of his book.  He'd been tweeting <140 character writing tips over 2011 and 2012, 100 tips over a few months.  Now what he's doing is compiling those tweets, giving some background - why he tweeted the tip - and goes into greater detail and examples of what the tweets mean.  It's like some translations of Sun Tzu's Art of War:  you're given a Big Thought and explanation, you chew on it for a few days, and then you come back for the next Big Thought.  I keep trying to convince Tobin to go to POD and make a coffee table book, or at the very least, a bathroom reader.  I haven't convinced him yet.  I'll have to wait until either the end of this year or the start of next for a copy of the eBook, I guess.  (Tobin - I can't scrawl notes in the margins of my eReader!  Just so you know!)

But you know, you could spend a year's wages looking for advice on how to write, and you could spend fifty years reading it all.  And in that time, thinking about all the rules and suggestions and tips, how much writing could you actually do?  Aside from the time spent studying (and not writing), you'll be spending all your time worrying about colouring outside the lines (and not writing).

On top of that, with close to 80,000 how-to books on Amazon alone, how likely do you think it is you'll come across two completely unique books?  There's a lot of overlap between the ones I've read already.  And how likely do you think it'll be to come across two that are in complete opposition to one another?

Added to that, there are the countless blog posts, online articles and seminars - it gets to be a little overwhelming, and I pick up very little new information.  I think I've just about hit the saturation point, and now, all I want to do is write.

I don't know about anyone else, but what I learned about writing, I usually learned by accident, and what I learned in my younger days, that's what I live and write by.   

This is not a how-to blog.  I don't have the experience, expertise nor inclination to write a how-to thingamajig.  This is just a glimpse into some of the things I've learned, and where those lessons came from.

On Character:  I totally read that wrong.

I've already written about this, so I won't waste your time.  But the point here is, I was reading Stephen King's Art of Darkness, and I totally misread a line.  Whatever the line actually was, it had nothing to do with personalities or a colour wheel, but somehow, that's the idea that got stuck in my head.  Just as colours can compliment and contrast, so could personalities.  And personalities that are too similar to one another clash like pink and red; and therefore, if as I'm writing two allied characters just don't seem to be getting along, chances are, they're just too similar for comfort.  One of them needs to change.

Then my Uncle David, a painter by profession, told me "there is no such thing as colour," which, ahem, blue me away.  Basically, colour is perceived not in the eye, but in the brain.  Your eyes receive information about wavelengths reflected back at you; but the brain interprets those wavelengths as colours.  And the way the brain interprets colours is in contrast to other colours.  By itself, a shirt may be blue.  Contrast that against a royal blue shirt, and the first shirt now looks blue-green.  To show someone who is really an arrogant snob, I have to contrast him against a haughty snob and a braggart.

Just so, in order for your human brain to make sense of a fictional personality, you have to contrast that character against someone else; another character in the book, perhaps, or against yourself. So if you don't clearly distinguish one character from another, they all blend together, and you get a flavourless, monochromatic character-sludge.

Characters in want of braaaaaaains...ngyargh...

To me, this was an important, but a really obscure, lesson in how to write characters well.

On Plot:  "You have a wonderful voice but nothing to say."

Prof Garson, if you're reading this, thank you.  From the bottom of my broken heart, thank you.

See, in my university days, I'd been super inspired to write this short story, and I was so impressed with it I ran it over to my English professor to show her.  She patiently read the whole thing, even made comments in the margins, and over a morning coffee, she spoke those infamous words:  "You have a wonderful voice, and nothing to say."

"A bit shrill though..."

In nine words, Prof Garson managed to teach me everything I needed about writing, and about living in general.  She didn't just call me down out of my Ivory Tower:  she demolished the Tower and made me dust myself off.

I had no life experience (or at least, I didn't write any of it), and worse, it was all imagery and no point.  I had no story to tell.  Now, story comes first; voice comes last.

And secondly, I've realized why I don't like to read when I'm in the process of writing a book (which accounts for why I pretty much never read).  When I read, I absorb some of the narrative style; I accidentally replicate it.  What happens is that I get a very book-sounding book.  To help me stay focused on telling a story, rather than writing a book, I tend not to read - least of all a book from the same genre or time-period.  There is value in reading other people's books (Buy Canadian!  Buy from all my friends!), but I'm too much of a narrative chameleon to read during writing season.

On Pacing:  "Now that's how you end a chapter."

I remember the place, but not the time.  My mother and I were watching TV, and it was an episode of Flash Gordon, one of the really old Saturday morning serials.  At the bottom of the hour, our hero was trapped in some sporting arena with a ravening beast, doomed to die for the pleasure of Mongo and the Princess of Mars.  I don't know if that was what actually happened, of course, we're talking about something I watched twenty-five years ago.  Anyhow - at the bottom of the hour, we saw our hero in dire straits, and suddenly, there was a knife chord and the dreaded words...To be continued!  Then my mother got up to go do something, and she said in passing, "Now that's how you end a chapter." 

"What do you mean, 'stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion?'"

I'm not sure how old I was at the time; I was something between nine and twelve years old.  I'd spent pretty much all of my spare time writing stories on lined paper while sitting on the living room stairs.  Since I was seven, I'd known I wanted to be a writer, and since my mother seemed to know everything about everything, I took her words right to heart.  From then on, it didn't matter if the rest of the chapter was Grade A drek, but every chapter ended on an "Oh No" note, designed to intrigue the reader to at least carry on to the first page of the next chapter.

I've written like that ever since. Well, I mean, I try to get rid of the Grade A drek inside each chapter, of course, but you get the point.

On Writers' Craft:  I'll show you mine...

"What an intriguing proposition..."

If there was one thing I learned in Tobin's class, it was "Show, don't tell."

And if you don't know it by now, for shame!  In brief:  Tell = "he was so angry!"; Show = "He closed his eyes, shut his mouth and whined through his nostrils."

Occasionally, I get to critique the work of other writers.  If a section of the narrative feels slow and whiny, or melodramatic, or pointlessly poetic, guaranteed, it'll be because the author chose to tell instead of show.  This is Writers' Craft 101, and still, it's the downfall of many otherwise decent writers.

But really, the key to good narrative it doesn't get any simpler than that: show, don't tell.  Everything else is a matter of tuning your word choice to better focus the imagery you're trying to convey, and a matter of eliminating the static caused by poor grammar.

On Research and Believability:  Write what you know...or not.

I've written about this one too, but it boils down to when and how you do your research.

I attended some free seminar during my high school years.  My mother and I went to the Chapters in Ajax, and we listened to a guy who taught us how to write a book in 60 days or less (might have been 30 days or less, may have been 9 days, I dunno - it was a seminar on "how to write a book in a stupidly short time", whatever it was).  He gave his audience some tips on creative sprinting using word prompts.  He showed us how to design a story from the skeleton out (I still use this during most marathons), and most importantly:  he told us the most effective means of doing research.

In terms of research, he said that you should write the whole story first, making guesses or leaving blanks where you don't know stuff.  Then he suggested that, instead of reading umpteen tomes about submarines, go to the children's section and read a book about them.  With that kind of research, the accuracy and detail of your story will be just at the level you need to keep a reader satisfied.  Also, the fewer the details you put in, the less likely you'll make a silly mistake.  But heaven help you if you try to write a book about submarines if you don't know the difference between a propeller and a periscope.

Granted, this method doesn't work for everybody.  Some like to sit down and learn Wikipedia.  Some people don't research at all, but they can still make some pretty keen observations and get stuff right.  I prefer this method, because to me, Wikipedia is one great big maze of fascinating diversions, and left unsupervised among its corridors, I get lost and I never write anything.  Writing the story first, creating a list of questions I have to answer, and then hitting the digital library - that keeps me on track.

I believe that even the best, most well-researched author is bound to get caught with his or her scholarly pants down...unless you're James Michener, in which case the sheer volume of details will entrance your readers into a state of drowsy complacency and they never check your facts.

So many delicious facts!

If you do too much research, it hurts the eye; if you don't do enough research, someone will throw the book at you. The moral of the story is simple:  if no one notices whether you did your research or not, then you've done your job: the research is so well integrated into the story that you don't even notice it there.  But in the end, there will always be someone to throw the book at you, so don't sweat it too much.

Lately, I've really started to balk at the whole notion of "writing what you know."  Yes, it sure makes the writing easier, talking from your own experience, but dang - if I wrote what I knew, a) it would be boring, and b) it would still be wrong.

The beauty of writing any story - including and especially a historical, procedural or science fiction story - is that it forces you to go out and learn new stuff.  If you're only writing what you already know, you won't learn anything new, all the wonder and awe is sucked out of your narrative, and you don't grow - neither as a writer, nor as a thinker in general.

On Editing:  Infinite capacity for knowledge, limited capacity to apply it

When relearning French, I discovered that at first, you learn a lot. You go from "jzuh mah pell Pat" to a half-hour long conversation pretty quickly.  After a certain point, it's one new word a week, or one grammar correction, some advanced verb conjugation, or one nuanced pronunciation...It's extremely slow going.  And in fact, at that stage, a lot of FSL or ESL students get frustrated at this point, because the day-to-day improvements are now so small and gradual that students don't believe improvement is happening at all.  Looking back over the last five years, however, my French has vastly improved to the point where I could probably conduct business without any great trauma.

The same applies, I believe, to improving one's writers' craft.  After a while, you don't see a point to reading all the how-to books, and you don't feel like you're improving at all.  You read all 80,000 how-to books, and you still don't feel like you've learned a danged thing.  Take heart, dear writer - as long as you're applying what you already know, you'll continue to improve.

And the application of knowledge is key.  Sometimes, when looking over Tobin's work, I catch him on things that make him do a face-palm.  If I'm going to catch him making an error, chances are, the King of Show Don't Tell has told instead of shown.

For some people, it's usage of the passive voice (though they know better),  for others, it's head-hopping, or tense shift, stilted dialogue, whatever.  For me, I still get hung up on "character sludge."  The problem is not the lack of education of the author; the problem is, every author has a fatal flaw, and it hides in their blind spot. You need mental side-view mirrors, and you need a spotter.

On Growth:  Don't make the same mistakes again.  Make new ones!

 
I can't remember the time or the circumstances, but I do remember I was on the phone almost in tears about some colossal FUBAR at work, and how it had been all my fault.  My mother, as usual, managed to talk me back from the ledge (usually starting her crisis hotline speech with "awwww, poor you").  She asked me this and that, and I bared my soul, and then she said, "Well, just remember not to make the same mistakes twice.  Make new ones!"

And I do!  I never make the same FUBAR twice.  And now, I've excelled to the point where I can create such wonderful, convoluted and concurrent calamities that one calamity will actually disguise the other!  In terms of creating technical problems, I have mastered the secret ninja art of Sna-Fu.

In short:  so long as you're learning, then what's flawed in Book 1 won't be the same flaw as in Book 2.  You learn to fix one weakness, but in your dedicated efforts to fix one thing, something else breaks down.

So, regardless of everything I've learned so far, I've found that the most effective way of improving the narrative is by having a reader tell you where you've excelled and where you've messed up - not just in one or two projects, but in all new projects.  And that takes a lot of tough love.

First readers, beta readers, whatever you want to call them, are the best possible allies you can have.  They are your side-view mirrors.  What's a blind spot to you is no obstacle to them.  Cherish your beta readers.  Adore them.  Bribe them.  Feed them and tenderly braid their long flowing locks.  And for crying out loud, don't ever argue with them, or they'll run away and never talk to you again.  Mike Lorenson and Tobin Elliot both have acted as first readers for me, and they never pull punches.  Unfortunately, neither have flowing locks quite long enough for me to braid, but I have heard tell that they like food, so I'm okay.

All the time, I hear complaints like "I can't write this, I know I'm just going to mess it up," and "I'll never get it right, so screw it."  I say, "Good grief - if you can make that many mistakes, imagine how much you're going to learn!"  If your next story is just as bad, there's not a problem with your ability to write; there's a problem with your willingness to learn and to apply what you've learned.

Make the mistakes.  Find out why, where and how it went wrong.  Come up with a strategy to avoid that problem in the future.  When you write the next story, chances are you'll have avoided 75% of the mistakes you made last time, and the other 25% you can fix in draft two.

On Writing about "On Writing"

So, you can see that most of what I've learned about writing, I learned by not learning about writing.  My education has been 20% deliberate (reading how-to's, attending seminars, interviewing authors), and 80% incidental, having little to nothing to do with writing.

And worse:  everything I know about writing I've pretty much summarized right here and right now.  I can't write a how-to, 'cause I ain't gots 'nuff material. So I leave it to others to write the how-to's.

Like I said earlier, I'm really looking forward to seeing Tobin's book in the near future.  His course was undoubtedly the most formative in my writing career (he accounts for most of the 20% deliberate education).  And if I never take another writing course again, I'd be fine with that.  Tobin has spoiled me from ever taking another general Creative Writing class.

I look forward to his book, not just because it has some new material; I look forward to the refresher.  It's like Tobin's written down all his class notes for me, in an orderly and legible manner!

And I look forward to the refresher because nine times out of ten, if I've made a mistake, I should have known better.  If I faithfully put into practice everything I already knew, I'd improve by leaps and bounds.

Now go buy "Tweet You Write" as soon as it comes out.  That's the best writing advice I can give you.

Geek Mythology and other Typos

I'm a geek of the highest order.  That's why I've captured and cataloged my funniest typos over the years.  Some are funnier than others, but every time I rediscover this list, I find a new reason to laugh about them.

Some of these booboos have been caught by my first readers, and they cause me no end of giggles.  The worst ones are those I catch two seconds after I hit the "save" button on a work memo - or worse, immediately after sending a mass email, company-wide.

And now, instead of blushing about my Freudian fingers, I've bundled all my best gaffes together and posted them just for you.  And heck, if you feel so inclined, add a few of your own to the comments section below, so we can all share in the laughs.

 Naming No-Nos

Scott = Scoot

Fatima = Fatiam

Bobby = Booby

Trish = Trash

Pat = Apt, Oat

Familial Flubs

father = fatter, farther, farter

sisters = Sinisters

brothers = Bothers

babysitters = Babyspitters 

my wife = my woof

wedding = weeding
girlfriend = girlfiend

"to put the food in her children's mouths" = "to put the foot in her children's mouths"

"you can borrow one of my husband's..." = "you can borrow one of my husbands"

"marrying his mousy little secretary" = "marrying his mousy little sister"

Wackiness at Work

troubleshooting = troubleshooing

Ops (Operations) Managers = Oops Managers

paystubs = paystupids

Canada Savings Bond = Canada Savings Bong

billing dispute = boiling dispute

eLearning course = eLearning curse

terminated in error = terminated in terror

engage security = enrage security

"I have them here in my desk" = "I shave them here in my desk"

"depending on which company you use" = depending on which company you sue"

Miscellaneous Mumblings

insulated = insulted

Greek Mythology = Geek Mythology

Sling shots = sling shorts

Chapter Thirty = Chapter Thirsty

Dr. Baines (a mad genius) = Dr. Braines

kickboxing = kickboing

power bars = power bras

but = bust

kidnapped = hidnapped

longshoremen = longsoremen

butterflies = butler flips

my plants have exploded = my pants have exploded

sweet and sour = sweat and sour

mood lighting = mood lightning

draft horse = drat horse, daft horse

an English accent = an English accident

student, studio = stupid

sink = dink

captain = cat pain

"who asked" = "whoa skid"

"I accept nothing but cash" = "I accept nothing but ash"

"the great pilot wheel" = "the great pilot whee" 

"You keep looking at my cane" = "you keep looking at my can"

"we must stop them before they reach the shore!" = "we must stop them before they reach the whore!"

"went to the far end of the huge lobby to hide behind some plants = "went to the far end of the hug lobby to hide behind some pants"

"he threw darts at the dartboard" = "he threw drats at the dratboard"

"man, I needed that sleep" = "man, I needed that slap"

"you'll catch your death of cold!" = "you'll catch your death of cod!"

Heavenly Har-Har's

Rabbi = rabbit

"I'm your guardian angel" = "I'm your guardian agent"

Angel = angle, anal (yikes!)

Stands, Standard = Satan

Saints = Stains, Satins

Blessed peace = blessed peas

The Holy Spirit = The Holy Spit

Murderous Missteps

sat = stab

pirate ship = irate hips

exotic dancer = exotic danger 

dual citizenship = duel citizenship

sacrifice = scarface

the immortal emperor = the immoral emperor

she kissed him = she kicked him

kissed his face = kicked his face

fraud squad = fraud squat

bullet = butt

"She thought treats were in order" = "she thought threats were in order"

"after picking the scum off his molars" = "after picking the scum off his morals"

"use this soothing balm" = "use this soothing blam!"

"hoarse whisper" = "horse whipper"

"she took off her hat" = "she took off her head"

Gross Mistakes

beating his chest = eating his chest

space craft = space crap

crept = crapped

autocracy = autocrappy

amateur = amaturd

faces = feces

penning = peeing

nostrils = snotrils

orange juice = organ juice

disappears = diapers

"where he was going to meet..." = "where he was going to pee"

"this is not good" = "this is not goo"

"...mucking up the place with their muddy boots" = "mucking up the place with their muddy butts"

"sneering at her" = "sneezing at her"

Poor, popcorn, popular = poop, poopcorn, poopular

"after a moment the reporter popped on screen" = "after a moment the reporter pooped on screen"

"it's a brown, foul-smelling paste" = "it's a brown, foul-smelling pasta"

Recurring Nightmares

Heel, hello, held, cell = hell

tests = testes

pencil = never you mind

good luck = um...

shirt, spit, shuttle, sunshine, white, night shift, shift bid, shift change, shifting in his chair = oh guess.

--------

I've shown you mine!  Now go on, share yours.  I totally dare you.  Do keep it clean, though - we've all got pretty good imaginations, and we can fill in the blanks where necessary.

At the Crossroads of History and Fiction

In the previous post, I mention that a very wonderful First Reader named Marlene attacked Mummer's the Word with a bright red pen.  If memory serves correctly, a highlighter, pencil and blue pen were also used, so I got the works!  I still owe her a fine, fancy dinner out when this thing gets published.

But the experience taught me, not just facts, but the skills I need to make a good story in historical fiction.

Am I an expert?  If by "expert" you mean "am I published?", then no.  What I detail below is what I've learned over the past four years, and some of it is educated guessing; but if it works for you, too, then fantastic.

1)  Question Everything

Take for example a hiccup I came across in editing a couple of nights ago.  Mummer says "And now for the Sixty-Four Dollar Question."  I thought myself rather clever, remembering that before the 64,000 Dollar Question, radio stations were modest in their prizes.  Then I went back and checked the broadcast dates of The Sixty-Four Dollar Question.  It aired 1950 - 1952.  My story is set in 1944.  The Sixty-Four Dollar Question is still six years OOP (out-of-period).

So then I got clever and decided to change it to "And now for the skill-testing question..."

I stopped and double-checked again, and boy did I learn some interesting things.

First, I thought skill-testing questions were a normal part of all lotteries and contests, around the world.  Wrong!  It's a Canadian thing. I did not know that.  Secondly, it's still OOP - even worse than the Sixty-Four Dollar Question.  Skill-testing questions are baked right into the Criminal Code of Canada (I didn't know that either), but - and this took some digging to find out - this was after provincial lotteries became legal in 1969.  Definitely OOP.

So, for now I'm stuck with "And now for the real question..."  Yawn.  But historically accurate.

2)  Little Details Make or Break Your Credibility

I'd mentioned in the last post that a police detective had on his person a ballpoint pen - and I had even done my research to see whether or not a ballpoint pen was mass manufactured in 1944.

It may have been inconsequential to me, but Marlene picked up on it, though she was actually reading to check the details about Camp X.  The appearance of a ballpoint pen itched her enough to mention it to me.

The scene is not about the invention of the ballpoint pen.  The scene is about a conversation between a police detective and a man who has lost the power of speech; the pen was meant to be a kind of go-between, a translator - an inconsequential detail.  But it was enough to pull a reader out of the story, and it casts doubt on the accuracy of the rest of my historical detail.  The illusion of time-travel was lost.

And remember - the strangers who read your book are going to be picking it off the shelves because they have an existing interest in history and the time period you're writing about.  Chances are, they're stacking you up against other historical fiction authors, and they have a lot of background knowledge about the period.  They'll be looking to your work for two things:  to build on their knowledge base, and to enjoy a good story.  If they wanted nothing but historical facts, they'd have bought a non-fiction book; so be entertaining without writing a history text book.  If the reader learns something new, and if you are credible, and if you write a good story, they'll buy more books and tell others to buy your book too.

3)  Etymology is your friend.  So are multiple sources.

In the last post, I'd referred to a police officer as a "flatfoot".  I'd done that very deliberately, for a couple of reasons.

First, it would have been in my character's vocabulary, and I know it, because it's said in a number of Old Time Radio plays that I have in my collection.  If it's in a radio play, it's fair game (so long as it predates the time-frame of your story, of course).  We quote movies in our every day speech.  "Go ahead punk.  Make my day", "I'll be back," "You had me at hello" and "Never fight a land war in Asia" all stick out in my head as modern examples.  So what's to stop someone from quoting the radio?

Secondly, the term "flatfoot" is a very subtle but keen insult, given the context.  If you do your research, you'll be surprised to find out why.

One site says cops are called "flatfoots" (ouch - awkward grammatical construction, that) because beat cops used to walk long patrol routes, which presumably gave rise to fallen arches - flat feet.

But another site states the historical reason why I actually chose the insult.  Men with flat feet were disqualified from military service during World War II, but not from serving on a police force.  So, for my ex-paratrooper main character to call someone a flatfoot is to point out that the civilian police officer wasn't fit enough (read "man enough") for army duty - or for any kind of conflict for that matter, when pitched against a man who has seen action overseas.

Key lesson here:  if you stick with only website, you're only ever going to get one answer, and you'll be missing the bigger picture.  Worse:  you could be getting the wrong answer altogether.

Wikipedia is not the be-all and end-all of information; neither is Ask.com.  These are user-contribution sites; any Joe or Jane can add bald-faced lies, so long as they have an editor's membership and no one checks their sources.

Instead, go read a site or a book written by an authority on the subject.  Check their references - the footnotes are there for a reason.  Better yet, always try to get at the primary sources.  (Click here for a definition of primary and secondary sources.)  Get your hands on artefacts (antiques and vintage posters, for example), images (photos, paintings, films from that time period), and original written documents (newspapers, letters, advertisements from that time period, etc.).  If you're really lucky, talk to people who've lived in that time and in that place.

My favourite contact with primary sources:  a guided tour of the actual site of Camp X.  After the Camp was completely decommissioned, somebody, in their infinite military wisdom, took a bulldozer and literally pushed the buildings and materiel off the cliff overlooking Lake Ontario.  Now, after a big storm, bits and pieces of history wash ashore:  bits of plates, the handle of a mug, pieces of brick, water-worn glass...I even walked around for two years with a lump of coal in my purse - something I had picked off the shore that day.

By the way, Lynn Phillip Hodgson, author of Inside Camp X, is giving another guided tour the weekend of September 24th, 2011.  Great for the kids.  SO GO SEE HIM, OR ELSE!

Try to avoid historical films - i.e. movies made now, set 60 years ago.  They're great inspiration, but you run the risk of carbon copying someone else's error.

4)  Info dumps are for Wikipedia. 


I could name a few very popular authors who'd like to give you the historical background of the modern light bulb before the hero can turn one on.  Did someone die during the invention of the modern light bulb, and does it have any bearing on the plot at hand?  No?  Great, get it out of the book.  If you don't, I swear, I'll put the book down (in the recycling bin) and never pick it up again.

Historical details need to be as subtle as the chairs in a restaurant scene.  Your characters need to interact with them (actual headlines from real newspapers revealed when a character sits down to read it, dropping coffee beans into a hand-cracked coffee grinder while listening to a baseball game on the radio, or asking someone to check their stocking seams and giggling about an upcoming movie date).  Unless the character has a really good reason for it, they shouldn't treat the prop as a novelty or with nostalgia.

And for goodness sake, limit your props to what is readily and easily available in that year - and nothing more!

There are two types of historical fiction authors I would joyfully string up by their earlobes.  One has a character that says "Gee, I wish I had (this thing that is readily available in 2011)!  Wouldn't that be handy right now?"  The other has a character that says "Boy, I'll sure miss this (thing that was only available until 1952) when it's gone!"  Characters are not clairvoyant!  If they are, I don't want to read your story!  It's a lot more fun when nobody knows what's going on (except for the writer), because that's more realistic, and more suspenseful!

If you need to explain the history of a prop in your story, it had bloody well better be related to the story at hand.  Seriously.  I have no attention span when it comes to gratuitous detail.

5)  History has history.


Historical fiction needs to be written as if no time has passed since the epoch in which this story was set.  1945 does not exist in Mummer's world.  The Atom Bomb doesn't exist.  Hitler will keep on fighting until the end of time, and he might even win.  That is Mummer's world.  We may know differently, but Mummer doesn't.  This affects his every decision, and it's true to life.


But when you're researching your time frame (i.e. 1944), bear in mind that a) your characters and b) your world has had history leading up to this time.

Characters are influenced by today (1944), but also by personal history (1918-1944, primary and secondary education, a job, girlfriends and ex-girlfriends, fights, accidents...taxes...).  They're also influenced by global history (the Second World War, the Depression, the Roaring 20s and the First World War).  Did his father serve in another War before him?  Can they swap war stories?  Was his mother a war bride?

Always bear in mind the character's age if you have to delve into backstory.  Mummer was between the ages of 2 and 12 during the '20s.  He's likely to remember his first bike, or his trading cards and slingshot, or the time his uncle fell off the couch in a drunken stupor, and less likely to remember world events.

History affects all characters, too, not just the primary.  In fact, your supporting characters may have had longer personal histories than your main character, and a wider global history, too.  One supporting character in Mummer's the Word is Spanish.  Did you know that between the First and Second World War there was a Civil War in Spain?  How does that affect a man's character, if he serves in World War I (1914-1918) and emigrates to Canada during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and launches right into World War II (1939-1945)?  That's a lot of war in one man's lifetime.  And he didn't even know about Korea, Vietnam, the Cold War or the Middle East!

Consider history in terms of ethnicity as well.  I had one character in Her Poison Voice that came from a country that didn't exist when he was born (Yugoslavia); and even though he emigrated when he was a babe in arms, because of his nationality, he was interned during World War I.  And that was in Canada!  Imagine how that affects his psyche during the Depression, when competition for jobs is at its fiercest, and discrimination was commonplace.

History affects different social strata differently but concurrently.  A farmer in the Dustbowl will see the '30s differently from a laid-off factory worker in the big city, who will see the Depression differently from the middle-class car dealer with a family of three daughters, who will see it differently from the spoiled rich bachelor with the diamond cuff links and the black bow tie.  Worse, each one of these characters is looking at each other through the lenses of their own troubled existence.

Fortunately, most books won't have a farmer, factory worker, car dealer and Dapper Dan in the same scene, which simplifies things for writer and reader.  But I suggest you keep a wide perspective on your time period in order to enrich the characters, the setting and the plot.

History is broader, longer and more complex than you think.  Write first, research thoroughly second, and edit like crazy.

But be careful:  you'll lose me with too much back story and too many overt cases of "Lookit me!  Here's proof I did my research!".  Balance, balance, balance - and more on this in a moment.

Also, when was the last time you thought, "Wow, I wish we had never interned the Japanese."  If you're involved in a murder, you've got other things on your mind.  Use hindsight with great caution.  You can frame hindsight in context however:  "Who are you to scream about internment camps in the Fatherland?  You interned the Japanese, the Germans and the Italians.  You confiscated their wealth and property, even when they were born in Canada.  And do I have to bring up Indian Reservations?"


6)  You can make some stuff up, but people are going to call your bluff.

There are very practical reasons why I chose to make up the municipality of Morgan City.

For one thing, it allows me to merge the Ontario-ish-ness of the towns I grew up in, with the architecture I love in Montreal.  I'm well acquainted with the historical significance of places like Ajax, Ontario, for example (a town which came about because of World War II).  I'm familiar with the flora, fauna, waterways and personality of the area.

Secondly, dang it, it was faster and easier to make up a chimerical town than have to purchase a zoning map of an actual city as it was in 1944 - and then to have to layer in the architecture, the position of the sun, the industrial buildings and the great timing chain of lunches and breaks and bank hours.

Thirdly, I didn't want to pick on one city or another, because someone's always going to know more than me about the history of any real place.  But nobody knows Morgan City, Ontario, as well as I do.  You can ask me the hills, valleys, park lands, creeks and ravines, empty lots, commercial zones and residential neighbourhoods; you can ask me where the meat processing plant is in relation to the Utilities Building; you can ask me when's the best time to get a burger, and where.  I could even tell you about the various schools and religious conflicts in the town.  I've "studied" Morgan City so well I swear I've shopped at the Farthing & Gage Department Store for my underwear and bubble gum.

Sometimes, making stuff up is just plain easier - if you do it well.

But then you get into some sticky business where you have to fuse fiction with reality.

Mummer was a Lance Corporal and later Sergeant with the 4th Paratroopers of Morgan City (a unit affectionately known as the "4 Paramours" - 4th Canadian PARAchute Batallion of MORgan City).

There are two problems with that.  For one, the real-life 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion was formed in 1942.  Mummer was already overseas with the 4th Paratroopers by then...so...what happened to the 2nd and 3rd Battalions, and how come the 4 Paramours were already overseas before the 1st Battalion was even formed?

I also mention in the story that Mummer had encountered the 48th Highlanders of Canada.  The 48th is an actual Highland (kilt-wearing) unit that served in WWII.  They also used to be known as the Dirty Four Dozen, The Glamour Boys - and as one Canadian veteran told me, "The Ladies from Hell."  And I'm partial to adding the 48th Highlanders into the story, because that was the unit I served with for two years in the Reserves.  Dileas!  (I was a terrible soldier, by the way, that's why I was only in for two years.)

So I have some trouble here:  by having fictional units and real units in the same story, you cast doubt on the real units, and whether they existed or not.  The flip side is, because the 48th Highlanders actually existed, I have to wonder how many people are going to try and Google "4 Paramours" to see if they were real or not.

Blending in Mummer's involvement with Camp X is, by comparison, simple to do.  Only an extremely small number of people knew who graduated from Camp X.  There is some dispute whether Ian Fleming (creator of James Bond) was one of the students there, but I have no reason to doubt it.  (I can't prove it one way or the other!)

But there's a simple explanation for why few know who went in or went out of Camp X:  they're called secret agents for a good reason.

So, until somebody tells me otherwise, we can all go on believing that some cutie like John "Mummer" Stillman could have been one of its graduates.

On top of that, I need to decide whether or not to fictionalize the actions of a person who actually existed.  I'm growing more and more uncomfortable with using this one personage in my story, though it would be a perfect tie-in between the real and the fictional.  I'm still on the fence, and even when I do make my final decision, I'll question it.  After all, what if it's public knowledge that this real life person was in Piccadilly Square at the time I have him in Morgan City?  What if the actions I'm putting him in are outside of his character, or his authority?  Can I make it up?

7)  My favourite historical fiction strikes a perfect balance.

If you're writing historical fiction, you are compelled to make some stuff up; but you also have to stick in some actual details, or else it's not historical fiction.  By definition, historical fiction is the weaving together of fact and fiction.

I have found a tendency toward laziness among some historical fiction authors (including those I've met but won't name, because I prefer stirring up trouble in person).  They carry an attitude of "Stop asking questions and just enjoy the story."  This kind of attitude allows a writer to shrug off glaring historical inaccuracies and call them "exercises in artistic license" or "fictionalization."  Blah!  Bad bad bad!  At least put some effort into it.

Draw a horizontal line, labeling one end "FACT" (coal ships sailed all over Lake Ontario) and the other end "FICTION" (Nazi-planted limpet mines blew up a coal ship in Morgan City Harbour).  Too far to the "Fiction" end, and you run the risk of being labeled "Alternate history" or even "fantasy".  Too far the other way, and I'll fall asleep.

Bisect that line with a vertical axis.  Put "HIGH DETAIL" at one end (sat in a scarlet brocade-upholstered genuine Louis XIV fauteuil smoking a meershaum pipe which had first been bought by a shady bookie in Ankara and sold for gas money in 1933).  At the other end, put "VAGUE DETAIL" (sat and smoked while reading the news).  Too vague, and I wonder why you don't just set the story in modern times; too much detail and I will tear whole paragraphs out of your book, marinate them overnight in brine and eat them.

But even I'm at risk of putting in too much.  I've done all but drawn a surveyor's map of Morgan County.  My challenge is not to describe everything in one book! Yes I know how one character lost an arm (where he was, what he was doing, what time of day it was, where he put the dynamite and why it blew up too soon); but how he lost his arm doesn't have any bearing on the trouble at hand (so to speak), so I have to leave it out for now.

In the intersection of those two lines, I think you'll find that perfect balance.  What historical fiction I've liked has fallen right in the middle of that diagram.  I want to read more historical crime fiction to see who I like best, but so far, it's Ellis Peters all the way (creator of Cadfael, among other characters).

So, given all these rules and pitfalls, why bother writing historical fiction at all?  Why read it?  In Part Three of this mini-series, I'll attempt to answer exactly those questions.

Stay tuned!