[stylist] stylist Digest, Vol 80, Issue 26

Thu Dec 30 01:04:38 UTC 2010

Carry,
"spiritous liquor" is sort of similar in setting and feel.  but it 
definitely ends in "spirits."
thanks.
jc

At 05:05 PM 12/29/2010, you wrote:
>Hi friends,
>
>Jim, do you mean strong spirits? Or spirituous liquor? You're right 
>though that there is another phrase. I'll try to remember it.
>
>Atty, IMO your friend is very foolish. Avid reading is the first 
>requisite for being a writer. Every successful writer I've ever 
>heard talk about the subject says this.
>
>The question of his facts and details being incorrect is another 
>matter. In that case, he simply is not researching adequately if at 
>all, but going with his imagination or vague impressions from, well, 
>obviously not from books, from TV and movies I suppose. Forgive me 
>for speaking bluntly, but such behavior is both arrogant and 
>amateurish. Nobody is going to take his work seriously if he can't 
>even be bothered to get his facts straight. Even seasoned writers 
>have to do research, and even then either they or their editors 
>occasionally let some error slip through, an error that is glaringly 
>obvious to some reader somewhere. I remember reading, though not who 
>said it, that fudging never works because there's always a reader 
>who'll catch you out.
>
>And it's not just out and out errors, sometimes inconsistencies slip 
>through. For instance, after having seen the new Harry Potter movie, 
>I've been rereading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in which 
>are two really major inconsistencies. I can't imagine how either 
>Rowling or her editor let them through, but they did. No matter how 
>hard you try, it's all but impossible to hand in a totally clean 
>manuscript. There's always that stray, misplaced comma or that 
>mention in passing on page 713 of Maurine's blue eyes when on page 
>57 Tex was intrigued by her green eyes. We're only human and can't 
>help such slips. But that makes it all the more imperative to check 
>and double check and re-re-double check facts. Your friend does 
>himself no favors by refusing to do so.
>
>Flat characters? I'm not sure how much of this problem is 
>attributable to your friends lack of reading and how much to his 
>failure to let his imagination go. He may be scared, without quite 
>knowing it himself, to give his imagination and his characters free 
>reign. It can be scary. If you regard them as people, rather than 
>game pieces or whatever, then you run the risk of their taking the 
>story into their ownhands and doing things you didn't plan. For 
>myself, this very unpredictability is part of the fun and 
>exhilaration of writing. Sometimes you end up going in a totally 
>different direction than you expected, finding totally new scenes 
>and settings and even characters unfolding before you just because 
>you gave one character his head rather than forcing him into the 
>path you predetermined for him. Lots of professional writers say 
>they keep writing to find out what happens next. While it's often 
>helpful to have an outline of your storyline, either formally 
>written down and worked out or informally in your mind, still the 
>most exciting and rewarding things often happen ifyou're willing to 
>explore hitherto unthought of possibilities as they arise.
>
>Unfortunately, this willingness to go with the flow only comes with 
>confidence. And confidence, by its nature, is something that 
>beginning writers lack.
>
>As an aside, a "beginning writer" needn't be someone who has only 
>been writing for a short time. It's a frame of mind, very much your 
>friend's frame ofmind. I can't remember how I got past it, if I have 
>altogether. I'm afraid that's something everyone has to do for her/himself.
>
>Many writers, myself included, find that there is something of 
>themselves in most ifnot all of their characters. I think that's 
>natural. If you're writing about a bad guy, you call on the 
>darkness, anger and unhappiness within yourself to lendhim 
>verisimilitude. Similarly, you may take what you consider your own 
>best features and exaggerate, idealize them as the basis ofyour 
>heroine. In a novel-in-progress I recently gave Robert to read, he 
>remarked that he thought the first person narrator was me. That gave 
>me a smile. She is my alter ego in some ways, but her life has been 
>very different from mine. The reason, I think, Felicity seems so 
>real to Robert is that I am very fond of her and do indeed pour a 
>great deal of my own intellectual and emotional life into her even 
>though in so many ways she is very different from me.
>
>In most of my stories, I put some degree of myself and/or my 
>experience of other people into the characters. They become very 
>real and alive to me, occasionally more real and alive than so 
>called real life. While I'm writing I become the character I'm 
>writing. This is easiest with a first person narrator, but it can 
>happen with third person narration as well. It ismost easy and 
>natural with a female character, but it happens with male characters 
>as well. My favorite characters in my other novel-in-progress are 
>the young men, one of whom is a first person narrator and the other 
>is written third person. My first experience, many years ago, of 
>writing a first person narration of a young man alarmed me rather. 
>What did I know about being a good looking and talented young 
>journalist? How could I presume to write through him? But, 
>eventually I realized that the truth of who he was is what mattered, 
>not that he was of a different gender, living in a different state, 
>pursuing a different calling than myself. I haven't looked at that 
>story in a long time. No doubt there's a good deal more of me in 
>Ross than I realized while writing. But thinking about him, he is as 
>vivid and real to me as anybody I've met in the real world.
>
>That may be the key. The characters have to be people, people who 
>are real to the writer. If they're all merely aspects of the writer 
>himself they won't be real to anyone, not even him. There again, 
>though, this is something each writer needs to discover for 
>her/himself. I don't know how to teach it, and you can't force it. 
>The person has to come to it on his own.
>
>Donna, LOL. I wrote the above before reading other people's 
>responses. Interesting that both you and I use the terms "arrogant" 
>and "foolish."
>
>Your point about the joy of reading is a good one. I can't imagine 
>life without reading!
>
>Anita, well said.
>
>It's difficult to come to that open mindedness and willingness to 
>consider criticism. It took me quite some time to get there. And it 
>is important to recognize what criticism you don't need.
>
>For instance, I once showed a newly finished story with which I was 
>very pleased to someone who read it and told me that it wasn't worth 
>the finger power needed to type it. I was devastated. But a very 
>dear friend, when I told him, asked in gentle exasperation why I 
>persisted in showing that particular person my fiction. She seems to 
>likemy poetry, but her response to my fiction has never been 
>favorable or, in most cases, even understanding. The observation 
>kind of knocked me for a loop, but eventually I realized that my 
>friend was right. I'm fond of this person, but that's no reason to 
>continue to subject myself to her totally non-constructive, 
>non-supportive remarks. So, I don't. Life's too short, and there are 
>plenty of other people whose opinion I value who are willing to read 
>and talk to me about my fiction.
>
>Jim, it seems to me that arrogance and fear often reinforce and feed 
>off each other in many aspects of life, not just writing. You may 
>well be right. Fear and insecurity do lead to a closing in on 
>oneself. As I've said, though, I don't know how Atty can help her 
>friend. If he won't listen, he won't listen. He has to live and grow 
>in his own time. Enough rejection slips may break down his 
>resistance, start him thinking that maybe he's not an island. On the 
>other hand, rejections may justharden his resolve. I don't know.
>
>Lori, yes, writing in someone else's style can be a good exercise. 
>It can also be fun and productive. Think of fan fiction.
>
>Solidarity and Peace,
>
>Kerry
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