Jack Kerouac, cafe racers, writing and style

Another WordPress blogger suggested a while back that Jack Kerouac was the ‘café racer’ of writers. She was right, of course.

Ducati ‘Paul Smart’ 1000LE, one of only a handful imprted into New Zealand. In some senses it’s more stripped sports bike than classic cafe racer. I took this photo for a book I was writing on bikes in 2008.

That got me thinking – as good blog posts should. Cafe racers were simple, honest motorcycles, quintessential cool. They captured the freedom of lifestyle; road legal bikes you could race on the track. For me you can’t go past the Vincent Black Shadow. The first superbike and, for me, quintessential café racer. Those beasts could drag-race jet fighters – and win, at least until the jet took off. They appeared in 1948 and weren’t beaten for speed until Kawasaki turned up with the 750 Triple in 1973.

The message I got from the post was that Kerouac’s style – his approach, his authenticity, the feel – relates to writing in the same way that café racers relate to motorcycles.

Those three words again  – cool. Fast. Authentic. Kerouac was all these things. There was no doubt about cool.  The beat crowd defined it.

Speed? Kerouac blew On The Road through his typewriter in three weeks. And his stories were fast, too; On The Road, again, pushed at breakneck speed. Authentic? Kerouac went steps further than Hemingway when it came to authenticity. Sometimes what he wrote was literally real.

His was a quest for self in a youth generation who had spun out of the Great Depression and sought all the joy they could find in life.

He wrote real. Authenticity to himself; authenticity to reality as he saw it. Just like a café racer and the riding experience.

Can we learn from this? Absolutely. If we can find something that symbolises our style, like the café racer symbolises Kerouac, what can we then learn about ourselves?

Extending the point (as I always do), I wonder about other writers. J. K. Rowling, for instance, who I’d classify as the ‘family car’ of writers – a bit cliched in terms of ideas, but absolutely solid, reliable and competent (I can hear the scream from the Harry Potter fans…but I mean, magic wands and school stories? Reinvented cliche…but still cliche.)

Or Robert A. Heinlein, who was always looked on as an SF writer but really was an American writer, generally – tackling all the issues that needed tackling. Another realist. Solid. Conservative, yet with a twist that got you thinking. Full sports bike, maybe – Ducati? As opposed to someone like Michael Moorcock, whose writing I’d envisage more like a trail-bike – scorching off on his own very interesting direction with eager joy.

Who’s your favourite author…and what mode of transport – with lifestyle – do they remind you of?

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2013

Write it now, part 12: disentangling that idea splurge

Over the past few weeks we’ve been exploring the way writing is structured, with an ever-closer focus.

My account of the ‘musket wars’, published by Penguin in 2011, was pretty hard to structure – took a lot of re-working via the ‘shuffle the pages’ technique – to get a lot of simultaneous social concepts into a single readable thread.

This last post on structure takes us to the deepest level – the way paragraphs and sentences are arranged.

One of the biggest problems most writers have to face is translating the way we actually think and imagine things – which is usually as a ‘simultaneous picture’ – into writing, which is a single linear thread.

It’s failure to tackle this problem, I think, that produces non-fiction in which half the side-points are relegated to footnotes. And fiction riddled with flash-backs.

The key to the problem is deconstruction – being able to take that ‘simultaneity’ of ideas and fit them together in linear form. What comes first? The approach we looked at last time – ‘organising principle’ – works at this level too.

The best starting point is that old adage of starting big and moving on to detail. Say you’re describing a scene from a character’s viewpoint. Their first impression will always be the big picture, moving on to the details as they notice them. The nature of how they notice those details may be a reflection of their character – remembering that fiction is a way of taking readers on an emotional journey.

It’s often harder in non-fiction, where the organising principle may not be chronology, but a theme or idea. Different components have equal weighting in the big picture – making it difficult to figure out which one might come first. But, again, organising principles help.

The key point to bear in mind for all writing – non-fiction and fiction alike – is that it is taking the reader on an emotional journey. And sometimes, the nature of that journey can itself become a device for ordering the content.

Next –  look at some of the nitty gritty of novel writing, genre content and other stuff.

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2013

Coming up this week: more sixty second writing tips, inspirations, geekery – and a spot of history.

Write it now part 11: ‘how’ not ‘what’, the key secret to writing it big

Being told that what you write must have a ‘beginning,’ middle’ and ‘end’ must be the oldest and stalest tip in the book.

Made worse because it’s true. Every written piece needs structure, whether it’s a 300-word blog entry or a 600,000 word magnum opus, fiction or non-fiction. Even lists need an organising principle – giving structure.

But what does that really mean?

Over-arching structure varies depending on what you’re writing. Academic essays must have a ‘tell you three times’ structure – abstract, argument and conclusion. In fiction – let’s say the ‘hero journey’, the beginning is the normal world; the middle the second act, where the hero learns; and the end the third, climactic act. Think Star Wars or Wizard of Oz.

Blog posts or feature articles (same thing, writing-wise) use the inverted pyramid – broad-spectrum grab-line, expository, and punch-out, usually on a specific point.

The trick is being able to express it – to make ‘what’ you are writing fit in with ‘how’ you want the work to be structured.

Let’s say you’re writing a novel and you’ve got a list of cool scenes for your character. Or an idea for non-fiction. What do you do?

First off, set the scenes aside. The first steps in the journey from germ of idea to published work have little to do with the ‘what’ of the content, and a lot to do with the ‘how’.

Start by creating a log-line – the sentence that describes what you are trying to do. In non-fiction or academia it’s called the ‘thesis’ – but it’s functionally the same thing. (Academics call a document with supporting argument a ‘thesis’, but technically it is the sentence defining what they’re trying to argue).

I’ve posted many times before about the importance of having a log-line first as a start point. This is why.

The log line gives you the journey, which means you can plan out ‘how’ you are going to do it. This is the key step. Let’s say your logline reads ‘Downtrodden girl has to find strength in herself to save a kingdom and so make her dreams come true.’

Focus on the emotional side – on the character arc – for example:

1. Beginning. Introduce characters from the POV of the downtrodden girl.

2. Middle. Follow experiences of main character as she begins to grow and realise she can break free, if only she knew how. A challenge is laid down; she so wants to meet it, but is prevented by her oppressive family. She is shown how to break free by a mentor, who helps her achieve what seems to be her dream.

3. End. What appeared to be her dream is not her true dream; but because she has gained new confidence she is able to step out and seize the moment when it comes. Her character arc is complete and the story ends.

Notice how I managed to not mention fairy godmothers, wicked witches, ugly sisters, handsome princes, tin men, lions or wizards in emerald cities. The details of the plot – come later –Wizard of Oz or Cinderella, depending on choice. But that’s the point. At this over-arching structural stage, the ‘scene by scene’ details are less important.

They come later – well, next week, in fact.

Meanwhile – have you had experiences with structure? Do you start with a logline?

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2013

Write it now, part 6: the broad skill that is writing

What sort of writing do you dream of doing?

It’s not an idle question. I was chatting with someone via twitter a little while back about writing, and it finally dawned on me that their definition of ‘writer’ and ‘writing’ was actually ‘novellist’ – they assumed that everybody who dreamed of ‘becoming’ a writer wanted to write fiction; this defined the field for them.

That, in fact, is what I was formally trained in myself. But alas, I had to admit, the book I was working on was non-fiction.

Writing encompasses not just novel writing – and all the genres of it – but also short story writing (a different skill set), essays, science papers, journalism – feature writing in particular – non-fiction in its many forms. Even blogging, which is a slight variant on the feature writing skill set.

All of them draw from the core competence of being able to write - the control of words to evoke emotion. It seems to me that writers should tackle more than one of the types of writing before they go on to specialise. It gives different insights into the essential skill – making words your servant, so as to evoke an emotion in the reader. Writing in a different field forces control of style and content. It means you are familiar with more than just the specific skills needed for your preferred genre or field. And that breadth pays dividends. It all feeds together. You’ll be surprised how it works when you then come to the aspect of writing that you’re most passionate about.

It shouldn’t be daunting. One way is to go blogging, which has the double benefit of expanding your author platform – gets everything moving towards the same end goal.

There’s nothing unusual about this approach; a broad skill base is an essential part of formal training in many arts. Musicians do it – some music qualifications, for instance, specifically require that a performer master a second instrument. It’s true for actors, too. We often classify actors by their best known roles – but in fact, the best actors are trained to play anyone – and perform in any genre. Think of Michael Caine – a brilliant dramatic actor who is also a brilliant comedian.

It’s the same with writing. Remember Isaac Asimov? He tackled everything from short stories to novels to popular science essays to limericks. Because, for him, writing was a profession – he had total control of his words, and that made it a transferable skill that allowed him to write virtually anything.

I think that’s a good way for any writer to be.

What do you figure?

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2013

Coming up this week: Inspirations in New Zealand’s deep south, more on kindness, science geekery, and more.

Sixty second writing tips: changing your writing frame

You’d be surpried how the tools you write with frames the work.

Computers frame us in many ways, particularly through screen size and the way we interface with it.  A lot of writers today use Word or Scrivener – yet, no matter how flexible that is, we’re still going to be limited by what the programmers think writers need, and by the way they think writers work.

In this day and age the onus is on to get an edge – to think laterally. And one way to do that is to change your writing framework. Here are some tips:

1. Plan your writing with pen and paper (the most flexible medium I know of).

2. Compose the actual text on the computer, sure – it’s fast, convenient and necessary – but use it like a typewriter.

3. Once you’ve edited it, print the resulting file and do a final edit on paper. Sure, you have to type your correx back into the computer – but the effect here is the change of medium. Spread the pages out on the floor. You can’t do that wuith a screen – and it gives you the whole work at a glance. Does it tell you anything?

4. At any of these stages, you can also change your environment – go and write somewhere new. That’s part of the frame, too.

Do these techniques work for you?

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2013

Write it now, part 2: do you write because you have to?

Welcome to part 2 of this series on the A-Z of writing. In these initial posts I’m exploring the foundations of the art – what writing’s about (emotion), why we write, and what’s needed to learn about it. In a few weeks I’ll be moving on to some of the tips and tricks that writers use – some how-to posts, and a lot more.

Today – why do writers write? It’s not an idle question. Do writers write because they’ve chosen it as a hobby – a pastime, or entertainment? Or something more serious?  I figure there will be as many answers to this question as there are people who write.

To me, writing is about doing. It is more than a pastime, though I do pass the time with it – and enjoy doing so. And for most people who write, I think, it is the doing that counts. Writing – practising, learning, doing – is the priority. Committed writers push at it, barrel out text, push projects to completion – make it happen. They will keep pushing – looking for agents, looking for publishers. Some even make a living from it – if they’re lucky.

They write because they have to.

I think that applies to most writers who make a career of it, whether they write fiction or non-fiction, whether they freelance as journalists or focus on books.

The pertinent question is why. Why is writing a compulsion?

Personally I don’t identify myself as ‘a historian’ or ’a writer’, or anything else. Writing is what I do, not what I am. I think writing is an expression. It is a way of sharing. It is also, I think, a way of understanding the world, and for expressing that understanding in ways that cannot be conveyed in speech. It is a way of communicating concepts – often flawed, maybe, but a way. To some extent, too, I think writing acts as a way of recharging the batteries. Know what I mean? Writing suits, I think, people who are more introverted than not.  Sometimes.

Everybody has their own reasons why they write – what pushes them. Why they have to write. But there is,  I think, always going to be a commonality. Maybe a surprising commonality.

Why do you write? Do tell. I figure we’re going to find a lot of like-minded people.

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2013

Coming up: Inspirations – the city rising from the wreckage; more on kindness; sixty second writing tips, and more.

Sixty Second Writing Tip: four steps to writers’ un-block

It happens. Writers block. The dreaded curse of anyone with a deadline.

Quick tip. If you’re confronted with an empty mind and blinking cursor, try one of these:

1. If you’re just stuck on words alone – can’t extract the perfect phrase – jump to the next sentence or paragraph. Try writing that. Then go back to the sticking point.
2. Still stuck? Go for a walk, do the dishes – take a break. Not too long though. Ten minutes maximum – if you’re in the ‘zone’, you don’t want to break it.
3. Bigger sticking demands bigger guns. Stuck on an idea? Direction? Change medium. If you’re on a computer, grab a pen and paper. Brainstorm. Write down the first things that come to mind.
4. Still stuck? OK, do something completely different. Get out of the ‘zone’ altogether – go watch a movie, have a meal. Then come back to your writing.

Do these work for you? Have you a favourite way of getting yourself out of dreaded ‘writers block’? I’d love to hear from you.

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2013

Next: Write It Now, Part 2 – plus Inspirations, kindness, and more. Watch this space.

Writing tips: building bridges to readers with tension

Writing thrives on tension. It’s the force that pulls agents, publishers and readers into the book. It keeps them there – draws them into the story and drives them to turn the pages.

Sometimes that tension is overt. For all his faults Dan Brown was a master at it. Indeed, I think this was the only redeeming feature of his The Of Vinci Code (I know what I said).

Tension is also true of non-fiction. You have but to read anything by Dava Sobel to understand how tension can be written into non-fiction – and make it compelling. Or Antony Beevor. I disagree with many of his historical interpretations – in 2004 I appeared on New Zealand national TV, arguing against his ideas. But there’s no doubt about his skill as a populist and stylist – and his ability to pull readers on with tension.

Tension doesn’t happen by itself. It works itself into all sorts of levels in writing. In fiction it happens in the general plot. It happens in the characterisations and dialogue. It happens in the writing style. They don’t all have to be present – witness Brown, whose character at best were cardboard caricatures. Yet his stories were compelling.

I look on it in engineering analogies. In the early twentieth century, bridge-builders used vast tonnages of reinforced concrete to get load-bearing strength. There was no dynamic. Then someone came up with the idea of actively twisting the reinforcing, like winding up a rubber band. Hey presto – bridges got strong, dynamic, elastic and light. So did parking buildings and office blocks.

A picture I took a few years back of the pre-stressed ferroconcrete bridge at the mouth of the Hutt River. Lots of hidden tension giving dynamic to the form – and not a bad analogy for the way we can write.

That’s what writers have to do – tension with lightness. Let’s look at some of the ways writers can do this. All of these work together, of course:

1. Writing style
A. E. Van Vogt had a system of writing ‘hook words’, typically an adverb that seemed mis-placed but which created a sense of mystery. I could see the logic – he was trying to pull readers into the next sentence. I was never a fan of this system, because it created styling contrivances, but it does seem to work for some authors.

2. Micro-plot structure
Each scene in a story, or sequence in non-fiction, needs to have its own driving tension. There does not just have to be a reason why scenes play out as they do; there also has to be a thread to them –something that will, in some small or large way, create anticipation.

3. Macro-plot structure
The entire story needs broad dynamic tension to pull readers through. This is true of fiction and non-fiction. Think of it as those rods of twisted steel. You have to be able to wind it up across the span of the book.

4. Character interaction
Much of the tension in a novel – at all these levels – comes from the way characters clash. It doesn’t mean characters argue in every dialogue, but there needs to be a tension– a dissonance of goals.

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2012

Beating the post-NaNo Blues – Part 2

I posted yesterday about the way writers can take that old manuscript and re-cast it. Not just revising, but re-inventing.

Which brings me to NaNoWriMo. I sometimes wonder what happens to the results of so many hours of labour poured into thousands of manuscripts around the US – and the world – every November. Do manuscripts end up sitting in virtual drawers, forgotten? Do authors re-write later? Do authors look back and feel despondent? Proud?

The reality of writing is that 50,000 words blasted out in four weeks – and believe me, that is daunting even for a professional author – is going to be pretty rough. It’ll need work. And maybe, after a month’s slog, enthusiasm might well need re-kindling. My take? Try this:

1. Stick the MS in the proverbial drawer for a while.

2. Come back to it. Re-read it critically – but only for structure, for character arc, for plot. Make notes.

3. Go through a planning exercise – here are some pointers. Re-cast the necessary content.

4. Sit down with a blank sheet of paper or empty file, and begin writing. That’s right. From scratch. This is the important part. Why? Because by starting with a blank sheet you’re giving yourself an opportunity for all those ideas fizzing around from the planning to re-express themselves. It’s something that used to happen by default in the old typewriter days – there was always the opportunity to re-cast while you were making a clean copy of a pen-and-ink amended typescript.

5. Today, re-typing doesn’t mean re-typing everything, necessarily. Open the original NaNo file – and copy across the elements that DID work, or re-cast them as it suits.

Yes, it’s likely to be a lot of work…but that is what writing is about. And the reality of books – which I’ll be exploring in the next little while – is that they have less to do with word count than they do with being an organic entity, a means of taking a reader on a journey. They are also a journey for the author, and those journeys always start with a single step.

Does this work for you? Did you join NaNoWriMo this year? How did you fare?

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2012

Writing tip: adding ‘eyebrows’ to your style

Grammar is a curious beast. The rules are there for a reason – to make our writing make sense. But they change over time. They’re often ambigious.

Despite this confusing melange, we get pinged if somebody has a different idea. I once had a reviewer take ‘points off’ one of my books because I’d used ‘impacted’ as a verb. Kind of ironic; one of the things I do professionally is write grammar standards, and my knowledge of English rules was once described as ‘scary’.

The thing is – and setting aside sanctimonious nit-picking – some writing rules can be broken. Why? They lend an edge to your style, although you have to be judicious, both in terms of quantity and of which ones you break or bend. These things work not because they are common, but because they are rare. Frank Zappa called them ‘eyebrows’ in a musical context. It’s a good metaphor.

Writers can do it, too. Get it right, and your writing will stand out. Here are a few ideas:

Start occasional sentences with a conjunction
And that’s OK, sometimes. The conjunction as starter is a fairly common journalistic technique; it adds a flow to the writing which you can’t get any other way.

Sentence fragments
Fragments. OK. Providing, of course, that you understand how they work and use them sparingly. They create a punctuated rhythm in the words and are handy for dialogue.

Repetition
A repeated adverb can become a powerful tool, both in prose and non-fiction – ideally, pick an alliterative word.

Dashes as endings
People don’t speak with written grammar or punctuation. Ending a piece of dialogue with a dash can become a way of emphasising the point. Or it could be used to emphasise a surprise ending.

One challenge is getting some of these through editorial processes. A few years ago I wrote a ‘science fiction’ history book. I wanted to end one chapter with a dash to create an ambigious punch-line. My editor (who had absolutely no feel or sympathy whatsoever for my writing style) changed it to a full stop. I changed it back. It got changed again. I changed it back. The battle went on through successive proofs. Finally I got what I wanted.

Do you use creative rule-breaking as a way of adding eyebrows to your writing?

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2012