Advice from Papa Hemingway

Saw a good movie recently. No, not the latest mega-hit. We don't get out that often. But I have a library card, and we recently brought home Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris."

Owen Wilson (actually acting instead of mugging for the camera) is a writer visiting Paris with his bitch of a fiancee in 2010. He ends up going back in time – don't worry about how – to Paris of the 1920s where he meets all kinds of famous literary figures, especially Hemingway who is portrayed brilliantly by an actor I've never heard of – Corey Stoll.

Hemingway in this movie is self-centered and obsessed, but it masks an inner insecurity. He pontificates, almost as if afraid that if he doesn't command attention, he won't exist. His lines are delivered in wonderful, staccato bursts of macho grandiloquence.

Wilson's character tells Hemingway how much he loved his book and Hemingway replies:

"You like my book. It was a good book because it was an honest book. War does that to a man. There's nothing fine or noble about dying in the mud, unless you do it gracefully and then it's not only noble but brave."

Hemingway demands to know what the book Wilson's writing is about and he stammers. Hemingway fires back, "You're too self-effacing. It's not manly! (Slams his fist on the table.) If you're a writer declare yourself the best writer! But you're not as long as I'm around, unless you want to put on the gloves and settle it."

That reads as arrogant, but in delivery it's not. Hemingway just accepts his brilliance as a matter of course and insists everyone else do likewise.

Wilson starts to explain his novel, but becomes self-conscious and says he guesses that sounds terrible. Hemingway fires back, "No subject is terrible if the story is true and the prose is clean and honest and if it affirms courage and grace under pressure." When Wilson asks if he'll read the manuscript, Hemingway says no.

"My opinion is I hate it ... If it's bad I'll hate, and if it's good I'll be envious and hate it all the more."

Hemingway is the only 1920s character who shows up repeatedly, and he's terrific and bombastic every time. Adrien Brody has a great scene as Dali – absolutely hilarious. Kathy Bates is surprisingly unmemorable as Gertrude Stein. Picasso doesn't say anything in English, but his reactions are great. Zelda is a far more interesting character than Scott Fitzgerald, but I suspect that was true in real life. And about halfway through you realize Owen Wilson is doing a spot-on Woody Allen.

In the midst of all the comedy and romance and satire, Hemingway actually says a couple of things that are good advice to writers. The biggest one is when he chides Fitzgerald for squandering his talent, partying and chasing after Zelda when he should be working.

"You're a writer. You need time to write. Not all this fooling around."

Okay, okay, I hear you, Papa. I'll get back to work.

WIP UPDATE – Monday was great, got 2,167 words down that introduced a key character and a little more mystery. Tuesday was slower, only 481 words (I had to work, ended up writing ficve short news items for the Source) but what I got done is good exposition. It's time to take all the threads I've been laying out and start pulling them together, or at least begin to show that at some point they will come together. I also realized last night that a couple of characters and a bit I put in to illustrate something about another character actually have a place later in the novel. Characters will do that. elbow their way in and demand more story time. The two young hoods I assumed I was done with just insisted they become more than background. They're now about to become integral parts of the plot. ALWAYS listen to your characters.

Total word count is now 6,127, not bad considering I'm still pretty early in the going.

That's More Like It

Well, that's more like it.

After Friday's flailing around trying to get a handle on the story, followed by Saturday's break for yard work (and I'm still a little sore, but at my age that's pretty much standard) I had a good session working in the WIP Sunday. It was fun, and by the time I was ready to make dinner, I had enough to show Tori. She was enthusiastic, laughed a few times, said she had no suggestions, and asked the only real question a writer wants to here: "And then what happens?"

Fortunately, I have a pretty clear idea of what comes next. Having three chapte4rs of setup, with mystery, danger, some villains and an ass-kicking, it's time for a little exposition and filling in the intentional blanks. And I know exactly how I want to do that. It's time for the brothers to have a discussion, followed by mother's announcement. That'll establish their relationship, suggest the older brother's problem, and set up the next problem for them to deal with.

I've also got these, for want of a better word, interludes. Something I'm trying to give the story a little more scope. Haven't tried them since the recurring dreams in Chance, and I'm still not sure how well they worked there. It's all part of learning the craft.

So I'm going to have another cup of coffee (or six) and get to work. Have to finish before Monday night football. The Seahawks are playing.

For the record: Sunday I ended up with a healthy 2,130 word count, bringing the total to 3,449. But it's not the number of words, really, that are important. This time I think they're the right ones. And it was fun. Really like the characters.

Some Days the Bear Gets You

Well that was humbling.

After a great first day, I found myself on day two stumbling and bumbling. Wrote about 600 words, deleted most, tried again. Couldn't come up with anything that worked to get me into the story. Clever? Maybe. But useful? Not at all. So I backed up and tried again. And again.

The problem, I suspected, was that my opening was kind of flashy but didn't get me into the story. Had trouble transitioning. So I started the story in a slightly different place, just a little farther along.

It worked, but I'm not there yet. Took several false starts before I finally got right into the action, in a place that works. By then, the afternoon was over and I had to run around picking people up, dropping them off, the usual.

So my word count isn't impressive. Oh, if you count all the false starts, it's probably good – probably more than 1,000 words. But what I have left after all teh deletions and fiddling, is: 54 words. So what with all the backing up and adjusting and fiddling, the grand (?) total is now slightly LESS than it was the day before: 1,270 words.

But that's better than no words. I'm not happy about it, but at least I kept pushing until I found soemthing that works. And it does work.

Some days you get the bear. Some days the bear gets you. But I'm back at it, a little mauled but pushing on.

Off and Running: A Good First Day

Yesterday's word count – 1,321. So that was a good start, a good first day.

Plus about a thousand words for the Source, and that included having to transcribe six minutes of audio from the governor's office to write a story. So my finger tips were pretty warm by the time I got to bed last night.

Now have to keep up the progress, get a flow going. It's always easier, better, when I get a head of steam up. Then the story just sort of flies out of my head (or whaerever it comes from) and into the computer without my having to think too much about it or belabor things. Those times are the best, when the story is telling itself and all I have to do is write it down, the words piling up.

I can't make it happen, but I can help create the situation by applying my butt to the chair and keep going. Like Ray Bradbury said, eventually quantity turns into quality. So enough of this. Gotta get to work.

Once More into the Breach, Dear Friends!

“The scariest moment is always just before you start.”

Stephen King, On Writing

And here we go. I'm at the scary moment. I'm going to post this, then I'm going to start writing Who Is Brainiac Kapow? – an adventure for readers roughly middle school age.

I know how the story begins, I know the characters, I kinda know what's going to happen. But of course, they'll surprise me and change my plans, so I can't let myself get married to the plot I think I'm going to be following. At least I sure hope they surprise me. Because if they don't surprise me, they probably won't surprise the readers either, and then what do you have?

So here we go. Same rules as always. Shoot for 1,000 words a day. Don't judge it until I finish the first draft, because it's going to suck. First drafts always suck, everyone's, and that's a gift. Just get it written down, and fix it later. But you can't fix it if you don't write it first.

If it sounds like I'm trying to boost my ego a bit, give myself a "St. Crispin's Day" speech, that's because I am. The question, as I set out, is, can I do it? I mean, sure, I've written three other novels I think are quite good. But can I do it again? When you start the next one, the fact that you've done it before only gets you so far. It is, as Stephen King said, the scariest moment. But as he also said:

"You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.”

Staging a Mystery to Avoid Expectations

I've been thinking about reactions, and first instincts, since I wrote that post Saturday. And about acting. And of course, writing.

I have done a fair amount of amateur acting. If I was any good, I think it was because I learned to ignore my first instinct and look deeper.

There's an adage in acting that applies equally well to writing. "If you're asked to play the devil, find the angel in him. If you're asked to play an angel, find the devil in him." In other words, one-dimensional characters are boring, boring, boring.

In the play Gaslight, the main character is a woman afraid she might be losing her mind. Her husband is solicitous, but seems impatient with her. Then when he goes out, the mysterious stranger comes to visit. He tells her the husband is not who he seems to be, that he may have killed someone in these very rooms, and her worry and possible madness are part of the husband's plot. If the wife – I think her name is Bella. I dare say I could look it up, but that's not the point. Let's just call her Bella – will trust him, the mysterious stranger, do what he says, they'll catch him and solve her trouble.

The tension, the dramatic energy that propels the story, comes from Bella having to decide whether to trust her husband or the mysterious stranger.

Gaslight was a decent old movie with Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer and Joseph Cotten. It works mostly because who could possibly believe ill of Joseph Cotten?

But when our theater did the play, with a cast including a couple of really close friends and a guy I hated – but that's a different story – the director (another good friend) went with first instincts. (Spoiler alert!) The husband is the bad guy, so he had the actor lay on the menace and evil. From opening curtain the actor scowled, he threatened, he did all but twirl his mustache. And the mysterious stranger is the good guy, so hey, play him as kind and as trustworthy as Santa Claus, all twinkly. He wasn't so much mysterious as he was cuddly.

And with those two decisions, all the suspense and tension got sucked right out of the play. It wasn't a drama, it was a melodrama. The only worry I had as the play drew to its close was, "What am I going to tell them afterwards?" Because you don't want to walk up to your friends after the performance and say, "Wow. That really sucked. You guys don't get it at all."

I had a similar reaction when I was stage manager of the theater's production of Harvey. The director wanted doors to open by themselves, things to move. It took a lot of effort to convince him that Harvey is not a play about a guy who's best friend is a six-foot tall invisible rabbit. It's about a guy who SAYS his friend is a six-foot tall invisible rabbit. That makes all the difference. Before the audience knows for sure, they no longer care. They like Elwood, they want him to be right before they know whether he is or not. In fact, a later production I saw convinced me that it's not even about Elwood. The play is really about his sister, it's the story of a woman with society ambitions whose brother says his best friend is a six-foot tall invisible rabbit.

So what does all this have to do with writing? Excellent question. I guess I'm just warning myself to avoid being obvious. Ambiguity can be a writer's friend, under the right circumstances. As my reader digs into the book, do I want him/her to know everything right away? Of course not!

Give the readers enough information to be able to follow the story and characters they want to follow. Then trust them to figure it out. That Aha! moment is much more exciting and enjoyable than a guided tour where everything is pointed out an explained right from the start.

WIP Update – Had another middle of the night, bolt-from-the-blue idea. This one came a little after 1 a.m. Unfortunately I had left my notebook on the kitchen table, so I had to run out to jot the thought down. Just as well, I wouldn't have wanted to turn on the light and wake up Tori. It was a decent idea, two lines of dialogue that might or might not have a place in the story. But even if they don't fit, they led me this morning to another idea that I really like. It kind of changes the flavor of the story, but it's not bad.

I think I'm ready to start writing it.

 

The FIrst Reaction

As a reporter, I have read more than a fair number of police reports, the daily drama of man at his lowest level. And there's one thing I see over and over that always surprises me.

In describing a shooting, the officer will note that the victim heard shots and started running, then realized he had been shot.

He realized he'd been shot? After running? This often is mentioned, even after the victim was shot in the legs. Sitting here safe at my computer, I always think that would be one of the first things you'd notice. "Hey! I've been shot!"

But no. Apparently not. There's fear, the surge of adrenaline, the fight or flight reflex, and your body takes over to get you out of danger. Only at some later point, maybe seconds, maybe minutes, do you stop and realize. "That really hurts. Well look, I seem to be bleeding from a bullet hole! Son of a gun! I've been shot!"

Although those probably aren't the exact words you'd use.

Just something to keep in mind when writing a scene in which a shooting takes place. The first reaction isn't always "Ouch!"

Detour Takes Me Closer to the Starting Point

Digging through the bowels of my hard drive, I came across the first chapter of the book I haven't quite started.

Let me explain.

This WIP (work in progress) has its roots in something that came to me about a year and a half ago. And at the time, I didn't just file the idea away. I actually started it, then got sidetracked because of our move from the island back to the mainland.

I didn't remember what I had written, and when I found it this week I was pleasantly surprised. There is some really good stuff in those two chapters. And I remember where I was going. But I'm not going there anymore. The story is so different now, what I'm envisioning now, than I'm not sure much of it is even usable. The original story doesn't bear much resemblance to to what I'm now planning. A couple of little things, a sassy computer but not much else.

Once I post this I'll begin plotting the book. Obviously, then, I belong to that group of writers who believe in having a plot in hand when I start the actual writing, as opposed to those who create characters, then plunge them into a situation and watch as they thrash around, writing down what they see. That may seems haphazard to me, but it works for successful writers like Stephen King and Anne Lamott.

I don't have the confidence to just jump in that way. If I'm planning a road trip from, say, from my home here in Louisiana to Seattle, I want to make sure I know where Seattle is, and something about the country between here and there. That doesn't mean I'm a slave to the road map any more than I am to the plot. Because the character-driven writers are correct – if you've created characters who are true to themselves, then they'll jump out and surprise you, they'll resist doing things just because the author wants them to. You either listen or you write a crappy book.

I usually end up revising the plot often, as the story progresses. It takes turns I didn't expect, characters do things I hadn't planned, sometimes characters reveal themselves to be very different people than I'd imagined. When I started Scurvy Dogs! I thought one character was a sort of comical background figure. Two thirds of the way through he shouldered me out of the way and revealed himself to be one of the main villains. And a good thing he did, because it makes the story way more interesting than I had planned.

Just because you're planning to drive from Louisiana to Seattle doesn't mean you're going to take the straightest path. You might end up zig zagging across the map to various scenic detours. You might decide Seattle is completely off the itinerary and end up in Los Angeles or even Fort Lauderdale.

And then, of course, you'll change everything again in the later drafts.

So the plot is a framework to make me feel safe setting out, I guess. But by the time the trip is over, that map will be covered with erasures and ink blots and coffee stains. Because no matter where you think you're going, you really don't know until you get there.

What a ride!

Scribbling Continues as Story Grows

As I scribble ideas in the notebook (and when I say scribbling, I mean scribbling. See photo of my notebook pages.) the story is turning and changing in my hands, becoming more – more layered, more complex, more detailed. Better. Bigger. Stronger. And, I hope, more interesting and entertaining.

It's exciting, no doubt about that. I have had the thrill – a cliched thrill, true, but still a thrill – of sitting straight up in bed, and grabbing my notebook. Sometimes it's just a word or two, but I know what it means when I look back and see "Fern," or "the janitor." Sometimes it's a sentence or two, even a couple of lines of dialogue. And often an admonition – "Be Funny!"

I don't want it to lose the tone and feel that I originally came up with. I want it to be fun, quick, light. I've got a ton of good background material from my research, and now I have to guard against burying the story under too much details, or too many layers, and lose the carefree spirit that I think will drive the book – and then drive the reader through the book.

That's one of things I have to watch for. I don't want to write "too smart." That sounds horribly egotistical, doesn't it? But it's something I've been warned about more than once and by more than one reader.

Serve the story. That's always the number one maxim, isn't it? Whatever you do, whatever you write, whatever choices you make in the story, always be sure that doing it serves the story.

Almost ready to start writing.

It's Starting to Bubble Again

It's been a month since I finished Scurvy Dogs! and I've been at loose ends, not sure where I'm going next. Done a lot of reading, done a lot of work for the Source, toyed with some ideas. But I didn't do much that was really concrete. It was almost as if I was charging the batteries or something.

But I could feel it growing the last couple of days, and yesterday I pulled out my notebook and started jotting things down. And I'm getting excited. This is going to be a good one.

It's not a pirate story. It's actually a story about a character who jumped into my head, almost full blown, more than a year and a half ago. I wrote about it at the time, and thought then I'd be getting to work on it very soon.

"Ha!" said life. Wrote Scurvy Dogs! instead, and I'm glad I did because it's a damn good book and I learned a lot in the process.

I thought I was going in a different direction, but the more I mulled the last few weeks, the more I realized this is the story I want to tell next. It'll present some new challenges, but I think it'll be fun.

For one thing, it'll be for a slightly younger audience than I've been writing for. I think it'll appeal to the kids who loved the Captain Underpants books and have grown a little, are ready for something a bit more. They're not quite old enough for the Alex Rider books. It's roughly the same audience the fans of Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kids books, although my story is nothing like those. Nothing.

The title character for this – and yes, I can definitely see this as a series – is an 11-year-old boy, small for his age, with curly blonde hair, glasses, and a cocky grin that's almost a permanent fixture on his face. He's beyond smart, he's a genius with an intuitive sense of math, but no people skills at all. The fact that he's been promoted into high school, where he's smarter than any of the teachers, doesn't help. He's got two friends, a high school girl who has her own personality issues, and a boy who's been his friend since kindergarten. The friend doesn't have much in common, but he's fiercely loyal, and takes pride in the fact that he's the main character's touchstone with "normal."

Also, it'll be a story with LOT'S of room for killing a dragon in every chapter. And it has some elements I've never tried to work with before, so that's cool.

I know the main character's name – it's the title of the book. Don't know the two friends' names yet. I imagine they'll tell me soon and then I can get to work.

And the story, the adventure is ... Well, I have only a general idea. I've got two or three more days of jotting notes and ideas in the notebook. By the end of the week I will take the notes and start typing them in and organizing them, and will probably begin writing a week or so after that, after I have a general, preliminary idea of the plot.

It's starting to bubble and I'm getting excited about it.

In the meantime – As I mentioned, it's been a month since I finished Scurvy Dogs! Haven't heard from Eddie the Agent yet, other than to acknowledge he's got it. It's nervous time on that front. I know I'm not his only client. I know I'm far – far – from his most important client. Without dropping names, this agency represents some very successful authors, names you know, authors of books you've probably read. So until I can prove I'm one of those guys, I have to take the time he's got left. Because so far I haven't earned a dime for him.

But still, you have these dreams. The one where you send it off by email, the agent gets it and happens to be between meetings or something, with nothing better to do, so he reads the first page or two of your book. He's hooked. He reads more. He cancels his afternoon meeting. He calls you raving, says he knows just who to send this to, with no changes. He calls the next day to tell you that between the book, the sequels and the movie rights, you're rich.

Nice dream. The thing about dreams is, they're great, a lot of fun, and they could come true. But don't waste a lot of time counting on them. Get back to work. That's something concrete.

You either trust your agent or you don't. I do. He's taking care of business, and when it's my turn, I'll be ready. And I'll having something exciting to add to his list.

A Rude Awakening in the Library Sci-Fi Section

At the library this weekend, I found myself gravitating toward the science fiction section. I have read a lot of sci-fi, but none at all recently. Back in my teens, 20s and 30s I read quite a lot, Heinlein and Asimov, Clarke, A.E. van Vogt and Phillip K. Dick and more. And then – don't ask me why because I don't know – I just sort of stopped.

But I'd been thinking about sci-fi the last couple of weeks. One of the members of the library writers group had submitted a couple of chapters of a piece. It wasn't good for a lot of reasons, and it had me thinking about writers who had handled a similar theme really well, notably Heinlein in Stranger in a Strange Land, which over the years I've read five or six times at least.

There was a particular passage in her piece, a conversation between the disguised alien secretly on earth to observe humans and a woman he meets. The dialogue is just terrible, they talk exactly the same. In any story you ought to be able to tell who is talking by how they talk, and certainly in one where one is a human and the other an extraterrestrial pretending to be human.

"That doesn't make any sense," I thought. "That would only make sense if ..." And it hit me. An idea for a story, a new take on an old theme. At least I think it's new, it's new to me, anyway. So I've been tossing it over in my mind, and that's undoubtedly what led me Sunday to the sci-fi section.

I came home with Stranger in a Strange Land, plus a collection of Dick's stories (Tori and I had recently stayed up late watching Total Recall, and I thought it might be time to read the story it was based on,) and a collaboration between Arthur C. Clarke and Frederik Pohl.

First I read the Heinlein, and I was surprised. The things that are good about it are still good – it's a delightfully jaundiced, cynical look at humanity as seen by a complete outsider. Morals, ethics, religion, politics, all are skewered.

But I was surprised by quite a few things. First, the edition I was reading, an Ace paperback printed in 2003, was really badly produced. Lots of missing words and wrong words and typos I'm sure weren't there in the earlier volumes I read. There was a stretch in the middle where there were one or two mistakes on every page. That sort of thing is distracting to the reader

Even more surprising, considering how many times I've read it, was how dated it was. It was published in 1961, so Heinlein write it in the late 1950s, no later than about 1960. And his idea of the near future was to have flying taxis, a colony on Mars and some different names for things that are obviously unchanged – stereovision instead of television, for instance. Other than that, it's still firmly stuck in the 1950s, with telephones still wired to the wall, newspapers, mail only delivered by the Post Office. In this future computers exist but only as giant mainframe number crunchers. Heinlein didn't – couldn't? – foresee the changes in communication that have shaped the world. And just writing that, I get it. He wrote in a time when the ability to move people and things quicker and more efficiently still defined modern. Our devices have changed that formula. Today we carry telephones in our pockets, many of which are more powerful than any computer that existed in 1961. They brought us together without physically moving us, and now the world is very different than that in which Heinlein lived, or that he could imagine.

Even worse was Heinlein's casual acceptance of sexual morality, even as he thought he was satirizing it. The second major character in the book is crotchety old Jubal Harshaw, whose dyspeptic tirades on art, religion, education and pretty much everything else make up the satirical heart of the book. (And don't get me wrong, I still love the character and will continue quoting him.) It's clearly Heinlein himself, thinly disguised, ranting about things that have been bugging him, and feeling all smugly superior for having such avant garde ideas. But he's still stuck in a mid-20th century mindset that has no room for women in anything like a position of authority, even disdain for women who "don't know their place." And though it celebrates the idea of free love and sexual freedom, it's clearly for heterosexuals only. Gay men dismissed several times as pansies, and one character saying she's glad she's not a lesbian, as if she was afraid she might have caught a disease.

But there was something worse, much worse, tossed off so casually I almost missed it, and so shocking it literally made me a little sick. It occurs when Jill is discussing her own sexual awakening and her surprise that that includes a bit of exhibitionism. And she tells Michael that that's not really that abnormal, "In nine out of ten rapes, the woman is at least partially at fault."

I almost threw the book across the room. My stomach did flip flops. I was so disappointed to read that I almost couldn't finish the book. And I still worry about why I hadn't ever noticed that passage before. Did I at one time believe such nonsense? I don't think so. (As a brother with seven sisters, then the father of three girls, I wouldn't have been allowed to believe that even if I was so inclined.) But it was a mindset so pervasive that I might simply have not noticed it in Heinlein's book, because until very recently a lot of people thought that same exact stupid thing.

Let's just remember, for the record, that a) Rape is not about sex. It's about power. b) No means no. c) As we've taught our kids, "maybe" also means no. d) Women have the right to dress however they want without it being construed as an invitation or a come on. Because e) Again, no means no.

Stranger in a Strange Land is still milestone book and worth a read. But I never noticed before how ridiculously dated it was, even when it came out. This is one case where maybe I should have let my memory of the book stand instead of reading it again. My recollection is that Asimov handled the idea of future worlds much better, especially in the Foundation series, which I loved. But do I dare put that to the test, after my disappointment with what I wrongly remembered as a masterpiece? 

I'm hoping for something better from the Clarke/Pohl book, which I just started.

Value Given, Value Received

I went to my first critiques meeting of the library fiction writing group Monday, and I was nervous.

Not about my work. I had submitted the first chapter of Scurvy Dogs! and I was confident in it. I'm just finishing up my third revision, pretty much a total rewrite, but the first chapter has hardly changed at all since I first scribbled down the idea in my notebook. I've tweaked a word here and there, but mostly it's exactly as I read it to the kids in Tori's class two years ago.

What I was nervous about was critiquing other's work. First and formost, I didn't want to come off as a know-it-all or an arrogant jerk. I can talk a great deal, I know that, and not everything that was submitted was, shall we say, particularly great. And I'm one of the new guys – They don't know me, and I don't know them. I haven't been there in the past and don't know the drill.

In the end, I decided not to worry about sharpshooting the grammar or spelling. I would focus on the shape of the story, whether it worked for me as a reader and what I thought the author could do to sharpen it.

That's the key, something I learned years ago when I was directing at Albany Civic Theater. It's one thing to say, "That's not good." But that's no help. What's helpful is finding a way to tell them why something doesn't work as well as it should and what they could do to solve the problem. Criticism that doesn't give the recipient something he can act on is just being an asshole.

The other thing I kept in mind was the old maxim that if you're going to say something negative, you have to find five positives to go along with it. Everytime I offered a comment, I made a point of starting with, "I really liked – " that character, or the idea of a story on choices and consequences, or the tone or a particular phrase.

Anyway, it seemed to go pretty well, even though I talked too much. The group moderator would announce the next piece to critique and say, "Anyone have any comments?" And there'd be this silence, and then me or another new guy, also named John, would start. And the discussions were good and people really seemed pleased with the attention we as a group were giving their work. One woman said, "Gosh, you guys are nice. I expected to get ripped up." Apparently some groups are all about ego. This really was about seeing the work with fresh eyes and trying to help.

My chapter was well received, and there were a few helpful suggestions, tweaks, that will make it stronger. Of course no one is obligated to take a piece of advice, but why would you not consider it? If a reader doesn't get what you're doing, no matter how much you like a phrase or thought, obviously that reader wasn't with you. Look at it more closely.

I was particularly pleased when the other John mentioned my use of strong verbs, and likened the two young characters to Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn! The verbs were thanks to Steve Swinburne, and the Tom and Huck – I always try to come up with a five-word pitch for my stories, and my pitch for Scurvy Dogs! is, "Tom and Huck Fight Pirates." So apparently I hit that dead on!

Afterwards, the other John and I happened to go out the door at the same time as two other longtime members of the group. One of them commented, "Wow. You guys give really good critiques." The next day I got an email from the coordinator who said he had almost disbanded the group because no one ever talked during critiques, but that was one of the better discussions he could recall.

So it felt like there was some value given and value returned. I'll definitely comb through that first chapter one more time.

Scurvy Dogs! Update – Monday went well, almost too well. 2,836 words. Unfortunately, that was all one chapter, and I get nervous when my chapters approach 2,000. So the first thing Tuesday, I knocked out 258 – why have them discuss the escape plan if they never actually try to escape? – and, after jiggling to make it all fit, had a more readable 2,597 for Monday's work.

Tuesday I was exhausted, slept until almost noon. Then banged out 1,887 words. Didn't quite finish the chapter because work intervened late in the day. But it's right there.

Then I wrote a thousand word story for the Source and a half dozen crime briefs and called it a night.

I've got the Scurvy Dogs within 200 words of the chapter end, when they find their way out of the tunnel. Then the showdown, the second showdown and the last showdown – you might call it a series of running showdowns. Then wrap it up with the truth about the squire.The story stands at 52,228 words, and I'm right on track.

No Longer Following "The Following"

That sound you heard at about 9:59 Monday night was anyone who's been watching "The Following" on Fox – the creepy Kevin Bacon serial killer show – shouting "Bullshit." That's sure what we did.

But there's a lesson to be learned. I guess, that applies to writing. There's always a lesson to be learned, whether you're watching people, or reading something really good, or watching something on TV that's really shitty.

We like Bacon, so we gave "The Following" a look, and at first it was OK. But about four episodes ago, when the female cop suddenly shot the FBI agent so the psycho bitch could get away with the kid, because the female cop turned out to be – gasp! – part of the serial killer's cult army of devoted followers, I thought, "That's pretty cheap." In fact, right before it happened, I turned to Tori and said, "She's gonna shoot him." It was pretty obvious, and obvious is what TV does best. It's the show's signature. The villain has a never-ending supply of devotees who can outgun the FBI and out plot everyone. In other words, "shocking" things happen not because they make sense, but because the writers wish it so.

Last night was the last straw. Nothing in the episode made sense. If you thought about it, the whole episode was superfluous because it involved Bacon's character trying to save the woman from being captured by the psycho army, only to have the woman decide to go ahead and go off with them on her own. And she'd already done that once, a month ago and it didn't work then, so there was no way she'd do it again. That was just dumb. It was the arbitrary actions of a character under the command of shallow writers.

Monday when the "big shocker" happened – or what the writers obviously thought would be the big shocker – happened right at the end – you could just hear the writers saying to themselves, "This'll be so cool. It'll make them scream!" All it did was make me and Tori shout simultaneously, "Bullshit!" Not "Holy smokes!" or "Whoa! Didn't see that coming." We shouted "Bullshit," and "Bullshit" is what we meant.

When the writers let you see how clever they think they are, all it does is piss you off.

I don't care any more. I'm done with it. Kevin Bacon is on his own. We're not following "The Following" any further. But there was a lesson for us as writers – There's a big difference between being clever – for instance, watch the BBC's "Sherlock" – and being smugly manipulative

Respect your characters, and respect your readers. Don't waste a lot of time showing off.

Rewrites

Somebody said something to the effect that novels aren't ever finished. They're eventually shipped off to publishers, but the writer is never finished fiddling with them until the last possible second, and sometimes not even then.

I spent the last couple of days tweaking "Gladys," which I thought I was finished with six months ago. "The Wreck of the Gladys B. is a young adult novel, an adventure of a girl in 1718 who runs away to sea to find her father and rescue him from pirates who've captured him.

It hasn't sold yet (more on that another time, when I feel like whining) and Tori and I were talking about it the other day – Thursday, to be precise – and she convinced me I needed to raise the ante a little more. Not a lot, I'm not rewriting the whole thing. Just added bits here and there to the opening three chapters to make the situation more dire.

This is in accord with the "hero journey" outline, which requires the novice hero to resist the call and finally be forced to leave.

Tori was right, as always. Rereading it, I saw what it needed right away. It was a fairly easy fix. But it was the kind of work where you can't do a word count, so I don't have one. What I have is a better story.