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D.R. Ranshaw

D.R. RANSHAW

Blogging 101

7/23/2018

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Recently, several people have asked me about blogging, so I’m sharing some of my insights about this misunderstood but potentially valuable part of writing and how it works --- for me. That last little addendum/caveat is really important, and we need to spend a couple of minutes on it. I’m a career teacher (mostly high school English) and count myself a writer from childhood, so I’ve seen plenty of lists spelling out Various Writing Commandments from famous authors (Thou Shalt Never/Always Employ the Oxford Comma, for example). I used to try to follow them. All of them. Until I realized that at times, they tend to contradict each other. And themselves, too, come to that. (For example, a famous horror writer who should remain nameless disparages adverbs… but has been known to use an adverb or six in his writing.) Ultimately, I think there are only a couple of ironclad rules of writing, and I’m happy to share mine.
 
Thou Shalt:
-be literate, which involves understanding both the structure of language (including mechanics like spelling, punctuation, grammar, syntax, etc.), and the ways people communicate with each other, verbally and non-verbally.
-Write The Best Damn Story You Can, However You Can (i.e. in a manner that works for you… and hopefully others. Hopefully, many, many others.)
 
Everything else becomes a matter of choice and style. I’m really not sure all the lists are particularly helpful at times. What works for Elmore Leonard or Stephen King may not necessarily work for you, and you cannot shoehorn yourself into writing rules that make no sense and don’t feel right… other than the two I’ve listed above (Of course! he said with no detectable sense of irony.)
 
So. Blog posts. I’ll start by saying they’re essentially essays, which will scare the crap out of those who hated essay writing in high school. “But I don’t wanna write an essay,” they whine. “I wanna write a witty, interesting… blog post.” Yeah, I get it. However, that’s what a post is, dammit: a piece of writing wherein you express some viewpoint or opinion --- in other words, an essay, which comes in many different shapes, remember? Descriptive, personal, expository, narrative, satirical, persuasive, etc. And like any essay, you need to start with a hook… something that draws the reader in: a declarative statement, a question, a quote… something snappy. Then you express your thesis… the central idea of your piece, before moving on to the body of your essay, developing your central idea. And you end with something snappy/clever, too.
 
Audience? I’m not terribly fussy: anybody who wants to read the post. I’m not looking for a specific demographic. (I know for a fact some of my students read my posts, though they’re generally reluctant to admit it publicly, bless their black little hormonal hearts.) I try to make most pieces applicable to both life and writing… I figure that should hit most interests.
 
I usually post once a week. Not every week, ‘cause life sometimes gets in the way. Or sometimes I just really don’t feel like it. But if I’m going to do one, it usually goes up on Monday. So, I sit down on Sunday afternoon and write the thing. How long does it take? About a couple of hours, including proofreading and editing --- those are not the same things, not at all, by the way.
 
Length? Well, personally, I aim for about 1000 words, more or less. It’s not ironclad… if I can say what I want to say in less, then it’s shorter. I try not to go over 1000 words, because, as a teacher, I’m woefully aware of how attention spans are shrinking. (Oy.) Not to mention that Will said brevity is the soul of wit.
 
(My social media guru was horrified when I told her about length and writing time. But my website provider’s stats suggest people are reading what I’m writing. Or at least going to the webpage.)
 
How? Sit at the computer and bleed (har har). It’s always easier if I come to a session with an idea of what I want to say. Then it flows. Other times, I have to massage it a bit. Where do ideas come from? Like pretty much everything in life, all around. Things people say. Things people ask. Things I see in my daily life journey. Books I read. Films I watch. Come on. You’re a writer, for crying out loud. You should already have figured out everything is grist for the mill. And if nothing else, remember Kingsley Amis’ dictum: “if you can’t annoy someone, there’s no point in writing.”
 
Style? I tend to be fairly informal and chatty with a blog post, because this is not a high school academic paper I’m writing. I want you to get the feeling you’re simply sitting opposite me in Starbucks or something while I hold forth. Humour? Sure… but don’t try too hard. Forced humour is awkward and very off-putting. Strong opinions? Again, sure… but don’t be offensive. Civil discourse in our polarized society seems to have broken down in recent years, but you don’t need to be part of the problem. There are already way too many people being shrill and abusive on social media.
 
Finally… why? I used to subscribe to the mistaken idea that a blogger was, as I’ve read somewhere, “someone with nothing to say writing for someone with nothing to do.” But I have Seen The Error Of My Ways. As a writer, you’ve gotta write; it’s how you hone your skills in any endeavour: by practicing. I actually enjoy my blogging… it provides a (mostly) pleasant diversion from my “real” writing i.e. my epic fantasy series called The Annals of Arrinor. (Book One, Gryphon’s Heir, is available. The sequel, Gryphon’s Awakening, is headed towards completion. Soon. I promise. Thanks for asking.)
 
That’s ultimately what writing should be about: having fun.
 
And releasing those inner tensions. In a socially acceptable, legal way.
 
Mostly.
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Make Me Care

7/16/2018

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One historical event. Two films. And two very different reactions on my part… which led to today’s musings.
 
We’ve had Darkest Hour and Dunkirk on the TBV (To Be Viewed) pile of Blu-Rays in our family room for some time. (To answer your incredulous question, yes, I’m aware of the existence of Netflix. Yes, I still buy Blu-Rays anyway. I have a deep, deep mistrust of this thing they call The Cloud. It all sounds very Orwellian to me. And no, I don’t especially consider myself a Luddite. Or particularly pathological. Why do you ask?)
 
So. Two films dealing with the same dark historical chapter: it’s May/June 1940. World War II is underway in earnest. Hitler’s Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe, the German army and air force, have emerged from Germany after a period of inactivity known as the Phoney War and, in several short, punishing, devastating weeks, swept through Norway, Denmark, Holland and Belgium, and penetrated deep into France. To a world expecting a repeat of the bloodily static meat grinder which characterized the 1914-18 conflict, the German advance has been unbelievable… stunning… lightning swift --- in fact, that’s what the Germans have named their military doctrine for this conflict: blitzkrieg --- literally, lightning war.
 
As France crumbles and its imminent defeat is obvious, the only country left in Hitler’s way is Great Britain. And almost all its professional army is stranded in France, forced to retreat to the coastal town of Dunkirk. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers, hemmed in by advancing Germans. They must be retrieved and brought back to Britain. But how? The Luftwaffe, which enjoys air superiority despite the best efforts of the outnumbered Royal Air Force (RAF), is bombing the crap out of everything in the area, including soldiers on the beaches and warships offshore attempting to take them off.
 
The answer, as every military history student knows, is for the British to put out the call and send an enormous flotilla of small, private boats, crewed by their civilian owners --- just about anything that will float and is capable of crossing 40ish kilometers of the English Channel, which can be a notoriously stormy stretch of water --- to pick up as many soldiers as can be crammed into them.
 
And so they do. (Interesting, isn’t it? Those four little laconic words do absolutely nothing on their own to convey the magnificent heroism and desperation of that period.) The episode becomes known as ‘The Miracle of Dunkirk,’ because, against all odds, hundreds of thousands of British and allied troops are safely returned to Britain to live and fight another day. And the event encourages Britain to keep on fighting, referred to as ‘The Spirit of Dunkirk.’
 
Dunkirk focuses on the events at Dunkirk. You’re on the ground, in the water, and overhead in the skies, observing troops waiting for evacuation from the beaches as the Germans relentlessly shrink the beachhead ever smaller; watching RAF pilots doing their best to take down Luftwaffe planes before precious ships can be sunk.
 
Darkest Hour, in contrast, is set in London, in the halls of power at Westminster, seat of the British government. Things are very precarious: one Prime Minister --- the tragically ineffective Neville Chamberlain --- has been sacked by his own party, replaced by Winston Churchill. But Churchill’s grip on the Conservative Party is tenuous, and he doesn’t have the benefit of 21st century hindsight: all everybody in London knows is that the likelihood of catastrophic, irrevocable defeat looms large over everything.
 
Now, you’d think, based on what I’ve said, that the more gripping film should be Dunkirk, with its you-are-there breathlessness. Far more than the staid backroom politics of Darkest Hour. Right?
 
Nope. Not for me, anyway. Darkest Hour brought tears to my eyes several times. Dunkirk was good, interesting… but I wasn’t emotionally invested. And my eyes stayed dry throughout.
 
Why? Well, it boils down to characterization. And therein lies today’s Lesson for Writers.
 
Darkest Hour focuses primarily on the trials and tribulations of Churchill (superbly played by a virtually unrecognizable Gary Oldman, who justifiably won the Oscar for Best Actor in this role --- we’re a long, long ways from Batman’s Commissioner Gordon and Harry Potter’s Sirius Black).
 
Dunkirk… well, there’s a medley of characters, nearly all nameless: the terrified young British soldier who tries every trick to get off the beaches;  two RAF fighter pilots battling the Luftwaffe; an older civilian and his son piloting their 30 foot boat across the Channel; the shell-shocked soldier they pluck from the water who goes bonkers on the boat and accidentally causes the death of the son’s friend; a British naval officer on the beach (Kenneth Branagh, in a curiously blasé performance)… the list goes on and on. But…
 
We Don’t Care About Them. (Well, I didn’t, anyway. Not really.) Again, why?
 
Because we don’t know them. There are so many, and the film doesn’t acquaint us with what makes them tick, what their backstories are, their circumstances, what they’re feeling --- besides obvious fear at their circumstances, and death --- that they just become this random, anonymous conglomeration of humanity caught in epic tragedy.
 
Darkest Hour, in contrast, provides an intimate look at one man. Sure, he’s not on a cold, wet, windswept beach, feeling his bowels turn to jelly as dive bombers shriek down, strafing him. But we get to know him… relations with his family and colleagues, fears, doubts, terrible decisions he must make (sacrifice 3000 lives to save 300,000) --- in short, we establish a relationship with this character. He becomes a person, someone we can empathise with. For example, Churchill must project absolute confidence and bluster in public that he feels not at all in private. We can relate to that. Knowing this character, knowing he’s like us in several respects --- it’s that which makes us care.
 
And folks, as a successful writer, that’s what you must do with your reader.
 
Make me care.
 
Because only then will I keep reading.

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Too Many Notes

7/9/2018

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You know, there’s a scene in the brilliant 1984 film Amadeus which perfectly illustrates the problem so many writers seem to have with editing.
 
Hold on, you say. Amadeus is an account ---- a highly, highly fictionalized account --- of the supposed rivalry between composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri. It’s about music, not writing.
 
Well, yes, it is about music. But it’s about lots of other things, too, including murder and mayhem, and it is a great story, in spite of (or perhaps because of) many of the elements in the tale being pure fabrication with very little historical evidence to back them up. (Whenever Hollywood includes the phrase, ‘based on real events’ in tiny font buried somewhere in the credits, they aren’t kidding. As I frequently admonish my students, Hollywood never allows the facts to get in the way of telling a great story. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing… you just have to realize at the end of a historical piece or a biopic that, at the very least, in all likelihood, you have not been treated to an unchanged, unembellished retelling of the facts.) But I digress. Umm… the illustration of the editing problem. Yes.
 
In Amadeus, Mozart is commissioned by Austrian Emperor Joseph II to write an opera for the Vienna state theatre, and he’s delighted to oblige. The result is The Abduction from the Seraglio. Following the premiere, the Emperor comes onstage to congratulate Mozart and the cast. Mozart, whose arrogance is exceeded only by his naivete, is desperate for compliments (read: validation) of his work --- something I think nearly all artists, including writers, seek in varying degrees --- and presses the Emperor for praise. Joseph is prepared to give his approval --- but is not about to gush unreservedly, leading to this unexpectedly humorous exchange:
 
EMPEROR: Well, Herr Mozart! A good effort. Oh, well, decidedly that. An excellent effort! You have shown us something… quite new tonight. 
MOZART: (beaming) It is new! It is, isn't it, Sire?
EMPEROR: Yes, indeed.
MOZART: (wanting more) So, then… you liked it? You really liked it, Sire?
EMPEROR: Well, of course, I did. It's very good. (pause) Of course, now and then --- just now and then --- it seemed a touch...
MOZART: (anxiously) What do you mean, Sire?
EMPEROR: Well, I mean, occasionally it seems to have… oh, how shall one say? (he pauses, at a loss, then turns to Count Orsini-Rosenberg, Director of the State Opera) How shall one say, Director?
ORSINI-ROSENBERG: (smugly ready to oblige) Too many notes, Your Majesty?
EMPEROR: (that’s it) Exactly. Very well put. Too many notes.
MOZART: (bewildered) I don't understand. There are just as many notes, Majesty, as are required. Neither more nor less.
EMPEROR: (not ready to lose face) My dear fellow, there are in fact only so many notes the ear can hear in the course of an evening. (Unsure of himself) I think I'm right in saying that, aren't I, Court Composer?
SALIERI: (knowing perfectly well the comment is ridiculous, but not about to argue with the Emperor) Yes! Yes! On the whole, yes, Majesty.
MOZART: (angrily indignant) This is absurd!
EMPEROR: (in his best oil-on-troubled-waters manner) My dear young man, don't take it too hard. Your work is ingenious. It's quality work. And there are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect.
MOZART: (sharply sarcastic, refusing to be mollified at this attack on his genius) Which few did you have in mind, Majesty? 
 
Note to self: dissing a Head Honcho who has the power of both High and Low Justice over his subjects (i.e. licence to kill, rather like James Bond) is perhaps not the smartest thing an artist can do… but fortunately for Mozart, his little tete-a-tete with the Emperor is interrupted at that moment, and life goes on…
 
However, it’s that one line in particular that is, I think, so characteristic of so many writers: “I don't understand. There are just as many notes/words as are required. Neither more nor less.”
 
Ah, the innocence of youth. For example, the first draft of my first novel, Gryphon’s Heir, came in at a bloated 202,000 words… but I didn’t see it that way. No, no. There were, of course, just as many words as were required, neither more nor less.
 
But it really is as Sir Arthur Quiller Couch said in his advice to writers everywhere and everywhen: Murder your darlings i.e. cut your words. Most of us don’t want to use one word when six will do, and so many of us get wrapped up in the glory of all our beautiful words (my first draft revealed I have an inordinate fondness for double adjectives, for example), we can’t bear to part with any of them. But Steven King even gave it a formula: he said your second draft should be your first draft minus ten percent. And both Quiller Couch and King are absolutely correct.
 
Four drafts later, my final version of Gryphon’s Heir clocked in at 186,000 words and change. The ironic thing is, even as my prose became much leaner, I was able to add more material so there was much more narrative in the actual story than there had been originally.
 
So, edit your work, my darlings. And murder your darlings. Yes, it’s sometimes hard to be objective, especially if you’re an indie author working on your own. Yes, it’s work. But here’s the brutal truth: no, your story is not perfect in that first draft.
 
And it’s actually rather fun to take an axe to your words. You don’t have to bloodily and arbitrarily hack away everything, for crying out loud. Just the unnecessary stuff. And the more you do it, the better handle you’ll get on what’s unnecessary.
 
So hack away. Draw some blood.
 
It needn’t be a massacre.
 

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Never, Ever, Ever

7/2/2018

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I saw this quote on Twitter the other day, and my immediate response to it was, “and never, ever ask how things could be worse, because that’s just too delicious a temptation for the universe to resist. If you demand to know, if you really want to know, it will show you. Boy, will it show you.”
 
Case in point: there’s a scene in Steven Spielberg’s brilliant Holocaust film Schindler’s List that bears this out exquisitely. A wealthy Jewish couple has just been evicted from their comfortably opulent flat in Krakow by the Nazis, who want to make room for their various cronies and hangers-on, Oskar Schindler among them --- who, in a nicely ironic turn of fate, is the recipient of the Jewish couple’s recently vacated flat. While Schindler wanders around the flat, appreciating its luxury and well-appointed fittings, we see the wealthy Jewish couple also disbelievingly exploring their new home --- a single, dilapidated room in a crowded, filthy tenement building inside the Krakow ghetto. As Schindler lies on the bed, he happily proclaims, “It could not be better.” And cutting immediately back to the Jewish couple, the wife, God bless her, in a valiant effort to put an encouraging face on things, finally turns to her husband and says timidly, “It could be worse.” The husband, who has held his tongue throughout the odyssey, finally (and understandably) loses it. “How?” he shouts angrily, hurling their suitcases onto the floor for emphasis. “How on earth could it possibly be worse?!”
 
Oops. Never ask that question. Never, ever, ever. Don’t even think it. Not even if it’s entirely warranted. Perhaps especially if it’s entirely warranted. Because, like I said at the beginning, the universe appears to be only too willing to show you, frequently in sadistically torturous detail, just how it can be worse. Anxious to show you, in fact. And mark me, it always can be worse.
 
In the case of the Jewish couple… right after the husband flings his question, ostensibly to his wife, but in reality, to the universe… the universe is happy to reveal how it could be worse: a small crowd of working class Jewish refugees, all of them politely murmuring, “good day” to the couple, file in to the room… and we instantly discern that the single dingy room is no longer the residence of just the wealthy couple. Nope. Now, it’s the home to a small army of refugees.
 
I’d say there’s only one time you can ask this question with impunity, one time when I’d actually encourage you to ask this question --- and even then, we need to be clear that you’re not really asking it for yourself: it’s when you’re writing a story, and you’re asking the question on behalf of your characters.
 
When you’re writing stories, “how on earth could it possibly be worse?” is pretty much the exact question you want to be asking. As a matter of fact, it’s the perfect question to ask. You want to make things worse for your protagonist. You want them to experience the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. In great and glorious detail. In full Technicolor. (Do they still do films in Technicolor, or am I just dating myself?) On behalf of authors everywhere, I’d like to extend blanket apologies to every protagonist ever created --- but the unfortunate reality is, if things roll along swimmingly for protagonists, if everything around them is sweetness and light --- then there’s no story. Or at least no story that most readers would want to read, because it would be mind-numbingly dull. The ironic thing is, happiness and lack of conflict is what most of us want in real life… but it’s not what we’re looking for when we read stories (or watch films). We want to throw rocks at our protagonist, as I wrote in another post (which you can read here if you’re interested).
 
So, as Will said, cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war… and on behalf of your hapless protagonist, go ahead and ask just how things could be worse.

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    D.R. Ranshaw's Blog

    Author of The Annals of Arrinor series.  Lover of great literature, fine wine, and chocolate. Not necessarily in that order.

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