Miranda Phipps

I tend to write the same sentence patterns again and again.  I bore myself, and I (will) inevitably bore readers if I keep this up.

Having just turned 37 a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been in sort of an improving state of mind, so I treated myself to a CD course available through the Teaching Company:  “Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writers Craft” taught by Professor Brooks Langdon of the University of Iowa.  (The Teaching Company has a vast catalogue of courses available in all kinds of academic areas.   Nirvana for my inner geek.  I’m now saving up for one covering the history of the Victorian period.)

I’m a few lectures in and, so far, it’s great.  Professor Langdon’s approach is very academic, but I love the analytical bent because it gives me a framework to evaluate my own sentences.  But I have to say that the most meaningful part so far is his observation that we should “think of a sentence as being a visible piece of writing and the propositions it advances as assumptions and ideas not necessarily written out.”  And, as a further explanation of this point, he states that “[t]he basic unit of writing sentences is the proposition, not the word or even sequence of words.”

This concept that the proposition, i.e., the purpose or idea of the sentence, may be unwritten amazed me.  It’s quite obvious when you think about it, but it’s absolutely true that the unstated propositions are everywhere and that sequencing and word choice give you the ability to manipulate and modify these unstated propositions. 

My takeway from all this is that you have to be aware of the unstated portion of your sentence in order to really be in control of it.  I believe that the proposition is in many cases subconsious, which is why I know a particular sentence just sounds “right.”  But in circumstances where the sentence keeps slipping and sliding away from me, it may be valuable for me to hone in on the unstated proposition and tease out the layer beneath the words.

More on Brooks Langdon anon.

I’m trying to keep my pinky toe in the writing world.  It’s been tough the past few weeks due to work becoming busier again.  (Usually there’s a bit of whining from me when there are more hours than I want, but not these days with many employers letting people go.  I’m glad to be earning my keep–and my weekly paycheck–so I find myself saying yes ma’am, I’ll certainly take that project.)

I did manage to inhale Elizabeth Hoyt’s latest:  To Beguile a Beast.  The bits told in Abby’s point of view were especially well done, I thought. 

I never quite got used to the hero’s singular “eye” looking at the heroine.  Completely accurate of course and very much a product of my own, difficult to break, readerly assumptions.

A lovely cover, too.  Hoyt’s really been lucky in her past few covers–great art and delectable colors.  Some people get worked up about the whole half head thing, but I far prefer to see a victim of the art department’s guillotine than some raggedy mulleted professional wrestler type.

I also dove into Teresa Medeiros latest release.   (Target had so many of my favorite authors at 25% off!  Woot!) 

I somehow missed her last historical (Some Like it Wicked), so my most recent experience with her writing was her venture into vampire-land.  Those were much darker books, and it was fun to be lightly delighted by Medeiros again.  This reminds me that I must now go back and read those vampire books having watched Buffy.  I have a feeling that Adrian (was Adrian the vampire broher?–I think so) may bear some resemblance to Spike, and I’d love to see Spike gain his HEA if only vicariously.

In terms of my own writing, Margie Lawson’s keeping me busy with her many rhetorical devices.  My reward?  Understanding what Neil Gaiman meant when he referred to lilotes in his journal the other day.  Miranda scores!  Now just to use it in my own writing.

The dust finally begins to settle on the chaos that is holiday shopping, holiday celebrating and holiday travelling. I’m happy to be getting back into a bit of a routine.

I didn’t read a huge amount over the holidays, but I’m just about done with Christine Wells new book, The Dangerous Duke. My favorite line? When Jardine says to Louisa,

“If I can’t have you, I’ll be damned if some limp cock of a smooth-talking bastard will have you, either. Good Lord, woman! Have you no discrimination?”

I have to admit that these two stole the show a little bit for me. I Googled around to see if I could find any hints of an upcoming book featuring Louisa and Jardine’s story, but nothing so far. I’m sure Wells has a great story in mind for the two of them, though.

I also read Save the Cat by Blake Snyder last month. It’s a screenwriting book, but has some great material for writers. I’m sorry to have missed his presentation at RWA last summer. After reading it, I spent quite a bit of time correlating his key story points to those over writers have described. I’ve been trying to hang the main plot points from my WIP, The Keeper, onto this framework and its been a helpful exercise so far. My favorite among Snyder’s many insights is the “Whiff of Death” scene. It makes so much sense to me that in any kind of story–even comedy–the only way to make the storytelling truly meaningful and grounded in human experience is to have there be some contemplation of death at the climax. How can you have meaning in life without some acknowledgment that life is always bounded by death.

After Snyder, I dug into The Writer’s Journey, by Christopher Vogler, which I’d read about five years ago but wanted to revisit given that I feel like I’ve learned so much on the craft front. I petered out pretty quickly this go around. The time just isn’t right for the lessons that book has to offer.

I turned instead to Writing for Emotional Impact, by Karl Iglesias, which is fantastic. I came across this with some random Google searches on writing emotion (can you tell I like Google?). This book is pure gold. It’s so dense, that I feel like I need to go back and outline a couple of the chapters for future reference–sort of a smorgasbord of methods to generate different emotional reactions.

Seeing as my book club won’t let me get away without reading some literary fiction, I also read Being Dead by Jim Crace this month. Beautiful prose, but not my idea of a love story. I guess I’m just not the type of girl who wants to better understand the depressingly realities of mediocre personal relationships. Or, for that matter, what happens to decomposing bodies on the beach.

The other thing I’ve glommed onto of late is Helen Fisher’s research into the neurobiology of lust, attraction and long-term love. It’s fascinating stuff. Jenny Crusie recommended her books during the Crusie Mayer Writing Workshop, and I finally got around to buying them. I’ve been focused on her scientific articles related to what happens when people break up with you (as this is relevant to The Keeper), but I’m looking forward to reading Why We Love and Anatomy of Love next.

Last up is the Anglo Files by Sarah Lyall. My mom, who is English, bought this for me for Christmas. She read it while she was recuperating from a cat bite that got terribly infected and almost landed her in the hospital. (Her words of wisdom after the fact, “If you ever see a cat and dog fighting, be sure to go after the dog.”) I read most of this the day I got it. Lyall’s journalistic style makes it a quick read, and she touches on so many great English cultural idiosyncracies. Drink as a social lubricant, lecherous members of the House Commons, bad teeth, hedgehog love and homoeroticism in public schools–it’s all there.

Jenny Crusie had a great post this week about black swans–moments when the hero’s understanding of the operation of the universe is turned on its head. Kind of like Buffy when found out about vampires, or Neo swallowed the little red pill Morpheus offered him.

I have two quasi-black swan moments in my book: (i) when Gray discovers Ophelia’s secret life; and (ii) when Ophelia realizes the Order is not what it seemed.

There was a lot of discussion on Jenny’s post about how you layer the turning points so that they continue to build after the original black swan. So I think the WIP is OK on this front, but this seemed like such a great observation.

Another branch of my craft reading has been glomming onto all things Helen Fields has written. Jenny Crusie turned me onto her back during the 2007 novel writing workshop. Dr. Fields studies the brain chemistry of love, and she has so many good things to say I can’t begin to summarize them here. But one of her discoveries is just pins down the essence of love for me, so I’ll describe it here. She identifies romantic love, that euphoric, obsessive, soul-drenching experience when you first fall in love, as a primal human drive for mate selection. It’s like thirst or hunger. Once you fall in love, that’s it. That’s all you can think about or do until you realize that relationship. And when that relationship isn’t consummated or worse, the object of your affection rejects you, your brain pretty much freaks out because it’s been so used to the “high” that being in love has given you.

My WIP features a relationship where the heroine rejected the hero ten years earlier, and Fields’ observations about what actually happens to a person in this circumstance ring are incredible. To find out, you’ll have to read what I do to my poor hero.

That’s me–I’m a total craft junkie these days. In part it’s because I feel like as soon as soon as I scratch the surface of some aspect of craft, I’m terrified to the soles of my shoes about how little I know. Reading craft books also feels like forward progess on the book, even if those pages aren’t getting written. But at this stage I’m reluctant to commit a lot to the page unless I have some idea where it’s headed. I have about a hundred pages written already, much of which I can’t use. That’s just not efficient for me, and it’s not consistent with how I get other stuff done in life. I expect writing is no different, really. In any case, this is what I’ve been reading on the craft binge:

Save the Cat by Blake Snyder

I’m a little sad I missed Blake workshop at RWA this summer. It would have been interesting to hear how he modified his approach to address a novel rather than a screenplay. That said, there are a lot of great gems of advice in her. Practical advice, especially for people writing genre. I love his 15-point beat list. Just today, while watching the Mummy Returns while working out, I saw Evie die and said to myself, “There it is, the whiff of death!” Gotta’ have the whiff of death.

Emotional Structure by Peter Dunne

This was a great book for helping with my love for all things plot. (It’s good to know I’m not alone this way.) There’s a lot of great material in here, although the format of dissecting an actual screenplay felt less helpful to me than the commentary around the hero’s emotional journey. My only complaint is that the two charts he includes, which seem to contain lots of helpful information, are totally unexplained and don’t knit well together. That said, I’ve managed to glean good food for thought from those charts.

I also went back and reviewed my notes from the Hague/Vogler lecture on the hero’s emotional journey which I got on DVD about a year ago. They have good things to say, but it isn’t as detailed as Save the Cat or Emotional Structure.

I’ve also been reading The Writer’s Journey by Chris Vogler (now in its third edition). I’m thinking that this book might actually be most helpful to read after I’ve finished a draft and am looking to make things stronger. Maybe it’s me, but I’m having a hard time applying the steps to the WIP. Maybe I’m just a little overloaded on craft, too. : )

Neil Gaiman’s journal is full of all sorts of wonderful tidbits all the time, but this week he seems to be talking about writing. I liked this explanation of approaches to second drafts especially.

And then, on the second and subsequent drafts, you do four things. 1) You fix the things that didn’t work as best you can (if you don’t like the climactic Rock City scene in American Gods, trust me, the first draft was so much worse). 2) You reinforce the themes, whether they were there from the beginning or whether they grew like Topsy on the way. You take out the stuff that undercuts those themes. 3) You worry about the title. 4) At some point in the revision process you will probably need to remind yourself that you could keep polishing it infinitely, that perfection is not an attribute of humankind, and really, shouldn’t you get on with the next thing now?

Now, back to work so I can actually put this advice to use.