Mary Rosenblum, your web editor and LR instructor, has published three SF novels, four mysteries as Mary Freeman, and more than 50 short stories in multiple genres, as well as nonfiction.  Her new SF novel, Eternity Shift, will be out next from Tor Books.  You can find out more at www.maryrosenblum.com

 

 

Writing Better

 

By Mary Rosenblum

 

            As a Long Ridge instructor and someone who has been the pro at a lot of writing workshops I get asked this question again and again:  How do you get better?  Sometimes the asker wants the ‘magic key’  (always give the main character a blue shirt and you’re home free).  Sometimes they want the ‘magic shortcut’ (read this book, do exactly what it says, and you’ll have a bestseller).  Sometimes they want the ‘magic handshake’.  (Go to this writer’s conference, say this to that editor, and he’ll buy everything you write).

 

            While improving your craft, reading, and networking will all help you improve, there are some routes to improvement …to getting stronger and better at what you are trying to say…that are equally important and perhaps less obvious.  If your goal is to write well, to be as strong and compelling a writer as you can be, then there is more to improving than merely honing a particular story with draft after draft,  or doing what you did last time only better.    

 

Taking Risks

 

            Most new writers are very focused on getting published.  Of course!  That’s the goal, right?  Yes, it is, but don’t let it become a smothering restriction.  All too often, new writers focus on writing something that they can sell to a particular market.  If they come up with something that seems ‘different’, ‘experimental’, unlike anything they’ve seen in print lately…they may put it aside in favor of trying something that is similar to published works they have read lately.

 

            However, you do not grow if you do not stretch and exercise.  Remember, work does not evaporate in two weeks, or a month, or even a year.  (At least, not if you back up your files!)  Make it a plan to write something you wouldn’t ordinarily write once a month.  Tell yourself you will NOT market this, do NOT have to sell it.  It’s an exercise.  Now that you have that constraint out of the way…try something new.  Do you focus on romance?  Write a western.  Who cares if you get the details right?  You’re not selling it, remember?  Are you so careful to follow all the ‘rules’ of single POV for your short story, using a strong  limited third person?  Break those rules.  Create a short piece with five Point of View characters!  Use second person POV (you).  Write a piece that is totally cinematic…we’re standing back watching the action and we don’t have a clue what any character is thinking.  See if you can make it work.  Give it a try. 

 

            It might disappoint you.  But you might come away with a better understanding of how to make that limited third person POV work better. Or you might realize that you can use cinematic scenes in a story to your advantage.  You will learn something from these exercises, and they will increase the breadth of your writing skills. 

 

Stretching Exercises

 

            Where do you start?  How do you try something new?  It’s hard to even figure out what is  ‘new’ or ‘different’.  Most of use simply…write.  We don’t necessarily think about what we’re doing. We don’t realize how much we do the same things again and again.    Here are some ways to get started.  Remember – you don’t have to sell these or show them to anyone, but just as a twenty minute bout of stretching in your bedroom can improve your health and fitness, a twenty minute bout of creative stretching can improve your creative fitness. 

 

            The Character 180: 

            Think of a story you like, one you have already written.  Now write a scene from the POV of your antagonist and remember…that person thinks of himself/herself as a ‘good guy’! 

 

            New Universe

            Do you normally write romance, mainstream, mystery, SF?  Pick a new genre, one you don’t normally write in.  Write the opening to a story.  No, you don’t have to finish it, you simply have to work at creating a good strong start in this unfamiliar universe. 

 

            Gender Play

            Are your main characters always male or always female?  Write the start of a story using that unfamiliar gender and really try to get it right.  Use a nice deep limited third or first person, so we really get to know him or her.   If you want an even greater challenge, write a love scene, but from the POV of the opposite gender.  If you are a man, use the woman’s POV, and if you are a woman, take the man’s POV.

 

            Style Play

            Break at least one writing ‘rule’ in a scene or story opening.  Write it with multiple POVs.  Write it using dialogue only.  Write it with no dialogue at all.  Write it in second person POV (you).  Write it in future tense.  Write a scene in the form of a list. 

 

            These are all suggestions for experiments that may work or may not work.  But you will be doing something you have not tried before, and you will learn from it.  There are an infinite number of ways to tell a story.  There will more than likely come a time when one of the techniques you play with will fit a story you are working on.  And those added creative muscles you have stretched and developed will allow you to take full advantage of that opportunity to deepen that story.  Remember…new and different gets you attention. You simply have to do it well.

 

            So get stretching!  And don’t throw those exercises away.  Remember…writing is for life and one year or ten years from now, one of those pieces may well wind up in print.