Write by Hand: a good look at the old method

There are very few patterns I notice in my writing process. I don't stick to one genre, my stories don't come to me all in the same way. I don't craft the same characters or use the same setting or otherwise follow some mystical set of regulations that make me tick as a writer. We discussed my complete dissimilitude to classic stereotypes back in September with "I'm Not a Real Writer I Guess."  I'm one of those people who thrives on spontaneity, creativity, and impulses. ENFP's, baby. Gotta love us. We don't like being predictable.

I was cleaning my house on the second day of this new year, putting away Christmas, trying to scrub toilets, finding that my older (yes, older) brother had flushed a ball down the toilet by accident and that's why it wasn't exactly an opportune moment to clean the toilets just then, putting a sign on the bathroom door so no one else would make the discovery...you get the picture. The house was in disarray, the January day and myself were looking like one hot mess of seventy degrees and Pine-Sol. I moved a stack of papers to the stairs, intending to take it up with me when I had gathered my courage enough to tackle the project of my bedroom which I'd left in rather a state the day before after primping for the annual Civil War Charity Ball. Shifting the papers aside, curious to see which letter I had forgotten to finish and send off this time, the words on the first page caught my eye:

"Dear Mavis:
It is twelve days before Christmas and my true love has given me nothing..."

So it was a letter--many actually. The first several days of John Out-the-Window shifted under the acres of mess since I first began the project and transferred it to the computer to share with you. Then a ray of light shone through the dust motes I'd stirred up while shuffling papers and sweeping old Christmas tree needles and I recognized the one component shared by every successful story I've written:

They all began on paper.

On the heels of this thought came the recollection of something author Anne Elisabeth Stengl said recently in a blog post about the fluidness and lucidity of things written by hand. She mentioned being able to tell if something had its humble beginnings with pen and paper strictly by its tone. Anon, Sir, Anon began as a scrawl in my purple hodge-podge journal. Fly Away Home began on a yellow legal pad, I believe. John Out-the-Window and many a piece of well-received flash fiction also started old-school. Even Cottleston Pie has its origins in flattened wood pulp and ink. The stories that have not begun on paper have not gone far. At all. What is there about a pen and paper that inspires me more than a bald page of Microsoft Word? And why does the act of writing my words long-hand insure their success?
Unsure what the deal was with this phenomenon and calling to mind long-past mentions of famous authors who insist on writing their first drafts by hand, I did a little research. One common theme suggested was the obvious fact that when you are not on an electronic device, your chances of being distracted by web-browsing, Facebook, Pinterest, or emails is majorly minimized. If you've silence your phone and put it across the room and your laptop is powered down, you won't be trying to hold (very interesting) chats with a writing friend about character development, update your best friend on what happened over the weekend, research mid-winter temperatures in the South Island of New Zealand, and re-tweet your own blog post and seven others, while very contentedly hashtagging "#amwriting" when you are, in reality, doing everything but #amwriting. And then there were deeper, more philosophical/biological reasons. In an article at Writing Corner, Mia Zachary hypothesizes:

"Hand writing compels you to move forward across an entire connected gesture and integrates three distinct brain processes: visual, motor, and cognitive. Writing by hand requires executing sequential finger movements that activate brain regions involved with thought, language, and short-term memory--the mind's system for temporarily storing and managing small pieces of information."

She finishes her article with a quote by Stephen King that sums up my experience with at least beginning first drafts by hand:

"Writing longhand...brought the act of writing back to this very basic level, where you actually have to take something in your fist and make the letters on the page...It slows you down. It makes you think about each word as you write it, and it also gives you more of a chance so that you're able--the sentences compose themselves in your head. It's like hearing music, only it's words. But you see more ahead because you can't go fast."

I identify with the concept of hearing it like music. "...the sentences compose themselves in your head." My brain runs ahead of what my hands are capable of writing and because my hand is flying to keep up, the theme flows. I can't delete what I've written. I can scratch it out but it will still be there, a theme explored further by Sarah Selecky in her article, "Why You Should Write by Hand." Now, Selecky takes a bit more of a mystical approach to her reasoning, saying that as you are writing that first draft you are, "...divining your story as you go, you need these markers to guide your subconscious. They are your material! Taking them away is cruel..."
 Her second point is the one that I believe is the main answer for me:

"To your brain, writing by hand feels more like making art."

I believe the act of physically writing something down versus typing it into a sterile page of a Google Drive document does tap into a piece of my brain that is not otherwise brought into the picture. I enjoy creating art. I do typography, watercolor painting, sketching, and drawing. Sometimes I fiddle around with clay or acrylics on canvas. It's a creative release and lets me rest the verbally creative part of my brain that blinks at a computer screen and summons words from thin air. But when I put a pen to paper, I am drawing and creating and tangibly making art with my words. It's a beautiful feeling, and freeing. Even if I'm not writing as quickly as I would on a keyboard, I have a physical sensation of the words flying out of me, following my rampant cursive letters following a vague idea that I must hunt behind or lose forever. Selecky suggests this exercise:

Try this: on a blank piece of paper, write a list of words that start with the letter “B.” Write the words very slowly, as they come to you. Print them in all capital letters, or make your cursive ribbon-like, as though you were a calligraphist. Line them up one under the other to make a word tower. Continue to play with the shapes of your letters as you write the words. Experience the peaceful, exciting bloom of creativity as it floods your right hemisphere. You’re working with language, yes, but you’re also playing, you’re drawing.

In general, my opinion of hand-writing manuscripts has aligned with the (temporarily) immortal words of Sweet Brown:

"Ain't nobody got time fo' dat!"

At many times, writing by hand is inefficient. I might write for twenty minutes and get only half of what I'd have if I'd sat at my keyboard and typed. My hand cramps. It was not for nothing that a monk scrawled in the margins of an illuminated manuscript: "Oh, my hand!" If I'm pushing for word count, writing long-hand frustrates that goal. So when I start a story, I generally only write by hand long enough for the story to get rolling, my mind to leap far ahead of the cursive letters pelting after it, and the coals to be stoked around my imagination. At this point, I transfer to the computer and continue in peace.

Now that I've recognized this pattern in my work, I think I'll respect it. I also am willing to bet that if I reach a point in the story where I'm stuck, a return to the Write by Hand method might just be the kick in the pants I need to get it on its feet once more.

And a quarter cup of frustration...

Frustration.

That's a word with which most of us are very familiar. Frustration is a natural part of life. We don't always get things our way and often times it can seem that, to quote Anne Shirley quoting someone else: "'The stars in their courses plot against me.'" Frustration in real life can be horribly annoying. It can be something as small as a trip to the DMV where everyone and their brother smells of cigarettes and can't remember their middle name, to something as big as a coworker purposely framing you as the genius behind the office arguments. Okay. I haven't been the victim of the latter form of frustration, but you will probably understand the sensation.Writers always talk about adding conflict, adding tension, adding lots of negatives to a scene to make it dance. In a dreary sort of way, the more negative elements you pour on your characters, the more positive the effect. Some authors take this advice and go all out with illegitimate births, jealous half-brothers, more and more villains, twists of fate, etc. That works for many authors and I think that it is an excellent maxim to add some of those elements (and preferably many others) to your plot. What you don't always need to drag out a long-absent brother or an abbot who knows your character's dubious background to ratchet up a scene. There are subtle ways to make your character miserable. Can you guess the simplest, easiest way to add realistic conflict?

Frustrate your character.

Life hands us seemingly coincidental incidents that pile up in in our favor or against it. Play out this concept in your characters' lives and see how well it works. In the current chapter of Anon, Sir, Anon, Vivi is in a certain social setting, wanting to use this chance to observe and ask questions of the locals. If I let this scene be, it would probably fall out as a sort of dull triumph for Vivi. She'd probably get her information and move on to the next dull triumph and so on and so forth, amen. But you can't do that and expect to win friends and influence people. In the same vein, I didn't need to bring in the villain to stir the pot. He is better left till called for via the dictates of the decided plot. What I did, was construct the setting so that the room was over-crowded, noisy, and confusing, giving Vivi a silent migraine. This has nothing to do with any villain, conflict between other characters, or anything of that nature. It is very simply a natural, very frustrating occurrence. (Believe me. I get a silent migraine every time I try to go contra-dancing.) The migraine debilitates Vivi by cruelly lifting away her capacity to think, digest information, or otherwise use this very good chance to work on the murder case. A frustration. A natural one. This is the same technique filmmakers use when they add rain to a scene. There are two reasons for rain in scene: one; it frustrates the characters further, or two; it makes the mood romantic...somehow...(picturing dripping wet Mr. Darcy hair and wondering where the attraction lies). A natural frustration is going to cause your reader to, in Stephen King's words, "prickle with recognition". Why? Because your reader might not have a snarky, murderous half-brother but he probably has dealt with the hiccups in a professional interview, a distraction in a moment of concentration, locked his keys out of his car (which would foil a getaway in a genius and simple way), or experienced some other small (or major) frustration.

Make real life work for you. Most of you are coming up on two centuries (or at least a century and a half) of life experience. Some of you have lots more. Surely you could draw up a lengthy list of naturally-occurring frustrations to add to tension in your plot.

Vivi’s eyes flickered over every face one by one but there were too many people. Far too many.  A hundred grinning mouths became two hundred, two hundred smiling eyes became four-hundred. All five of her senses protested against the overload. The living heat, noise, and colors swirled in a twist of confusion. A vague, disquieting sensation of falling asleep and rising above the rest of the room filled the front of her head, and she struggled to make it back to the shore of reality. Fresh air. She wanted it as a thirsty man craves drink. She moved toward the now dark square of the doorway, flickers of alarm shooting through her chest at the idea that something might impede her freedom, or that she might stumble head-long into the crowd before she made it to the salvation of the outdoors.

-Anon, Sir, Anon

{Ciao} How to Write Accents

When I started writing, I was rather pleased with myself if I managed enough creativity to give a character an accent, let alone actually make his accent believable. But now that I've written several novels and read many more, I am beginning to get a grasp of what a believable accent "sounds" like on the page. There are several things to think about when you decide to give a character an accent:

• Their culture
• Their education
• Their grasp of the English language
• Their personality

//Culture//

Taking a look at culture will help you decide what words to use; if you are giving your character a ghetto accent, obviously there will be certain terms you will use that a Southern, small-town white character wouldn't use. If you neglect the vocabulary aspect, though, a Southern small-towner and an inner-city street kid are going to sound pretty much the same one paper:

"I ain't gonna tell you what I was doing last night. Ain't none of your business."

That sentence right there could be applied to either character which means that you probably aren't paying close enough attention to the culture from which they come. Not that every sentence in every conversation has to be laden with cultural references, but if you are thinking that throwing "ain't" into a sentence will make your reader identify with a kid from the Bronx, you're probably not working hard enough. Look for words you can throw in that the Southern small-towner wouldn't recognize if you yelled it in his face. (I'm not talking about cuss-words here.) Look for works you can tweak to change the "accent" of the phrase. Let's take the ghetto case:

"I ain't goin'a tell you what I's doing last night! Ain't none a' your business, fool."

Of course you can go way over-board with this and start sounding like Mark Twain and I am not trying to pick on the African-American culture; I grew up in semi-ghetto areas and was surrounded by black, Filipino, and Hispanic friends. Culture is just as important when you're writing a Brit or an Irishman or a South African or an Asian or even a New Yorker. Pay attention. British people have pet-phrases that they use often, like preceding everything with "sorry," because they have a national fear of coming across as blatantly impolite. (What I love about Brits is that they can be passive-aggressive that way. Cracks me up.)

//Education//

This is a simple category: ask yourself about your character's education and what kind of words they would use. Many people (I'm thinking Lena Lamont from Singing in the Rain) who might be successful but are not well-educated will stick with slang and oft-repeated phrases. ("Whaddya think I am? Dumb or sumthin'?" "Whaddya think you'll do? Fire me or sumthin'?") People who have a good education usually speak with more care...they use words most people don't think of, even if they aren't large words. Because of the breadth of their knowledge, they have more words at their beck; decide on how educated/uneducated your character is and go from there. A well-educated character in an unlikely place is quite effective, like Aibileene in The Help. She is one of my all-time favorite fictional characters and was self-educated, yet you could hear how smart she was even as she spoke inside her culture. In my novel, Anon, Sir, Anon, Dr. Breen, an old friend of Farnham's, is a well-educated man, yet his speech is a little rough by virtue of not being frequently subjected to Society & Women. He's full of gallantry and good-humor and is undoubtedly clever, but his word-choice would make a polished man twitch:

“My darling girl, are you tired of being roughed around like a heifer tugged to market?” Breen asked.

“I have heard it put in more eloquent words, but yes.”

“Hitherto you have been subjected to only the most uncouth bits of Whistlecreig: the fog, the mist, the damp, the cold, the bodies lying prostrate in fallow fields...shall we entertain her, Farnham?”

And it works because you can tell he's a country doctor who has a native sense of gentility but he's probably left his half-pound university words twenty-five years behind him.

//Grasp of the English Language//

It is fun to talk with foreign people and hear the way they construct their sentences. In fact, you can even hazard a guess from which country a person hails by how they structure their English. Other languages are much more sensible about things and I love to hear people (like my Romanian friends) speak because they often take the structure of their language and apply it to English words. I remember our dear, crazy Romanian friend, Cristi asking a group of strangers something in Romanian after we were trying to teach him "Ubbi-Dubbi" and when we inquired what it was he said, "I asked if they could speak birth-language." (Baby-talk) Another time when he swore he wouldn't make us laugh in the middle of church, our team-leader rolled her eyes and said, "Fat chance!" The look on Cristi's face was priceless and he said, "What are you calling me?!"

Still one more excellent (and funny) example of this is Gru from Despicable Me, who is a Russian:

"I have pins and needles that I am sitting on."

He takes a classic American phrase: "I'm sitting on pins and needles" and by saying it with a foreign construction, makes you hear the Russian accent, even on this blog. This is what you want to look and listen for while watching movies/speaking to foreign people. Also, if you know a second (third, fourth, fifth, etc.) language, consult it and see if you can lend a bit of exotic flavor to your dialog by reconstructing things! 

//Personality//

This is a good consideration for any character, but especially useful when you are writing a foreign character. Shy people will probably act like they can't speak English for some time but you will see them listening (and comprehending) and if you press hard and tactfully enough, they will suddenly out with rather flawless (if oddly precise) English. They will use short, mincing words and carefully chosen ones, as they will probably have translated a whole conversation in their heads and weighed all the words they know to carefully choose the right ones so as not to embarrass themselves.

Outgoing characters will probably zip through a conversation at a rapid rate (depending on which country they come from. Italians are good at stream-talking), sprinkling foreign phrases/words where they don't remember the English and assuming you will catch on to what they are saying via their facial expressions and context. Think about what personality-type your character has and whether they will be the precise, excellent type or the good-natured, chattering foreign national. Both are fun to talk to and paying heed to which your character is will help the reader understand the cultural accents you give to them.

What about you? Do you have any tips for writing accents that I have missed?

Also, I am being interviewed a However Improbable today! 

Writing a Query Letter: A Moderate How-To

I have only written three query letters in my life. I've only sent one of them. It did catch an agent's eye, but be that as it may I am no expert on this strange and dark art. I still wonder if my letter was really all that great, or if it was just a whim of this agent to ask to read my story. All wondering aside, however, you have asked for a how-to and I'll do my best to oblige you by presenting the little I know.

A query letter is a strange beastie. Writing one can be torturous. But to be able to write a good letter is one of the basic requirements of the business-end of being an author. The idea of a query letter is that this is your one page--sometimes one paragraph--to capture your audience's attention. So there are four main points you want to keep in mind:

1.} Grab them, hook line and sinker from the start.

2.) A query letter must read like the back of a book.

3.) You want to give just enough information without giving it all.

4.) You want to use your voice.

Basically, your letter should start off addressing the agent/publisher, then move directly into your little spiel that ought to sound like those you read on the back of a book or movie. You want that one line that captures their interest and makes them finish reading. Of course you need to give the agent a little more insight into the main workings of the plot than you might give a reader, but you do want to have that mystery about your story that makes them want more.
The third point is that an agent relies on the query-letter to show him how your write. In a way this will be his judgement of you as a writer--based on how you presented your query.

It was fear of this that drove me to write my first query-letter from Basil Seasoning's perspective. It was a silly idea--and I thought a novel one--and the letter sounded great. Since A Mother For The Seasonings is written from Basil's perspective it definitely captured the voice of the thing and the spirit.
After some thought and input from Abigail and Jenny, however, I determined that presenting a query letter that way is just not really professional. Sure, it's fun. Sure some agents might like it. But it is really kind of silly and seems to take the easy route. Because it's easy to write as a character--you do it all the time. But it's harder--and the mark of a better writer--to be able to transfer that voice out of your character's personality and into a really important document.

I started with that letter from Basil, however, tweaked it till it was from my perspective, and re-read it. It was beginning to look good. Mama helped me go over the letter again, substituting words and reading it over and over to be sure it was coherent, intriguing, and kept the flavor of the book. That was the all-purpose query. Then I had to tailor it to fit the agent's specifications which included an author bio, marketability, and future ides for books! Here is what I came up with: (My comments for your benefit in bold)

Dear (Agent's Name Here),

       Proper Victorian children would never have attempted the scheme. But then…the Seasonings are not quite what you would call proper. (**at this point I'd be asking what scheme? Who are these people?**) If you asked the OLAF (Old Ladies Against Fun) they would snort and hold up their looking-glasses. “Proper—never! Rogues? Hooligans?—Rather.” (**I might be chuckling**)

Their father is just as impossible: a British Officer in East India ought to have a wife—especially one with five unruly children. But Herb Seasoning—a widower and an army captain—has little time to supervise the day-to-day antics of his clan, let alone go courting.(**aha! I think I see where this is headed**)

With the summer holidays fresh upon them, Basil, Rosemary, Angelica, Dill and little Fennel have ample time to search out a woman who is willing to marry their father and become an instant mother. Whether the children are interrupting a ceremony at a convent, wreaking havoc at Piccolotto, dashing through the Indian villages, or proposing to every woman in Cape Farsight, the Seasonings are never far from mischief. (**This would make me eager to hear the rest of their antics**)

They are a tenacious, hilarious set and aren’t easily cast down despite the dubious turnout of each attempt at securing a mother. Not for a moment do the Seasonings question the sanity of their plan. A mother is all they will ever want or need—or is it? Could there possibly be something even more important they are lacking? (**This is a fairly conventional, yet reliable way to draw the reader in**)

Fans of humorous and whimsical novels like Edith Nesbit’s The Railway Children, Louisa May Alcott’s Eight Cousins, and C.R. Brink’s Caddie Woodlawn will be sure to love the quaint sensation of classic childhood at a modern pace found in A Mother for the Seasonings. (**This is how I addressed the agent's question of marketability. I provided him the names of several novels mine resembles in voice and content.**)

I have spent my twenty years of life in a rambunctious, large family much like the Seasonings.  It’s said that the best style of learning is immersion. In this respect I’ve lived for two decades in the very climate that my characters come from which lends me the ability to write their stories with authenticity and insight. I have been writing for eight years and have actively honed my craft during the last several years, including being a member of the recently-disbanded Christian Young Adult Writers’ critique group alongside published authors like Jill Williamson and Stephanie Morrill. As a way to connect with the public and other authors I created a blog at www.inkpenauthoress.blogspot.com where I have collected a vibrant and active community of writers and readers. (**cue applause for yourselves here**)

Along with A Mother for the Seasonings, I have completed another book: The Scarlet Gypsy Song—a mid-grade “reality-meets-fairytale” novel. I am currently writing a mid-grade historical fiction/adventure novel (Scuppernong Days) and a general-fiction/inspirational romance set in the 1950’s. (Fly Away Home) (**I was happy to be able to list so many projects--the question kind of scared me at first.**)

A Mother for The Seasonings is approximately 53,000 words long. I thank you for your time and consideration and wish God’s blessings for you in your business. My contact information is as follows:

(lah-dee-dah-dee-dah)

As you can see, the letter was nothing particularly splendid, but it stated the plot concisely, gave the agent an inkling of what characters he'd find and what they might be after, and generally kept the whimsical tone of the whole novel.

Like I said, I've never done this before. I may have broken all the rules of Query Letters (if there are such rules) but the one piece of advice I found is this: Match your letter to your book. If you've written a sweeping, dramatic tale your letter shouldn't take on a quaint tone. If you've written a humorous book you shouldn't be cut and dry. Think about the essence of your book and build off of that. What sort of language matches the feel of your writing? I can tell you that my query letter for Fly Away Home won't be the same as A Mother for the Seasonings. It will be blunter, less childish. It might move at a less hectic pace. But for the Seasonings I knew I needed to present them as the hurly-burly set they are.
When you go to write your letter ask yourself how your characters would explain their story. I would even go as far as to say it might just be a good idea to write the letter from your protagonist's perspective from the very start. Immediately edit it so that there is an omniscient voice, but you will have got into the swing of the thing and you'll find it much easier to state your point and intrigue the recipient of your letter.

I hope this has helped any of you that are looking at writing a query letter. Just write naturally, get the opinion of several friends and/or family members, and get ready to do revisions. Don't be disheartened if you get turned down. (I'm still waiting to hear back from the agent) It's a grand and glorious adventure, and if a several agents in a row don't bite for your query-letter the worst you can do is go back to the drawing board and add a little more pizazz.

What's to be the pill in all this jam?

When a random person chucked us a random magazine that had something to do with Creationism, the very last thing I expected to find inside was a very lucid article regarding the topic of How To Write Christian Fantasy. A very good article, by-the-by, and one I found most intriguing. The writer had several points I hadn't considered. But the one thing I found myself nodding along to was the mention he made of common pitfalls in writing Christian Fiction. As in any sort of writing, there are ways to do it and ways not to do it.
So how does one write Christian Fiction? I'll give you a few tips.

"Rule Number One: Obey All rules."

Now how did Barney Fife get into this post. Honestly. I believe the Crustimony Proseedcake in such cases is to over-moralize. The first thing is to be sure you don't over-moralize. There is nothing worse than a moral tacked onto the end of a book. Or the beginning of the book. Or all through the book. The thing is, morals don't have to be taken like pills. I shall revert to the Duchess of Wonderland's advice on this:

"'Tut, tut, child!" said the Duchess. 'Everything's got a moral if only you can find it.'"

That is the key to writing good Christian fiction. A moral or two jabbed on the plot at a jaunty angle does not make your book "Christian." A mention now and again of your characters saying grace before a meal makes for a weak testimony. The fact that they go to church and a scriptural allusion now and again is not much more helpful.
Inversely, books like C.S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe never once out-right say they are "Christian" and yet one can't help but see the parable all through. That book is simply dripping with a rich understanding of Christ's kingdom. The morals in that book are quite obvious because they are distilled like a sweet fragrance all through the tale.
Honestly, who wants to be served a dish of morals on a silver platter? How would you like it if you came to read a story that chopped along something like this:

"He raised his sword and poised it at his enemy's throat--"You will die, villain, because you are prideful--Pride goeth before a fall...well....I'm your fall."

That is plain and simple awfulness. You don't need to be so obvious in your writing. You see, it all comes down to a simple question of world-view. If your mind has been exchanged from a callow, worldly mind to one focused on heavenly things and on glorifying Christ, His standards will flavor every word that comes out of your pen. You don't need to constantly try to plug in Bible verses in every other sentence because the whole of the book will reflect your world-view. If your world-view is flawed, so will be your morals. If it's a good, healthy, well-developed world-view than that will carry your standards into the plot. In fantasy this is particularly important, as you don't usually have the option of deeming your characters devout Protestants who always pray before every meal (even snacks) and quote Scripture at each other all the live-long day. ;) (Not that quoting Scripture is wrong. It has it's place, definitely, but I detest books where the dialog is entirely made up of try-to-fix-holes-in-the-plot quotations.)

To again reference the Duchess, "everything has a moral." Even things you don't think have morals. They are either good morals or bad morals. The key is to finding the moral and sprinkling it evenly through the plot, not building sandcastles with it at either end of the book. Do that, and people are likely to doubt your sincerity. After all, what sort of person forgets about their objective till the very end of a thing? Obviously they mustn't care too much about the point.

Just a thing or two to think about. :)

A question of coat and waistcoat

"Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine." -Charles Dickens

Okay...so it's a random picture...but isn't this a gorgeous bird?!

 Description is so important. Description done well. There is description in excess. There is tacky description. There is description that is too heavy and golden and dripping so that it feels rather like a handful of honey getting everything sticky and running out through your fingers while you try to taste it. But then, there is description that is spot-on and leaves you knowing just what the author intended you to know.

I used to be a bare-bones writer in the Description Department, meaning that I counted on dialog and character strength and that sort of thing to beautify my plot. But through my last few projects I've grown to love describing things. As with any writer, my world and my characters are so very alive in my mind that there is a danger of forgetting the world at large doesn't understand. We are given the privilege of showing our readers the just-so parts of literature. Not only the plot, not only the characters, but what they look like. What the scenes look like. All that.
Jenny is a stellar example of How To Do Things. Somehow (and it seems without much groping about) she chooses just the right words so that you are transported not to her world but in it, as I'm sure you know if you've read anything she writes.

But how do you know it's good? How can you tell splendid description when you know it? I'll tell you.

Good description doesn't tire you to read. Good description is so enveloping and intricate that you hardly notice you are reading. The words have become a portal There and you quite forget Here in that moment. I know you have all emerged from reading a book only to be quite surprised it is summer outside--you'd been trapped in a snow-storm. Or else you raise your eyes from your book with a sudden realization of its being dusk and you've not stopped even to turn on a light.

That's good description. Description done right will transfix you and carry you into the book. It doesn't serve as a piece apart from the story. There should be no: "I'm describing it to you and then we'll have a conversation and then a bit of action and then the next scene I'll describe more to you!" No. Description ought to be so mixed up with the plot that you have those gorgeous chunks, but you also have unexpected bits of brilliancy lying about the meat of the chapter.
Paraprosdokian is a good word to describe what I mean, in a way. It means: "Figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently used in a humorous situation." 

Though of course it doesn't have to be humorous. It's the knack of tucking gems in amongst the hum-drum so that you are never looking for them when they appear. :)
 An example of a paraprosdokian is this: "To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research."
 I feel like I'm not making much sense, but I trust you to get the idea. I don't mean your description must be a paraprosdokian, only that it adds much it has that sort of unexpected appeal. :) But now I've diddled my mind with using such fifty-dollar words and I will leave you now!

Dialog--the spice to your story

In my newly restored passion for being a truly great writer, or perhaps more honestly, in my newly restored passion for reading great writers, I've come across a weakness of mine that I plan to mend. That weakness?

Dialog.

My dialog is not the worst that I've come across by any means, but it lacks meatiness. I spend more time in simple dialog without making much of it pack a punch. My characters tend to speak (at the most) three sentences at once. Granted, the sentences they do speak sound realistic and like real dialog, but there is a median ground between realism and monologue.

The book I am reading right now, The Gates of Zion by Brodie Thoene, is full of amazing dialog. His character's words count for something. They are not senseless babble or one-word replies. The dialog is loaded with insight, wit, emotion, and greatness. And the people generally speak more than a couple sentences. ;)

Dialog is such a fertile ground for telling a story. Giving your characters the chance to tell the story rather than you telling it yourself is effective indeed. And I want to remedy my simple little conversations and make them a bit more powerful. That is not to say I want my villain to go off on a three-page rant or my quiet little-girl character to suddenly become a great orator. But there are ways and means.

Ways and means?

Aye, ways and means. 

[Pardon my lapse into North and South there. :] I think of good dialog as having lots of conflict or emotion in it. Perhaps there are moments when you can have both. A good, riveting conversation will be like a fencing match--little thrusts and parries and poking-each-other-in-the-back. To and fros, ups and downs, steel clanking upon steel...that sort of thing. Thus far my characters' words have been effective, somewhat, but rather of the tea-party species instead of the dueling style. Now of course you don't want every conversation to be an argument, nor the quiet, sweet moments to have to have a diabolical plot and reason behind them. Let me give you a quick example of the same setting, one with polite exchanges, the other with conflict.

Let's see...the setting will be a young man trying to send a mysterious letter at a small-town post-office. The mail-girl is unduly curious and it's irritating him.

"I'd like two stamps please."

"Right. That'll be twenty-four cents." The mail-girl leaned against the counter and held her hand out, palm-up.

He fished around in the depths of his suit-pocket and brought out a dusty quarter. "Here. Keep the change."

"Thanks." The quarter landed with a glittering rattle in the cash-register. The mail-girl took a penny out and weighed it in your hand. "Who's it to?" She indicated the letter in the young man's hand and smiled, curious.

"My grandmother."

"She lives in Germany? Wow. That's a long way. Funny. You don't look German." She squinched up her nose and tilted her head, taking in every dark feature of the man before her. "You look Italian to me. Are you sure the letter's for your grandmother? I'd bet this penny it's your girl-friend." She laughed archly and tossed the penny in the air.

"Listen, missy. I haven't got all day. I'll just send this myself if you please." The young man swept out of the post office and dropped the letter in the mailbox, careful to hurl it into the very depths of the blue-tin box.

Right. So that's the polite conversation there. Just the bare minimums to show the guy was getting irritated. Here's how I'd rather write my dialog:

"Two stamps. And hurry--I've got a train to catch." The young man scanned the room with his burning, dark-eyed gaze, as if searching for something.

The mail-girl pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow. "Right. That'll be twenty-four cents.

"Don't know why postage has gotta' cost so much these days," he mumbled, fumbling in his pocket for change. He brought out a quarter. "Here, keep the change. Who knows? Might be a lucky penny...though in that case I could use the luck."

"Oh? Who's your letter to? Bet it's your girl-friend." The mail-girl leaned over the counter and peered at the address.

He pointedly covered the direction with his hand and licked the stamps, keeping his eyes fastened on the envelope. "It's to my grandmother for your information. Don't know what business it is of yours, though."

She crossed her arms and drummed her fingertips along them. "Huh."

He glanced up and rolled his eyes at her offended interest. "Listen, honey. It's to my ailing grandmother...in Germany. 'Kay? She's sick."

The girl's eyes brightened. "Funny. You don't look German...your nose is too big and your eyes are too dark."

"Hey, tootsie, this isn't a beauty pageant. Can't blame my parents for my looks."

She continued, undaunted. "You look Italian to me. Are you Italian?"

"Maybe that's why I love spaghetti." He clenched his jaw and licked the last stamp, then whirled around. "Listen, missy. I haven't got all day. I'll send this later."

See the difference? I personally would rather read the second example in a book. :) Any great tips for writing dialog? Let me know! ~Rachel