Why Writers Are the Worst Procrastinators - Megan McArdle - The Atlantic

The Why Writing Is So Hard field of psychology is very interesting to me.

(via abbrasions)

Oh my god. I understand so much. I was not the top of my class cos I had executive function issues. But yes. I used to just spit out the “you can’t do this all in one night” project in one night and I would get a good grade. And yes I stall on writing because I don’t want it to suck.

(via deducecanoe)

Salt in the wound: when I actually listened to the instructions to do a little bit at a time over several weeks, I’d get Cs. When I’d leave the work to the last minute and do the whole project in one night I’d get As.

(via lemonsharks)

Oh god yes. 

Here in my spheres of the Internet, it’s funny how everyone shares this idea that WRITING = fantasy and science fiction, that WRITERS are people who get loads of money to publish their space elf stories. I think we all found each other here and now because we share these roots of being The Bookish Children, who aspired to be Tolkien or Adams when we grew up, and I think that’s great, and I’m so glad we share all this.

It’s weird, though, how our Writing About Writing then tends to be about fiction. And fiction is such a strange market, a really weird beast. I think that a lot of this post applies to fiction writers in a particularly toxic and demoralizing way but it’s also very true in nonfiction writing. 

As a kid you have all of these… IDEAS about nonfiction writing. That your textbooks and news stories and magazines and adventures and dictionaries and everything are prepared lovingly and truthfully by experts. Edited and approved by some great authority. It isn’t Authors or Writers who create this stuff; you don’t want to grow up to be them; they are oracles, not celebrities. There is still this perception that nonfiction is handed down benevolently, like stone tablets from God.

And the truth of it is that nonfiction is handed down by whoever met the deadline first. These were generally not The Bookish Children whose Daydreams Finally Took Fruitful Wing. These were the ones who believed Terry Pratchett when he said “If you trust in yourself…and believe in your dreams…and follow your star…you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy.”

The truth is, natural talent attracts a certain magician’s-flair attention, but that the Content Machine is starving, and it gobbles up sparkly cupcakes just as fast as it gobbles up plain bread. The news cycle turns over. Nobody’s reading it carefully, thinking of the children, setting words to flake and texture against each other just so. They’re thinking of Wednesday. They’re afraid they’re about to be found out as Mediocre, and if they miss another deadline they will get the Raised Eyebrow.

Talent is a pony you can ride for 3000 words, but when your job is 10,000 words a week then you need a fuckin trained warhorse that puts its head down and carries you stolidly through a battlefield of distractions and doesn’t listen when you try to steer it otherwise. 

So you get this dichotomy in Writing about Writing, where in Fiction Writing you’re encouraged to build an elaborate fairy grotto and arrange the correct pencils in pretty Mason jars to attract the attentions of a Muse, and then do a bit of performance art where you try to market yourself while also being very humble and modest - it’s not very evidence-based, is it? And in Nonfiction it’s just THROW WORDS AT THE PAGE UNTIL THEY STICK! THROW WORDS AT THE WALL - THROW WORDS AT YOUR MOTHER. THROW YOUR MOTHER AT THE WALL. FUCK FUCK BALLS THEY’RE SLIDING OFF!! FUCK HAND ME THAT CONCLUSION WE’LL NAIL IT INTO PLACE AND PAINT OVER IT AND IT’LL KIND OF… CRUST OVER. THIS IS CRAP, IT’S THE WORST THING I’VE EVER MADE, SEND THE FUCKER OUT THERE YES GOOD DONE.

And the Nonfiction gets written, every damn day, thousands of words, filling up the Internet, bringing the news, coming through the radio, teaching the children, adorning the museums, educating the people, telling the truth, selling the product - it gets out there. But don’t think it isn’t creative, powerful, coming from some essential source - its pedigree is just as potent as fiction’s. This post may be terrible, but it has warhorses and cupcakes and all sorts of strange and alarming imagery. And most of nonfiction writing isn’t good. Most of it is workhorse, mediocre, bringing the truth to your mouth - some of it’s terrible. This certainly is. 

And you didn’t notice. You noticed it was there. 

Maybe try writing fiction like you’re writing nonfiction. Maybe it will help.

This Woman Painted The First Page Of “Harry Potter” On Her Wall

1: How To Keep a Demon the Correct Way

2: Thanks for a Whole Bunch of Nothing

3: Another Stupid Night Stuck In What Can Only Be Hell

4: How Not To Be An Idiot: Part 6

Source: [X] By: Laura Whitcomb

We’ve all been there: basking in the glow of a finished manuscript, only to read it over and realize something is wrong with the plot. Finding ourselves unable to identify the problem only makes matters worse. But take heart! Here are some common plot gaffes and sensible ways to revise without starting over.

1. THE PLOT ISN’T ORIGINAL ENOUGH. Go through your pages and highlight anything that you’ve read in another book or seen in a movie. In the margin, write where you’ve seen it. Then list these sections and make a note for each one about how it could differ from its lookalike. A mental patient escapes by throwing something heavy through a window. Too much like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest? Instead, the patient walks out with a visiting grandma after convincing her he’s an old friend. Quick notes like these can help you detach from unintentional imitation.

2. READERS ALWAYS KNOW EXACTLY WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN. This may be because you’ve chosen a plot point that’s overused, or because you keep giving away the answer in advance. Readers know the villain is going to whip out a picture of the hero’s son and blackmail her by pretending to have kidnapped the little boy because you showed the villain taking pictures of the child and driving away from the schoolyard. You could be less obvious by only showing the antagonist sitting in the car watching the boy on the playground, and no more. 3. THE PLOT IS BORING. Take each page and imagine what different writers might do with the same plot. Choose extreme examples. Would a comedy writer have the cab driver and the villain coincidentally be childhood friends with unfinished business? Would the mystery writer have the taxi pass a clue on a street corner that makes a new connection for the hero? Would the horror writer have the cab driver channel a ghost? Or, imagine the most surprising thing that could happen in a given scene. It doesn’t matter if these ideas don’t fit your story. You’re not going to use them. But often, after thinking of wild ideas to make the story more interesting, you begin to come up with workable ones that are just as stimulating, but better suited to your book. 4. THE PLOT IS ALL ACTION AND THE FRENZIED PACE NUMBS READERS. Let them breathe. Give the readers a little downtime now and then in your action story. Look back at your favorite action novels. Notice the conversations, summarized passages, meals, introspection and releases of emotions that are set in between the car chases, shootouts and confrontations. List them. Then give the readers a chance to breathe in your own manuscript. Find the dramatic respites that come from your characters’ needs, flaws and strengths.

5. THE PLOT IS TOO COMPLEX. Often, a complex plot can be trimmed into a sleek one by cutting out some steps. Does your protagonist have to visit her father in the hospital twice—once to bring him flowers and talk about Mom, and then again to find he has taken a turn for the worse? Couldn’t he take a turn for the worse while she’s still there the first time? Does your villain need to have three motives for revenge? Would one or two be interesting enough? To find the messiness in your overly complex story, summarize it out loud to yourself. When a section takes too long to explain, make a note. When you find yourself saying, “Oh, wait, I forgot to mention that …” you’re probably in need of a plot trim. When deciding whether or not to simplify the plot, ask yourself over and over again,

“Why does she do that? Why didn’t she just do this?” Making a plot less complicated doesn’t have to make it less clever. 6. THE PLOT IS TOO SHALLOW. Sometimes as writers we get caught up in the action. The symbolism. The metaphors. The witty dialogue. The great character names. The slick descriptions. Sometimes we ride these skills over the surface of the story and forget what’s really important. If you or your first readers (friends, family, agent) complain that the novel feels insubstantial, step back and ask yourself these questions: Why am I bothering to write this story? Why does the outcome matter to the characters? How do the characters change? How did my favorite book affect me the first time I read it?

7. SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF IS DESTROYED. Readers need to buy into the reality put forward by what they’re reading. You may go too far with a plot point or not far enough with preparing your audience for that plot point. If something that sounded right when you outlined it is coming off as farfetched even to you, look back at the stepping-stones that led to the event. If your murderer turns over a new leaf at the end of act two, make sure you’ve given her reason to.

8. TOO MANY SUBPLOTS MAKE THE PLOT OVERLY COMPLEX. If you start to feel weighed down by your numerous storylines, start cutting them. List the subplots (shopkeeper with a crush, neighbor’s dog that tears up the garden, accountant who threatens to quit every day), and then list under each title all the ways it’s necessary.

Only subplots that are so vital that you could not remove them without destroying your novel get to stick around. Be bold. 9. THE SEQUENCE IS ILLOGICAL. Sometimes the sequence set down in an outline starts to show its true colors when you’re writing the chapters. If you feel the order of scenes or events in your story is off, list each scene on a separate index card and, in red ink, write a question mark on every card that doesn’t feel right where it is in the story. Shuffle the cards. I’m not kidding. Mix them up completely. Lay them out again in the order you think they might work best, giving special attention to those with red question marks.

Something about these scenes tricked you the first time. This time, really look closely at the proper place for those tricky bits.

10. THE PREMISE ISN’T COMPELLING. If you fear that a mediocre premise is your holdup, take out a sheet of paper. Make a list on the left-hand side of everything that’s dodgy in your present premise. Then write a list down the right-hand side about all the things that work great in the premise of a similar favorite book, play or movie.

See where you might make the stakes higher, the characters more emotional, the setting more a part of the overall plot. Remember: The premise should make your readers curious.

Some novels live long, haunting us years after reading them. Other novels hold our attention to the end and are no sooner forgotten. What distinguishes the two? Why do some books, written well enough to keep us reading, leave us feeling ambivalent?

The reasons why a novel might fall short are plentiful, but when a good novel leaves readers indifferent, the problem is often the same. The writer neglected to pull the thread that draws the story together. What is the thread?

THEME.

Joyce Carol Oates—

The story’s theme is like a bobbin upon which the thread of the narrative, or plot, is skillfully wound. Without the bobbin, the thread would fly loose.

Theme is the novel’s undercurrent, the power at work behind the scenes. It’s the force that intersects the reader’s humanity. Theme gives a story its soul.

Remember those grade school assignments that required us to write about a world leader? Thirty or so classmates wrote on the same topic, only the principals and settings varied. The theme paper, so named because the subject was the common denominator, gave us our introduction to theme.

In art, theme refers to a dominant idea or motif. In music, theme is the substance that gathers up a composition and bonds listeners to it. In filmscores, when theme swells beneath a scene, the audience’s hearts swell. With each underscored scene, the emotional response accumulates and takes the audience from engaged to affected.

Robert Wise—

You can’t tell any kind of a story without having some kind of a theme, something to say between the lines.

Theme, in literature, refers to the universal idea explored in a work. Theme provides story with its psychological, philosophical, and-or moral underpinnings. By demonstrating an aspect of humankind through affect and throughout the hero’s journey, readers identify with the hero. Backlit by theme’s universal truth, the hero’s story translates into our lives and experiences. Theme speaks to the conundrums we face. Theme is the insight that hits home.

Dictionaries define theme as “An idea, point of view, or perception embodied and expanded upon in a work of art; an underlying or essential subject of representation.”

Theme probes recognizable ideas, life choices, ethical questions. It’s the issue beneath the story—within the story—that the story brings to light. Universal, as in central to the human condition, theme transcends boundaries and makes a story meaningful to people of any culture or age. Theme sometimes can be summed in a word—love, death, solitude, betrayal, etc. The theme of Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is loneliness. The theme of Othello is jealousy.

William Styron—

Melville said, probably in a grandiose way, To write a mighty book you must have a mighty theme. I do think there is something to that. You need not have a grandiose theme but you must have an important theme. You must be trying to write about important things, although a truly fine writer will deal with seemingly unimportant matters and make them transcendentally important.

Literary themes include identity, self-worth, human worth, convention, rebellion, corruption, power, ignorance, dreams, ambition, failure or the fear of failure, good and evil, tolerance, hope, honor, capitalism, communism, vanity. The list is endless.

To be clear, theme does not imply the subject of a literary work. Theme is not plot, story, or genre. A war story can have a theme of love, and a theme of diversity can find expression in romance, just as compatibility can be the subtext of sci fi or thriller. Theme is woven throughout the treatment of subject so that theme and subject serve each other in plot and become inextricable from story. A statement of theme would not read the same as a statement of plot, as you might imagine in the example of Romeo and Juliette and Good Will Hunting. The two stories have little in common beyond a thematic exploration of the power of love.

EXAMPLES OF THEME

See the examples outlined below. Among other things, notice how theme both compliments and differs from subject.

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