BarbsWriteTree

Name:
Location: San Marcos, California, United States

Southern gal living in California. Have been writing since the age of ten and am addicted to the written word. Have stacks of books-to-be-read in almost every room. I teach writing on a volunteer basis and in a paid position. I once worked with foreign customers for an aerospace company; interesting job that gave me great insight into other cultures. Family scattered all over the US so have excuses to travel.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

BEING IRISH AND STORYTELLING

Some of my ancestors came from a tiny corner of Ireland and the adjoining part of Scotland. I am Scotch-Irish. Daddy used to say we were orange, not green. But whatever that little drop of blood is, I love the music and the literature and the lilting accents. I also know my ancestors were storytellers and I do feel I inherited that gene.

I have been telling stories since the age of ten. My first tale was about an Indian warrior who captures a young white woman and she falls in love with him--and he in return feels the same. At age ten, what did I know about love? For that matter, what did I know about Indians? All I knew about them was what I read about, heard on the radio shows I listened to on Saturday and Sunday night, and remembered from the tales of my Creek ancestors on the other side of the family. That was the beginning, however, of an ongoing love for writing fiction, especially short stories.

There isn't much market for those short stories now and we who love to write them find fewer and fewer markets for them. Luckily, there are small press who will publish our work, for no pay, or a copy of the publication. That way, if nothing else, we can see our stories in print.

On Monday and Wednesday next in my creative writing classes, I will be giving a short presentation on writing the short story. How can I encourage people to write something that is no longer truly appreciated? The major magazines who accept fiction can be counted on one hand and those are very picky. Actually, I never see any names of writers that I don't recognize--the John Updike's, Amy Tan's, etc--of the writing world seem to be the only ones who see the light of day. So what can a writer do in order to maybe get their story in print?

Hit the ground running was a suggestion I found in one article. Start off with a bang. Grab/hook the reader. Start with some sort of conflict or threat. Show the unexpected. Create tension. Do something that will make those readers (you do realize that some young person interning as a reader for the publishing company is probably the only person who will ever see your work, don't you?) sit up and take notice, want to see the ending, and pass it on to the editor.

A writer of short stories no longer has time to warm up the reader. The readers and busy editors will throw your work in the round file if you don't have a powerful beginning.

Hopefully, my students will understand that I am pushing them to do their best work--and not think I am discouraging them from submitting at all.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

HOOK THE WRITER FIRST

Writers learn almost from the first stroke of the pen that you must hook your reader in order to be read. Some experts say you must do it in the first sentence, others the first paragraph, and still more say you need to grab them within the first page. Some real hard-nosed instructors will tell you that you have thirty seconds or the entire cause is lost.

Whatever the time or words allowed, all agree a writer must offer a challenging beginning in order for a reader to want to stay with the author to the end.

How do writers hook the reader? What magic potion do you mix to entrance someone who picks up your work? A hint of mystery, a challenging question to be answered, a promise of new answers to an old dilemma? It could be any of these. It just has to be gripping and, though it sounds difficult, it can be done.

"Tell me something I don't know or something exciting--starting now!" That is what most readers are thinking when they begin reading your work. Their expectations make for a demanding process. You need to give them something intriguing, exciting, even painful to encourage them to read on. The writer also must give the reader a sense of what to expect in the pages to come. They need to meet at least one protagonist and begin to encounter the central conflict in the novel if it is fiction. If nonfiction, you need to pose a question or make a statement so strong that your reader wants to find the answers or all the information possible on your theme.

The prologue for Robert Hicks' novel, "The Widow of the South," does an excellent job of hooking me--Down the rows of the dead they came. Neat, orderly rows of dead rebel boys who thirty years before had either dropped at the foot of earthen works a mile or so away or died on the floors of the big house overlooking the cemetery.... Are they ghosts? Do they only live in the memories of the two women we find in the cemetery? I definitely want to read the story to follow.

In the latest issue of Rosebud Magazine, Jon Methven offers a short story titled, "Nicknamer." The beginning definitely made me want to find out what is going on in this story: We keep the old man in a motel near the highway. He complains we hold him hostage, but that's not entirely true. The phone in his room only rings to a second phone I carry with me and I chain him to the wall when he's drunk enough to hurt himself. . . Don't you want to know who the old man is? What the narrator is holding him for? What happens to them both?

An article in Arizonia Highways begins: Imagine warming hike-weary feet in front of a crackling woodstove, waking to birdsong and a pine-scented breeze, savoring a picnic lunch along a creek or lake. If you've ever fantasized of having a cabin in the woods, then hold onto your hiking hat--your dreams are about to come true.... I love to hike, drool over living in a cabin in some remote forest, and with a lead like this to hook me, I want to read on, find out how (or if) my dreams can come true.

All of these examples give the reader an urge to follow the writer right down the path he/she has painted with words until they get all of the information, solve the crime, see the hero get the girl, or gain information on a meaningful subject. In order to have this impact on your readers, you must write that interesting hook up front.

In order to write like this, the first thing you, as a writer, has to do is hook yourself. You should be so intrigued, so interested in your theme, subject, essay, book, or characters that your excitement and enthusiasm shines through those first few words.

If you aren't interested, no one else will be either. Write, edit, rewrite those first few words, sentences, paragraphs. Make them shine with promise of what prize awaits those who read your work through.

Friday, March 02, 2007

"IT'S ALL THE OTHER GUYS FAULT"

I couldn't get into my account here last night. For weeks since my last post, I have run across the same problem. This is not Blogger.com or Google's problem. This is an AOL problem and we have been doing battle for three months now. In fact, they even blocked me from getting into the HELP section of their very own site!

I started with their Questions and Answers section. Did everything they said I should. Then I went to the Live Help; three times I followed their guidelines, step by step. I copied them off and tried them on my own after I continued to have problems. I notified some of the e-mailers about the problem I was having and asked if they could send me their newsletter or email several times, just to check. I never received them.

I finally picked up the telephone and called AOL. First of all, I have Dial-Up (yeah, I know, I need to get into the 21st century); so, of course, the lady from India on the other end of the line asked me to bring up my account. When I finally got it through that I can't do that with Dial-up if I am talking to them, she informed me there was little they could do for me, that I should really look into their High-Speed service. I told her AOL shouldn't take my money for a service they couldn't "service." That's when the woman told me I needed to talk to someone else. LOL

I was sent to another department who told me I was in the wrong place and it sounded like I needed to speak with the "PostMaster." That gentleman told me he wasn't the person to speak with at all, that I should be talking to Tech Support--which is where I started to begin with! When I protested, he finally gave me the real reason I can't receive my emails.

AOL tells me it is the "other guy's fault." Well, there sure are a lot of other guys who have a problem: let's see there are several writing newsletters I no longer receive (two of which I pay for), several friends and my own brothers. Now, my brother is an experienced, high-ranking IBM technical guru; when I told him AOL says it is all the fault of the people I have on my address list (by the way, they tell me over and over to put them on my Address List and I will have no problem but they have always been on there!), he did some digging, tracing, following. Guess what? It's AOL's fault! Did you have any doubts? They are deciding for us what we should or should not receive.

I need to find a new server. I need to learn how to transfer my Address Book and this blog's address and all of those scary things I don't want to have to face. Until then, I am lost in cyberspace.

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