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“But remember, there’s a huge difference between ‘trying hard’ (which you want to do) and ‘trying to make it perfect from the first word on’ (which is impossible and just might shut you down). The goal [with first drafts] isn’t beautiful writing; it’s to come as close as you can to identifying the underlying story you’re trying to tell.”
~ Lisa Cron in WIRED FOR STORY
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Facebook has its pros and cons. I love all the images people post, the links to news I would otherwise miss. I don’t mind the dogs and cats and memes.
But it isn’t long before I am drawn into the endless feed and am lost in something like a nail-art video. Me, anything but manicured, sighing wistfully over the shiny faces of Frankenstein and his bride on perfect acrylic canvas.
I can’t help myself. That’s the con.
One aspect of Facebook I really appreciate, though, is the ability to save links & videos I don’t have time for right away (because I am busy watching nail art). One click and those posts are filed away in a select column, so that later on I don’t spend hours fishing through every friend’s status to uncover them again.
Of course, my “saved links” feed has become dangerously full. So today, I’m posting a few of bookmarked favorites because 1) I can’t stand the idea of a good article sitting unattended and 2) sharing is more fun than Facebooking alone.
1. Dinty W. Moore’s My Favorite Essay to Teach: Debra Marquart’s “Hochzeit” on Assay: a Journal of Nonfiction Studies:
“[W]hat I find most fascinating about this 560-word masterpiece is how Marquart captures the very young Debra’s point-of-view. Not just the traditional way, letting us into her thoughts, but even the visuals. We see the wedding the way a child might see it, sitting on the floor, eye-level with the hems and cuffs of the grown-ups. And the character details are based in the reality of childhood….”
Moore includes a link to Marquart’s essay online and highlights a few short passages. But he also gives a brief lesson on one of the aspects of great flash nonfiction: the focus on details.
2. Heather Havrilesky’s Ask Polly: Should I Just Give Up on My Writing? Maybe you saw this one, but it’s worth a second study:
“We wake up very early in the morning, before the sun comes up, and we say to the world: I AM OLD AND I AM A NOBODY AND I LOVE WHAT I DO. You will be just like me someday. If you’re lucky.”
I read this just before I got my copy of Elizabeth Gilbert’s new book, BIG MAGIC, and these two things in tandem were exactly what I needed to lift my writing spirits.
3. From Good Housekeeping: This Incredible Archive Lets You See Depression-Era Photos of Your County.
“all of those images are searchable and sortable online through Photogrammar thanks to Yale. Want to see what New York City looked like during the 1930s? No problem. Curious about your hometown? Hunt away. You can even search by keywords, like ‘boys playing cards’ or ‘woman cleaning.'”
Now this is definitely more fun than Facebooking and perfect for writers of historical fiction.
4. Easy Microwave Fudge. Fine, so artsy manicured nails aren’t the only auto-play video over which I find myself lingering….
What have you bookmarked lately?
I am terribly introspective most days, but there are moments–plenty–when my attention span runs short. Too much coffee, too many things to do, too short on time for all that “doing,” I have to force myself to slow down.
Take a breath.
Focus.
I don’t want to make myself focus, though, when it comes to reading. I want to dive into story. It’s true that a good book is worth the wait through a slow opening or a few introductory chapters. But a great story, as Lisa Cron says in her book Wired for Story, is marked by a compelling hook from the very beginning:
[W]hat draws us into a story and keeps us there is the firing of our dopamine neurons, signaling that intriguing information is on its way. This means that whether it’s an actual event unfolding, or we meet the protagonist in the midst of an internal quandary, or there’s merely a hint that something’s slightly “off,” on the first page, there has to be a ball already in play. Not the preamble to the ball. The ball itself. . . . and it has to have our complete attention.
Now, I’m not an action-packed kind of reader. If you look through my author interviews, you’ll see I prefer a slow build, a quiet novel. Still, a slow building story doesn’t mean slow-to-intrigue; first lines in these quiet stories can be just as intriguing as in a plot-driven novel. Here are a few of my favorite first lines from past and recent reads:
“It was bitter cold, the air electric with all that had not happened yet.” ~ from A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick.
Have you read this book? Oooh, really good stuff (okay, worst book review ever–“really good stuff”–but suffice it to say this is one of my “I want to write like that some day” books).
“Mama left her red satin shoes in the middle of the road.”
~ from Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman (you can read my interview with Beth HERE).Another one of my all-time favorites from the first line through the first scene and beyond.
“Daily, men descended into the earth, going where no man belonged, taking more than men deserved, their faces wracked with indifference, their hands dirtied with soot from the depths of the mountain.” ~ from American Copper by Shann Ray.
I received an advanced copy of this book, and I knew immediately from this line that I would absolutely love it. Everything about this story is woven into that first line: industry and power, the harm a man may cause, and the scars he leaves behind.
We’ll talk a more about Lisa Cron’s book and story structure in my upcoming online class, Principles & Prompts. Join us if you can. And, consider picking up Wired for Story or one of the three novels mentioned above. American Copper doesn’t come out until November 2015, but it’s definitely a book to claim for your shelves.
What’s your sign of a good story?
