The story is in the details – make them shine!

 The critique partners’ comments were unanimous: are all these details really necessary?

I admit, it surprised me. My writing has sometimes been described as “lean.” All I’d done in this chapter was get a secondary character in the room with the protagonist and generate some tension before sending them off to examine a crime scene. The details – a door, a kitchen table with the protagonist latest cooking project, a clothing change. Was that too much, especially for a mystery whose structure requires clues hidden in a morass of, well, details?

The question, I realized at last, was not so much that there were too many details but that the readers couldn’t grasp what was pertinent to the plot and what was disguise. What was needed for setting and character development and what was intended to lead readers astray.

And that all of those details must do not only their plot-centered jobs but be intriguing enough to let readers lose themselves in the story. To set them happily off after the red herrings but still allow them to say, “of course, that’s how it had to be!” at the final reveal.

This epiphany set me searching for what wiser heads have done with the issue of “details,” such as agent/author/instructor Donald Maass’s suggestions for world building: beyond science fiction and fantasy at last fall’s online Breakout Novel Intensive workshop.

“Whatever the setting, it’s a unique world,” Maass told his audience at the virtual workshop. “What is the biggest event in recent history that has affected everyone?. . . If set in a small town, who’s the mayor? Who’s the social arbiter? The secret force?”

See the details? Image: Myriams-Fotos from Pixabay  

And on character building, Maass asked such questions (among others) as: How old is the protagonist? Remember, we’re different in our twenties than in our forties! What characteristic clothes does the protagonist (or any character) wear. “I’ve read 40 pages of everybody’s stories,” Maass said, “and I have no idea how any of them dress!”

What does the character do for a living? What does she look like? What family does she have? Who are her friends? Does she have friends? What’s her favorite food? What does she read? Or does she read? What does she do for recreation? What does her home look like? Smell like? What would other characters say is her defining quality?

On plot development: What is the main character doing on the day the story starts?   What are the events that would be going on in the protagonist’s life even without the plot? What is a personal life problem that might usually be easy to fix, but in this case it’s not? Why doesn’t the usual solution work? What is a smaller problem, even a funny problem that could bedevil the protagonist?

See what’s going on here? Details – but not throwaway ones.

These are only a sampling of details from Maass’s workshop relevant to any story. Now, what about those elusive clues so essential to mysteries? For cozy mysteries like the one I’m currently writing, graphic violence is off the table. And with an amateur detective – again the staple of cozies – police aid is limited, even impossible. At most, she has a friend of a friend on the police force – possibly a family member. But even these probably don’t take her skills seriously.

Access to crime labs and major investigative tools is also limited in cozies. Take away DNA, fingerprints, any technology not readily available to civilians and what’s left are basically the eyes, ears, and other senses available to all of us. What does she see and hear? At this point, the character’s professional skills may come into play. If she’s a cook, what does she taste or smell?

If, as in another staple of cozies, the character has paranormal help, what does it consist of and how reliable is it? Not that she’s likely to mention this except to people she most trusts. But are they really trustworthy?

She also has her social contacts. Who can she talk to – or not? What does she know about the background, the loves and hates, fortunes and misfortunes of people in the setting? Fortunately for cozy mystery’s amateur detectives, she’s working in a limited setting with an equally limited number of suspects. It’s a village, a small town, a school, an island. Details, details, details!

Fortunately, she also has some technology. Contemporary cozies recognize the ubiquity of cell phones and computers, but the key to using these is often to make them unworkable.

“Where technology is not, is where the bodies are buried,” was a suggestion gleaned from Dallas mystery writer Kathleen Kent at the Roanoke Writers Conference, another virtual gem from 2020. (See “Conference-go-round: down & dirty crime writing” at this site.) However, please limit the number of times the character can let her cell phone battery die!

It’s been said both that the devil is in the details and that God is. Either way, it’s up to us not to neglect the importance of those dratted details.

***

Need more? Oh, yes! Check out another post, “What’s not to love about cozy mysteries?” also at this site. Of course, it’s chock full of details… Or check out the 2021 version of
BONI still virtual!

Conference-go-round: down & dirty crime writing

Image: Klaus Hausmann from Pixabay

I can’t think of a better way to say boo! to Halloween than with tips from Edgar Award-nominated author Kathleen Kent’s tips of crime writing, courtesy of this month’s Roanoke Writers Conference. After writing a New York Times bestselling historical novel (the equally scary topic of the Salem witch trials) and two more well-received historicals, a friend asked Kent to contribute a crime story for an anthology. She’d never written in that genre, but she told her virtual audience, “Like any good fiction writer, I said, sure.” 

 Kent expected the result, published in the volume, Dallas Noir, would be a one-off, but her agent liked her detective character and the “sort of sardonic tone” so much he asked her for a novel. The result was her Edgar Award-nominated detective story, The Dime, followed by its sequel, The Burn.

So, what does a writer of historical fiction have to say about writing crime fiction? Some things that are unique to crime fiction and others that are common to all fiction – but ramped up to the nth degree!

The difference in degree lies such elements as:

  Pacing 

 Degree of suspense

 Heightened crescendo of emotional tension 

 Narrative style 

 And, in the noir genre especially, location as an important character 

Pacing starts with what Kent termed a “bang out of the box” beginning in which characters given a mission “from the get-go. . . .The story should open with the main character standing at a precipice as something happens that interrupts their ordinary existence.”

She also recommends writing the story’s end toward the beginning of the process and rewriting the beginning if necessary when the manuscript feels finished. And then more rewriting as often as needed. “There is no such thing as good writing, only good rewriting!”

In the fast pacing necessary to crime fiction, sentences are often shorter, and words are more likely to be single-syllabled. A sentence may even be a single word. Kent used the term “scenus interruptus” to describe the cliffhangers than about at the end of shorter than usual scenes -- “flashcard scenes” -- and chapters designed to put readers psychologically off-balance.

Also, in crime fiction with contemporary settings, Kent noted, with perhaps a tip of the writerly hat to the late Elmore Leonard, “people often speak in shorter sentences.”

And although many writers have championed the use of suspense in fiction generally, the use of reshuffled timelines such as flashbacks and opened-ended results that characters are not aware of can be used to increase suspense exponentially. As can foreshadowing – what Kent termed, “giving away little Easter eggs to telegraph to readers that something is about to happen.”

Writers of crime and related fiction genres may also be familiar with the technique of perpetually heightening the stakes of the story, which also increases emotional tension. Ask, Kent said, “How is your character at odds with his/her world?” Then thwart that character repeatedly. “What’s interesting are the (story’s) roadblocks and how the character gets around them.”

And then there’s that narrative style. A lot of it has to do with the tips already mentioned, but given the abundance of historical mysteries and crime stories, even those set in other worlds, the style “has to be true to the time and place,” Kent said. She drew on her facility with historical writing to note, “if not using a contemporary setting, “read as much as you can from the era, especially first-person accounts – although don’t get side tracked with interesting facts. . . Imagine your plot as a train track, and the characters as the train.” This train-track metaphor also helps keep the pace going. Don’t let that train get sidetracked.

(She also drew laughs – from this viewer at least – with her attention to using language suited to the setting, including the use of period-appropriate curses.)

And then, ah, then, there was the setting – location, location, location! “The great crime writers have used cities, towns, and the countryside as a character by the way their characters respond to their settings. Do as much research as possible on the place at the time of the story.”

For researching older settings, she recommended old maps are the most helpful aids to visualizing.

Finally, she offered some general notes on crime fiction writing and resources:

 Technology (where it’s not, is where the bodies are buried.) 

 Truth is always stranger than fiction

 Talk to (retired) law enforcement officers, PI’s, Feds, etc.

 Cops & Writers (Facebook group)

 Writerswrite.com – with “50 Fabulous resources” for crime and mystery writing

 Newspapers. “Small town papers are the best (for) fantastic ideas for stories and character development.” 

Want more about crime, mystery and thriller writing? There’s still more to come from this month’s Bouchercon 2020 conference!

Beyond the dog days – fall lit events coming to North Texas!

Is it too early to talk about autumn? With temperatures here in Dallas still flirting with the 100-degree mark, the realization that fall’s abundance of literary events is around the corner, gives me an incentive to crawl out of my air-conditioned hibernation, beginning this weekend with:

August 24: The African American Museum at Fair Park, Dallas, hosts the Tulisoma Book Fair,10 a.m. – 4 p.m. – but stay for a Hip Hop Gospel Extravaganza on the museum lawn from 4-6 p.m.! The literary festival includes panels, author talks, book signings and more. This year’s guest authors include Caldecott Honor-winning Carole Boston Weatherford and author/journalist ReShonda Tate Billingsley. Free. See the site for details. 

September 5: Dallas Museum of Art taps author Salman Rushdie to open its Arts & Letters Live 2019-2020 season. Booker Prize-winner Rushdie’s most recent book is Quichotte, a Don Quixote for the modern age. Tickets (including book copy) start at $60 for the public, $50 for students. This opener will be held in the Moody Performance Hall, 2520 Flora Street, Dallas. 

Wondering how the rest of the Arts & Letters season can compete with Rushdie’s opening? How about appearances by Tracy Chevalier, former U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Margaret Atwood, Ann Patchett, John Grisham, Tim O’Brien, and more!

image: Pixabay

Unless otherwise indicated, events will be in Horchow Hall of the DMA, 1717 N. Harwood, Dallas. Ticket prices vary for events. See the site for complete schedule.

September 20-22: FenCon, the science fiction/fantasy convention showcases a plethora of area and regional authors, at the Sheraton DFW Airport, 44440 W. John Carpenter Freeway, Irving. Programming includes gaming, panels, author talks and signings, costumery, and more. Weekend tickets online and by mail: $45 by September 1, $50 at the door. Discounted tickets available for children (ages 6-12) and young adults (ages 13-21). See the site for details.

September 24: Richardson Reads One Book features Texas author Attica Locke’s Edgar-winning mystery novel Bluebird, Bluebird, 7:30 p.m., in the auditorium of Richardson High School, 1250 West Beltline Road, in Richardson, Texas. Free tickets available at the Richardson Library, 900 Civic Center Drive, in Richardson, starting at 9 a.m. September 3. See the site for details.

October 4-5: Roanoke Writers’ Conference, Roanoke Public Library, 308 South Walnut Street, Roanoke, Texas. Keynote speaker is award-winning author Sanderia Faye. Keep your eye on the site for details and registration opening September 2.

October 8-November 7: Authors LIVE! opens its fall season at 7 p.m. with Stephen Harrigan’s presentation of his latest book, Big Wonderful Thing: A History of Texas, in Wesley Hall of Highland Park United Methodist Church, 3300 East Mockingbird Lane, Dallas. See the site for calendar and details. All programs are free or make reservations for an author’s reception at 6 p.m. for $30 (includes meal and signed copy of book). Register for the reception at stanfordr@hpumc.org.  

October 12-13: If you’re a writer (or wonder what they do when not pecking on a keyboard), hie thee to Writers in the Field for expert advice, demonstrations and activities in weapons, period clothing, military life, medicine, horse handling, crime scene investigation and more. Weekend passes $65, primitive campground available on site for $25 (payable at registration), or check into local hostelries for 21^st century comfort! See the site for details and tickets. 

October 26-27: The statewide bookapalooza, Texas Book Festival, features hundreds of nationally and critically recognized authors for adults and children, exhibitors, food trucks, family activities, and more. Most events are on the grounds of the State Capitol Building in Austin. The south entrance facing 11^th Street is the busiest, so consider trying the north, east or west entrances if lines on 11^th Street get lengthy -- they probably will!

Entrance to the capitol grounds is free, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. October 26; 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. October 27. Additional festival venues include The Contemporary Austin, 700 Congress Avenue, and First United Methodist Church Sanctuary at 1201 Lavaca Street. A Saturday evening Lit Crawl takes place in venues in and around East Cesar Chavez. See the site for details.

October 31-November 3: Bouchercon 2019 welcomes local and international authors of mystery, thriller, and crime writing to Dallas for its “Denim, Diamonds, and Death” presentation. At the Hyatt Regency in downtown Dallas. Registration is $175, with special hotel room rates available to attendees. Guest authors include James Patterson, North Texas writer Deborah Crombie, Sandra Brown, Charlaine Harris, and more! Check out the site for registration and details.

November 1-30: NaNoWriMo all month long! Write from your home or with friends. See the site for details in your area. 

November 11-12: It’s not often that a theological conference makes my list of literary events, but the annual convocation of the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University is known to add literary figures to its list of keynote speakers. This year’s speakers include best-selling travel author Rick Steves, November 11, 7:30 - 9 p.m. in McFarlin Auditorium on the SMU campus, 6405 Boaz Lane, followed by a book signing. Tickets for Steves’ lecture only are $15. A printed receipt is required for entry, and no payments can be accepted at the door. 

See the site for details, including other keynote speakers and complete schedule. 

***

But, you ask, where are the writing contests? I’ll give them a post of their own – as well as tidbits from the recent ArmadilloCon and online Mystery and Thriller Summit.

Springing up – more fall writing events plus contests!

Oh, the things I didn’t know about (or that didn’t yet have information available) when I posted last month about fall literary events in Texas! And now, there’s writing contest information as well.

September 12: Authors LIVE! returns with infantry veteran and Pulitzer Prize winner C.J. Chivers' The Fighters, 7 p.m., in Wesley Hall of Highland Park United Methodist Church, 3300 E. Mockingbird Land, Dallas. The series continues October 29 and December 6. All presentations are free, or register for an author’s reception beforehand for $30. See the site for additional information. 

image: pixabay

September 17-October 30:  Writers Guild of Texas flash fiction contest. No cost for first entry by WGT members, $15 for additional entries (up to 3 maximum). Entry fee for nonmembers $35 (which includes membership in the Guild), $15 per additional entry. Cash prizes and publication in the Guild newsletter for winners. See the site for details.

September 21-22: Conference of the North Texas Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), at the Crown Plaza Hotel, 14315 Midway Roads, Addison. Agents and editors, award-winning authors and illustrators. New this year: critique round table and first pages contest for picture book, middle grade and young adult. Tickets $200 for SCBWI member, $225 for nonmembers. 

October 5-6: Roanoke Writers Conference returns to the Roanoke Public Library, 308. S. Walnut Street, Roanoke, Texas, with multiple craft sessions plus flash fiction writing contests for adults and teens. Two-day tickets $55 for adults, $40 for teens; Saturday only (October 6) $35 adults, $20 for teens.  

October 17: DFW Writers Bloc, October 17, 2-4 p.m., features Liese Sheerwood-Fabre, on the art and marketing of short stories, in Dallas Public Library’s Laurie Evans Studio (3^rd floor). Free, but reserve a seat through the website. 

October 20: Houston Writers Guild's Indiepalooza returns 8 a.m. – 4 p.m., at Rice University and kickoff-social October 19 at Hotel Ylem. New this year – sessions on songwriting and screenwriting. See the site for details and registration.

***

Still to come – Writers League of Texas 2019 manuscript contest, with information probably available in October. 

And – Save the date – October 31- November 3, 2019, for mystery convention Bouchercon, which celebrates its 50^th anniversary in Dallas Halloween weekend, October 31-November 3, 2019. Guests of honor include James Patterson, Dallas-area author Deborah Crombie, and more. Registration $150 through the end of 2018, $175 in 2019. See the site for much, much more information. 

Time and tense: past or present, the writer’s dilemma

The critique session was billed as friendly, supportive, helpful. No one’s work, the group leader assured us, would be torn to pieces by the panel of four much-published authors. Until, that is, the authors sat aghast at my reading. Because it was, shockingly – and I beg you to contain your horror at this – the pages were written in present tense. 

One panelist declared she would never read a book written in present tense. Another, at a loss for words, said nothing, but only scribbled on the pages, “present tense – ick.” Still another delivered an impassioned monologue about the evils of present tense, a fad which could only appeal to millennials. 

image: pixabay

However, far from being a mere millennial-generation fad, a few minutes with a search engine turned up some thought-provoking examples of present tense novels written in pre-millennial days, including these from The Write Practice site: Bleak House, (admittedly, with some past tense sections) by that 19^th century codger Charles Dickens; Rabbit, Run, by John Updike; and All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque. 

All of which left me wondering why present tense ever got such a bad rap. And why, if it was so bad, no editor or writer in the numerous other classes and workshops I had attended had ever cautioned me against its use.

So, it was with a feeling of chagrin that, when checking my earlier posts at this site, I ran across my own admonition against the use of present tense: “. . . the equivalent of running (a marathon) in leg shackles.” 

My only excuse for such a shocking comment is that it was written in 2010. (I also had a strange prejudice at the time about writing with a first-person point of view. Go figure.)

Still, times change, and so do writers. Who doesn’t want to try a new technique, add a new tool to my box of craft. Why not try writing in present tense since, I told myself, it could always be changed later if it didn’t work. At first it did feel a lot like running in shackles. I found myself constantly pulled up short, constantly reverting to the more familiar, seemingly cozier past tense while hardly realizing what I was doing.

But like all skills, present tense got easier with practice.

In mid-2014, I wrote a science fiction short story for a contest. In past tense. It got some nice comments from the judges, but was only a runner-up. Not a winner. By the end of 2014, I had rewritten it in present tense. This time around, it sold. For the curious, the story was “Planet, Paper, Space,” published in 2015 in Luna Station Quarterly.

By that same year of 2015, I had revised an earlier novel into present tense, and achieved a first chapter which has since received thumbs-up from my online critique group. By late 2015, I even managed to overcome my introvert’s fear of first person and submitted the opening of a new novel with both the new-to-me techniques for the Writer’s League of Texas contest. I was driving down a country road on the way to a family reunion when a message popped up on my phone: “Congratulations! You’re a WLT manuscript winner!” 

I’ll admit, I’m still going back and forth with the agent who picked that piece of present tense writing out of the contest slush pile. But the small victories were enough to convince me that, yes, I can write in present tense if I want, and if the story needs it. 

Perhaps I should mention that some authors believe the use of present tense destroys a story’s suspense. However, through trial and error I had unconsciously learned the lesson author Jenny Martin would later put into words during her workshop at the Roanoke Writers Conference this past fall: that use of the present tense automatically raises the suspenseful question, “Does this person survive?” We know she’s alive now? But will she still be living at the story’s end?

If we’re going to get all grammatical, there are also multiple versions of both past and present tense, all of which have their own purposes. And for those asking, well, what about writing in future tense – Martin’s advice was, “just don’t!”. Although I can feel my fingers itching right now. . .  

Studying the techniques of thriller writers also clued me to another suspense-generating technique applicable to either present or past tense – use of multiple points of view. Which perhaps I’ll post about at some later time. 

Obviously, I haven’t embraced present tense for all purposes – as witness this post written in past tense. Because the events it describes are, well, in the past. As one of the panelists I dissed about at the beginning of this post told me later, readers’ – and writers’ – tastes differ, but the important thing is to tell the story that’s burning to be told. No matter what tense it demands. 

In the beginning, a dark and stormy night – Not!

The title of the discussion at the 2017 Roanoke Writers Conference was “First Chapter Fatal Errors,” led by Texas writer A. Lee Martinez. With years of writing (Martinez has published nearly a dozen books) behind them, years of participating in writing critiques at the North Texas DFW Writers Workshop, “I’ve heard a billion chapters,” Martinez said, “including plenty that make the same mistakes over and over.”

Never fear, Martinez was here, to help his audience of writers deal with the dreaded opening sentence, scene, character introduction, even first chapter. 

He started with the easiest things to fix – clichéd openings. His list of don’ts: 

• Don’t start with descriptions of weather (goodbye, dark and stormy nights)


• Don’t start with a character waking up


• Don’t start with a character looking in a mirror


• Don’t start with a dream sequence 

(“Well, maybe you can have one of the dreaded cliché openings," he admitted, “but they have to be really exciting.”)

A. Lee Martinez

“I know somebody here will raise your hand and say, ‘but James Patterson did it.’ James Patterson can break the rules. (New writers) can’t.”

However, Martinez was willing to relax pressure on another major writerly hang up: opening sentences. I feel like raising my hand here and saying, but aren’t we constantly told that the first sentence is what will hook the reader?

Look, he said, “agents and editors know that first sentences are the easiest things to fix. Don’t worry about being perfect,” Martinez said. “Agents don’t expect you to have perfect copy editing. (Just) try not to have typos in your first sentence.”

Think a little larger, he said, such as first chapters.

“The biggest problem people will have with first chapters is, they don’t know where the story starts. The best way to start your novel is to know why you’re starting it. Nobody cares about characters thinking about thinking. I write fantasy and science fiction, where it’s common to spend pages establishing the world. What we need are characters and a problem.”

Use the opening, he said, to introduce a character and the unusual moment that changes that person’s life, “that propels the story. . . You can almost never go wrong by going with a character doing something interesting.”

“It’s real easy to do this thing where the characters spend too much time thinking. Have your characters interacting with the world. What they’re doing should be relevant to their life. It doesn’t have to be something big. . . Emotional tone is so important. Establish the character, establish the problem. Physical action is always good, but as you go on, emotional action is better.”

What about character dumps, with an entire cast introduced in a single page or two? Or opening with violent action? 

At the beginning, Martinez advised against introducing more than two or three characters, which is enough to provide conflict. And neither action nor conflict have to be violent. 

“Characters can be on the same path but have different methods.” It’s that difference in methods that can give the story a satisfying conflict.

“Depending on the genre, it never hurts to open with a mystery. Then have a tone you’re establishing. You have to find your style – and your weakness. The reason it’s hard to teach creative writing is because it requires an honest look at your own works." 

This is one of his reasons for joining a writing critique group.

"Any artistic creation is an attempt to communicate." If it can't be done in a small group, how can a writer expect to communicate with a wider audience? 

What about length, an audience member asked. How long should a first chapter be?

“As long as it needs to be,” Martinez answered. “You have to know why you’re writing the chapter, and then you’ll know where it ends. The easiest thing to remember about a chapter is, end it sooner than you think you should. Start it later and end it sooner. And then,” he added wryly, “end it sooner than that.”

Writing like a Martian, the Bradbury way

While dithering recently over whether to register for the Roanoke Writers Conference, I checked the list of presenters. There were some fine ones, writers and instructors I already knew and appreciated. And then there was Sam Weller, the authorized biographer of Ray Bradbury. 

Sam Weller

I spent my middle school and high school years devouring everything my small-town school libraries contained of Ray Bradbury writings, and still check for newer works. (Bradbury died in 2012, long past my middle school years.) So, yes, I pulled out my credit card and signed up for Roanoke, to learn from a teacher who had learned from Bradbury.

The prolific Bradbury is perhaps most famous for his volume of linked short stories, The Martian Chronicles. Or should that be, most famous for Fahrenheit 451? Or The Illustrated Man, or -- well too many other books and stories to name. (Bradbury’s official site mentions hundreds of short stories, nearly fifty books, as well as poems, essays, screen plays, teleplays, operas. If you can name it, Bradbury wrote it.)

I’ll provide a sampling of the tips Weller learned from his 12 years of association with Bradbury. But what most struck me from Weller’s two-hour creative writing class (which included some of Bradbury’s own writing prompts) was Bradbury’s dedication to his craft. Unable to afford college after he graduated from high school during the Great Depression, Bradbury became an autodidact, haunting the public library. He would later declare, Weller said, that “the public library is the only university that matters.” It’s a statement still worth considering even in these days of the Internet. 

image: wikipedia

Bradbury’s method of teaching himself to write fiction was simple but grueling: write one story every week for a year, deciding that it couldn’t be possible to write 52 bad stories. In the first year of this experiment, he sold three stories. The next year six, then nine. Five years after finishing high school, he became a fulltime writer.

(Considering how much emphasis current writing classes put on beginnings – although I’ll have more to say about that in a later post – one of the advantages of short story writing, Weller said, is that “you learn how to end things.”)

I may not be able to keep up the story-a-week schedule with NaNoWriMo looming tomorrow, but Bradbury’s suggestions resonate for any writing form:

1)     Find a community of writers (Lucky us – NaNoWriMo brings out writing groups like earthworms after a thunderstorm.)

2)     Write from a place of emotional truth – your truth (It’s not writing what you know, Weller said, it’s writing what you’ve felt.)

3)     Stay immersed in art – read books, poems, essays, listen to music, watch movies, go to the theater, to museums – what Bradbury called “stuffing your mind”

4)     Develop a routine – “all you really need is two hours a day”

5)     Write about your interests and passions, write about things you think are cool. Write about what you love. “Can you imagine,” Bradbury said, “if I’d lost my childhood fascinations with Mars?”

6)     Write for you – the first person you write for should be yourself

7)     Think beyond clichés and tropes

8)  Ignore discouragement 

9) Let your stories by written by your subconscious, write them quickly. ("Finish things! Try it! Stop being so damn precious!")

10) Generate lots of ideas until one comes along that won’t leave you alone

By now, aren't you wondering why an image of a pensive young woman illustrates this post?

Weller’s exercises for us at Roanoke are ones we can try in the coming NaNoWriMo, or all year round.  Edward Hopper’s 1927 painting “Automat” was one of those pieces of art that resonated with Bradbury (see #3 above). Bradbury favored pictures of solitary women, famously including Andrew Wyeth’s eerie “Christina’s World.” But choose any work of art that appeals to you as your own writing prompt.

A second prompt is to make a list of five or more things that interest you (see #5 above). “Don’t be afraid of being weird!” Weller urged us. “Embrace the weird!”

Bradbury also loved to make lists of nouns (file cabinet drawers full of lists, Weller said, all starting with the article “the.” For your final prompt, list five to 10 nouns, as diverse as possible. And yes, start each item on the list with “the”. 

(“If you don’t know where to start, just start describing the noun for a paragraph,” Weller said. “Then bring in characters to interact with the object. Immediately, a story will appear.”)

Mix and match prompts to taste, add a dash of weirdness, a heaping cup of determination, and see what magic happens.