We’re all in this together: writers, artists and community

The first thing the speaker at this month’s meeting of the Writers Guild of Texas did was move his chair from behind the desk at the front of the room. There he was, sitting little more than a foot away from the rest of us, with no protective piece of furniture in between. Was there a sigh of contentment in the room? A frisson of fear? After all, we’d once had a speaker who tried – with limited success – to make us sing along during a presentation. We were wary of change.

We were wary of getting close.

Which, it turned out, was the point Dallas writer/poet/teacher Joe Milazzo wanted to make. “I think if there’s an occupational hazard to writing – it’s not writers’ cramp or writers’ block. It’s isolation.”

image: pixabay

Although as writers we’re told, necessarily, to just sit down and write, “the seclusion you need can easily grade into isolation. The material we work with as artists – and I call writers artists – is language. Language is inherently social. One way to remind ourselves of the inherent social nature of language is to join communities. Like this one.”

“The action arts – theater, visual, musical – they are really good at social connections.”

Social connections. Those things extroverts do. If there’s a standard personality type for writers, it’s not extrovert. Yes, some of them do exist, rarer than unicorns or the fabled 1 percent of the fabulously wealthy. Most writers, the other 99 percent, so to speak, are introverted. Make that, very introverted.

Milazzo sympathized, admitting, “I find it draining. I think this is a challenge we face as writers. It can be hard to think of socializing as networking when it takes so much out of you.”

But “writing requires readers. It’s a way to communicate. . . To find an audience – I hesitate to use the word ‘compete,” – but we should take notice of the way other arts groups socialize.”

Yes, we’ve watched from safe distances as musicians gather together with each other and their audiences. As do theater and acting ensembles. The thought of an orchestra, a dance group or troupe of actors performing to an empty hall is unimaginable.

But how can dedicated introverts like writers find – form – communities?

First, we need to banish the idea of networking, socializing and community as things that require us to push ourselves in ways that aren’t authentic. Real networking isn’t about how many business cards we distribute, or collect. “It’s showing a genuine interest in others. (And) the amount to which you’re willing to reach out to someone is totally within your control.”

“One way to have readers is to serve as readers ourselves,” he said. Community members can be the first readers and supporters of writers. “You never know when the good you do will come back to you.”

And that other fear of writers – that if we share our ideas, someone will steal them? 

Milazzo cited the MFA program he participated in at California Institute of the Arts, in which people from multiple artistic fields study together. “We really believed that a success for one of us was a success for all of us,” the antithesis of an attitude all too common among writers, “a jealous protecting of one’s own ideas. I get it, but that’s still an attitude I think has to be protected against. Writing, indeed, any artistic endeavor is a hard road to walk. The more people that can walk it with you, the better.”

What other potential members are there for a literary community? “Libraries and independent bookstores are part of that community that deserve patronage.” Also among the components of literary communities are “reviewers, visiting authors, independent publishers. Literary citizenship (even) extends to anyone who can benefit, whether writers or not.”

How about online communities, an audience member asked?

Milazzo admitted, “It’s fraught. It is hard to be genuine sometimes. (But) if there’s a publisher out there or a publication, or an author you admire, connect with them and see what they’re doing on social media. The thing that builds community is still basically correspondence. It may be email, it may be direct messaging on Twitter. . . A good review is not necessarily the same as having a reader write and say, ‘this book mattered to me.'”

Tall tales told briefly: a short story writer’s guide

I confess: after publishing nearly two dozen short stories, I’d given up. Writing workshops were starting to tell me my tales didn’t fit into the few-thousand-word format of a short story. Flash fiction, micro fiction? Forget about it!

Ann Fields

Then at a recent meeting of the Dallas Mystery Writers, I heard short story writer Ann Fields speak on the few (but basic) principles, and thought, maybe I’ll find the courage to try the short form again. I’ll think of it as a summer wardrobe for my writing. Fewer pieces, no layering, just the basics.

Not that Fields saw the light immediately in her own writing career. She started by writing long – four romance novels and one novella published under the pen name Anna Larence. Her short fiction has been published in the anthologies Lyrical Darkness, Voices from the Block (volumes I and II): A Legacy of African-American Literature.

“I loved the long form, but I had a day job and found it hard to keep my focus. So, I took a detour through short form and fell in love with that form of writing,” she told her mystery-writing audience.

Writers often ask how many words it takes to make a novel. How few does it take to make a short story? Like your summer wardrobe, there’s brief, briefer and briefest. Remember, like the length of your skirt hem, the following word counts are suggestions. When writing for publication, check your publisher’s website for specific guidelines.

That said, Fields’ definitions for short fiction categories range from micro fiction (up to 100 words, or less than a page), flash fiction (up to 300 words, or up to a single page), short stories (up to 10,000 words, or 35 pages or less), and novellas (up to 30,000 words, or 130 pages or less).

(I’ll add a note: in my experience, many ezines and anthologies prefer “short stories” on the shorter side, often in the 3,000 to 5,000-word range.)

That said, short form fiction still needs to be fiction. It must be a complete story with a definable beginning, middle and end. It needs well-developed characters, strong story conflict, internal (character) conflict, a provocative setting and an intriguing story question. It will also contain such basic elements as dialogue, action, description, narration (exposition) and internal monologue (introspection).

Fields notes that, because of their brief length, not all short stories will contain all of the basic elements. Still, it seems like a lot to cover while still staying under 10,000 words, maybe under 100.

Her suggestion is, rather than fixating on word-counts, simply to write the story in your heart in the way that seems natural to you – and it. “How did the story come to you?” The most important factors in determining the form (and length) of any story, she said, are the author’s intent, intuition, and writing sense.

“I credit (my intuition) to reading a lot of short stories and getting familiar with the feel and the rhythm of them.” For those not sure where to start reading short stories, she suggests the annual Best American Short Stories anthologies. “I spend way too much money at Lucky Dog Books and Half Price Books for those story anthologies.”

Other resources for finding short stories include Hemingway/PEN Award winners, New American Fiction, and  Flannery O’Connor Award winners. Favorite writers include those as diverse as J. California Cooper, O. Henry, Eudora Welty, Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen Crane and Joan Silber. (However, she urges caution when using older writers as guides. Poe’s classic, The Fall of the House of Usher, spends its first page and a half on a description of setting, something “he would not be able to get away with in modern times!”)

That said, short stories focus more strongly on a single character than do longer forms of fiction. More than a single character is acceptable, but the viewpoint of one individual must be paramount. They also have a single theme, a unified feel, and are tightly written. And only one plot. No subplots allowed! Think about whether your story can be read in a single sitting. And have fun. There’s room for experimentation and atypical styles in the short fiction format.

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Need more motivation to write short? Consider this short story writing contest that offers cash and publication credits. The Dallas Area Writers Group’s 2017 Short Story Contest (closes August 15). See the site for details. 

Wordcraft – Dialogue: let the characters speak for themselves

As befits a writer of thrillers (with a first novel, Yeager’s Law is out and four more in progress) Texas writer Scott Bell spoke tersely at his presentation on fictional dialogue at a recent meeting of the Writer’s Guild of Texas . He’d rather let characters speak for themselves.

“What I’m not going to do," he said, "is talk about punctuating dialogue. What I can’t do: talk about how to create dialogue. We all go at that creative process differently. What I hope to do is give you some tools and enhance your ability to write dialogue.”

So what is fictional dialogue? First, disabuse your minds, writers, of the notion that dialogue in fiction bears any resemblance to the way people actually talk. In fiction, there’s no such thing as throat clearing, no inane small talk, and for the sake of all the gods of writing, there’s no information dumping.

“You reveal rather than explain. Dialogue is the ultimate show versus tell. . . Readers’ eyes get kind of blurry when they see these big blocks of text. If you want the reader to get something specifically, just put it in dialogue.”

Only, with that specificity issue, the principle of dialogue is to “say it but don’t say it.”

How to say something without saying it? Try speaking in codes, such as this one Bell assured us “every woman in the South knows: bless your heart.” Yes, the world’s biggest put down, wrapped in a candy coating. Or let characters use dialogue to divert others from their real concerns, i.e., the classic, “How ‘bout them Cowboys?” And then there’s the often maddening non sequitur, which Bell “wouldn’t use often, but it indicates a disconnect (between characters). You don’t always have to directly answer questions.”

In case there’s still any lingering idea that fictional characters (or real people, for that matter) only talk to exchange information about, say, the latest findings in quantum mechanics, Bell suggested using it instead to convey emotion. As in this sample exchange from his presentation:

“Hey, doll, whatcha up to?”

“Nothing.”

“Uh, okay. Want I should walk the dog?”

“Fine. Go right ahead.”

There was more, of course, but you already know this conversation isn’t going to be about walking the dog. Not one little bit.

And for those who think descriptions can only be conveyed by having a character view himself in a mirror, there's:

“A real micro-manager, that guy. You see him this afternoon?”

“You mean with his comb-over slicked down? He had, what? Six hairs plastered over his dome?”

Dialogue can even express action:

“Mark, would you get a bag of sugar out of the cupboard? No, honey, the one by the sink. No, the other one, on the left.”

“Here you do. Oops! Dang it!”

And although he claimed not to tell us how to punctuate dialogue, Bell was happy to add some suggestions about some things, like speech tags (“I hate you,” he said) versus his preferred action tags (“I hate you.” He leaped to his feet.)

With examples as lean and mean as those, is it any wonder that when Bell is not writing (and maybe when he is), he's trying to answer this question: What would John Wayne do?

(See the Writer's Guild site for more about its programs, including a flash fiction contest and upcoming workshop with bestselling author Taylor Stevens.)