Hi, everyone. You guys had quite a bit of fun tracking down the lost methane. We should do an open floor more often:)
Quite a few years ago I worked for a geotechnical consulting firm. I’m a chemical engineer, and my work for these guys was all in the environmental area. Most of the engineers who worked there were of the geotechnical kind. At one point a graduate geotechnical engineer started at the firm. To say this young guy was brash would be an understatement. The first thing he did was walk into the offices of both the Principals, experienced and very serious men who walked around with an invisible neon sign saying “GOD” above them, and give them both a small white envelope. He then asked them to write everything they knew on the back!
Condensing all the things you’ve learnt over a career can seem well-nigh impossible, but it’s an interesting exercise to thing about the most valuable insights.
As writers we gradually extend our skills and accumulate bits and pieces of knowledge. Anything of worth seems to come pretty hard indeed. The question I was asking myself was – what is the single best thing I have learned? It’s a hard question to answer, and probably impossible because everything in writing seems to be interrelated. The knowledge and realisations that will enhance one person’s writing will not work for another. Some people do some things instinctively and everyone has unique ways of working – and blind spots.
For me, the first insight was understanding the importance of plot. My first novel draft ever was written off the cuff with just the smell of a story. That was fun, but it quickly derailed into a mess that was going nowhere. After that I spent more than four months writing out (by hand) a sketch for every single scene, right down to key pieces of dialogue. This enabled me to play with subplots and get a sense for overall arcs. I don’t go to that level of detail anymore, but I do plan the whole story by chapter and scene.
After that, the biggest penny drop was at a short workshop on story writing. The presenter outlined a simple framework of three interrelated elements: CHARACTER, SETTING, CONFLICT. That really enhanced my writing, particularly short story writing. I think this was when I realised that Setting has to be integral to the story – so integral that integral that to the story that if you took it away, you would have a different story – or would not be able to tell the story. The character also has to be unique to that story, formed by that setting, primed for that conflict.
So what would you put on the back of your envelope?
Mad Genius Club 
25 responses to “Back of the Envelope”
The envelope handed to me by the know-it-all kid with no experience?
“You have a lot to learn.”
(better than my first instinct, “You are an idiot.” or my second, “You’re fired.”
I don’t think those two Principals wrote anything on the back – but it might has well have been that!
“They probably don’t want that much detail.”
Note: I’m the sort that in normal conversation blinks, retraces the last seven topics and says “I had a point, but I forgot it. On with the last topic!”
I often remember several points I want to make, and want to jump back and make them all. I’m learning that sometimes it is best to just drop things.
I really struggle to hold onto points that come to me in conversation. Usually I have to blurt them out – otherwise they disappear into the void:)
There’s an art to making that kind of conversation; and part of it lies in trusting that the point you want to make will be still there waiting when the talk makes a figure-8 turn and recrosses the topic again.
I was a brash young person who ran a company — if it wasn’t business related, it wasn’t even thought of. I was single-mindedly pursuing my dream. And yeah, more than a few schmucks thought they knew better than I did where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. They were fired, not me.
The first writing lesson I learned was about plot, when I realized that plot could do double-duty — plot could develop my characters. I’m a pantser but I go back over a story and add things to it, although now I’m much better at foreshadowing things. Setting is my weak point — I’m a minimalist when it comes to setting the stage or describing a character. Again, I’ve gotten better at this.
Hi, Gina. The amazing thing about writing is how everyone starts from a different point, but somehow ends up at the same place – a fully fleshed story. I think you can be minimalist with setting, some readers prefer a lower amount of description, but you still need those few unique touches to fire their imaginations.
The few times I have really managed to get everything right in a story I still don’t know how it did it:)
“Your characters have to earn the reader’s compassion–readers aren’t obligated to care what happens to your characters just because you do.”
Hi, Misha. Tough crowd, those readers. Editors are worse though!
My epiphany was when someone told me that there needs to be a conflict, not just in the story as a whole, but each scene. This doesn’t mean there always has to be a fight or argument, but that someone has to at least be trying to get something, even if it’s just information, admiration, regard, or whatever. The character has to face some sort of obstacle, no matter how small or drawn out. I’m not sure I’ve always followed this since I learned it, but it’s very informative when shaping a scene.
Ooops. That tension really helps to drive the story. It’s easy to get lost in everything. So many things to keep reminding yourself. I think you can relax a little in a longer work, provided it’s part of a set up for something else.
‘I dunno’
Because at my level of experience, I haven’t much certainty about answers to questions beyond trying it and seeing how it works for oneself. Now, that isn’t the same as whether it works for me, but I find that generally someone has to write it, and I have to read it for me to know for certain on that.
Don’t substitute obscurity for suspense. Not knowing what is going to happen next, and not knowing what IS happening have two totally different effects on readers… and only one of them is desirable.
Hi, bearcat. Nice point.
People read fiction to have an emotional journey – but you must elicit it in the reader, not tell the reader how to feel: if the character cries, the reader doesn’t have to.
Hi, ABE. And that’s about the hardest thing to do. I’m still trying:)
(1) Whose story is this? Here he is. Here is a problem _that is impotant to him_. Here he is solving the problem. Here he is afterwards.
(2) “The big W” try-fail sequences. The longer the story, the more you need.
(3) Finish it. _Then_ edit.
If he has a problem that is impotent to him… you’re probably writing erotica.
/runs/
Hey – I didn’t even notice that. Shows how good I am at proof reading.
That’s a good question Pam: whose story is it? I would find that a little hard to answer in my longer work.
I had a bunch of quotes and sayings and motivational reminders taped up around my computer when it was upstairs and I lost them all when I moved downstairs. So I just printed out these words of wisdom from everyone and taped them up.
I was thinking that I didn’t remember any of the ones I had posted but I do. I had one big demand taped up to “Write More – Think Less”.
I should probably print that one out, too.
Hi, Synova. One of the best ones I came across was ‘Worry is Imagination Wasted’. I loved that, since I love imagination & am also prone to intense anxiety. I used to have that one written up above my screen:)
People are people – no matter when or where they live. (N.B. This applies to fiction and non-fiction).
And aliens are people too:)