Confession of a bookaholic: I love books about writing as much as the next writer. I’m always searching for that nugget of information or secret trick that will help me improve my writing and power past my current writing struggles. This is the first in an occasional series of books on writing and craft.
Title: The Comic Toolbox: How to Be Funny Even If You’re Not
Author: John Vorhaus
I’ve always believed that humor is a gift and an art. While I love watching and reading funny movies and books, I’ve never thought about why a joke or a line of dialogue is funny. Either it is or it isn’t, right?
Wrong. In The Comic Toolbox, John Vorhaus, who taught at the UCLA Extension Writers Program and wrote for The Wonder Years and Married… with Children, explains the fundamentals of comedy and the elements involved in developing comedic stories using examples from classic movies and popular TV shows. (Note: The book was published in 1994, so some of the examples are dated. Anyone remember The Golden Girls?)
Besides talking about comedy in particular, Vorhaus also discusses the creative mindset writers need to overcome their fears and produce funny work. For those of you interested in the quantity vs. quality debate, Vorhaus comes out strong on quantity in “The Rule of Nine,” which says
For every ten jokes you tell, nine will be trash. For every ten ideas you have, nine won’t work. For every ten times you risk, nine times you fail.
Why should we continue taking risks if we’re liable to so much failure? Vorhaus explains,
…the rule of nine turns out to be highly liberating because once you embrace it, you instantly and permanently lose the toxic expectation of succeeding every time. (p. 12)
The nugget
Vorhaus provides a number of useful tools and exercises throughout the book, but the part that had the most impact on me was “The Comic Throughline” in Chapter 7, where Vorhaus describes the key elements in a successful comedic story.
Given his desire to experiment with many different story ideas (The Rule of Nine), Vorhause wanted
a way of writing the barest bones of my story in ten sentences or less, so that I could discover with a minimum of work whether I had an interesting, whole and solid story or not. (p. 76)
This Comic Throughline is an alternative to the classic Hero’s Journey as described by Christopher Vogler in The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers. Rather than embark on a quest, in the Comic Throughline the protagonist attempts to reach a goal only to find that the goal shifts, compelling him or her to face a moment of truth before risking all.
One stage of the Comic Throughline, which occurs about halfway through the structure, is called “A Monkey Wrench is thrown.” During this stage, Vorhaus explains, the protagonist experiences a shift away from his initial, surface-level success. Often, the monkey wrench occurs because the protagonist falls in love, and his loyalty shifts from himself to someone else.
Vorhaus’ description of this stage made me think of <
Sorry for the long absence! I lugged my computer along with me for mid-winter break, confident that I would find time to work on my short story, write a few blog posts, and draft my novel synopsis. And as with most other vacations, I managed to do no work at all.
Of course, a vacation is a vacation, right? I’m always encouraging my husband (ok, nagging him) to set email aside when we head out of town, and yet I hold myself to a different standard. I want to continue my work. The dictum “Write every day” haunts me (ok, nags at me). I feel guilty for not working, even though I’m on vacation. (Definition: freedom from occupation.)
I believe that part of this expectation to work is a result of being a mother first and a writer second. I’ve learned to squeeze my work schedule into specific time periods. I adjust my schedule around calls to pick up a sick child or changes in carpool plans. So when a school holiday rolls around, in my mind, I plan to write whenever I have the chance.
It never works that way. The moment I head out of town, my mind turns blank. Sometimes, I never even open my computer. I rarely jot anything down in my notebook. Why can’t I be like those authors who spin their stories out in their minds when away from their writing instruments? Why can’t I be more disciplined, like Charles Darwin, and find inspiration in my surroundings?
It’s as if my mind puts up a little sign: “On vacation.” The premises, for a short time, are as empty as my house. Vacant. Did you know that vacation and vacant share the same root word? According to Wordnik, the Latin word vacare means “to be empty.”
Of course, if you’re empty, then you have plenty of room to fill the well, and while I didn’t write at all on vacation, I read plenty. And more importantly, I spent time with my family, which is truly fulfilling.
What are your feelings about vacation? One advantage of being a writer is the ability to work anywhere. Do you try to write while on vacation? Or do you truly get away? If you do work, how do you balance your time. I'd love to hear your ideas and thoughts.
Over on StorySleuths today, I wrote about the four plot lines in Marcelo in the Real World, our February book. To prepare for the posting, I made a map of all the scenes in the book using 3x5 cards. On each card, I wrote the chapter, setting, page numbers, scene number and a brief summary of the key action. 
Once I had all of the scenes listed, I laid them out on my kitchen table and looked for patterns, logical groupings (scene sequences in film-speak), plot lines and structure. 
This photo (sorry for the lack of detail) shows the entire novel, all 53 scenes. The two columns on the left represent the beginning and the column of six cards on the left represent the climax and resolution.
Why do I do this? Having a visual representation of a story’s plot helps me understand how the author composed the book on an abstract level. For instance, when I read Marcelo in the Real World, the pacing at the beginning seemed slow. It took a while for the story to really get going. The cards show why I felt that way: Stork uses the first quarter of the book (those two left-most columns) to set up Marcelo’s current world and his first day at work in the mail room.
Another interesting discovery I made was that Stork introduced the fourth plot line (the mystery about the girl in the photograph) exactly halfway through the book. That plot line carries the book forward and significantly impacts Marcelo’s attempt to do well at work. This is a good example of introducing a plot line to beef up the middle of the work.
Besides looking at how the scenes worked together, I also marked plot lines or layers, to use a Donald Maass term, in different colors. The card shown above is what Maass would call a “node of conjunction,” where several plot layers intersect (see my posting at StorySleuths for mor
When the dog barks every five minutes to go outside, come back in, go out, come back in…
When children burst into your office bickering about who gets to choose the next program on TV…
When the garbage truck outside beep-beep-beeps endlessly…
Isn’t it tempting to dream of escaping to a cabin in the woods or near the beach?
Uninterrupted blocks of writing time… perhaps a chance to talk books and writing with kindred spirits. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it?
The writing retreat doesn’t have to be a dream. Three Hamline MFA faculty members—Jane Resh Thomas, Phyllis Root, and Marsha Chall—are hosting a weeklong writing retreat in the woods this spring.
Here are the details:
Writing in the Woods Retreat
May 17-23, 2010
Spring Valley, Minnesota
The retreat features group workshops, individual critiques, craft discussions, time to write, plus opportunities to walk in the woods. The application deadline is March 19, 2010.
Jane, Phyllis, and Marsha are excellent writers and generous teachers. During my last residency, I was fortunate enough to be in a workshop with Jane and Phyllis. I learned so much from their focus on craft as well as their attention to the challenges and joys of the writing life. While I haven’t been in a workshop with Marsha yet, I enjoy her lectures at Hamline. She is funny, energetic, and enthusiastic.
Find more details as well as the application here: Writing in the Woods workshop blog and application.
A few of my favorite books by Jane Resh Thomas, Phyllis Root, and Marsha Chall:
Have you been to a writing retreat? Where? What did you like most about the retreat?
I ran into this paragraph while I was reading "The Truth About Dino Girl," Barry Lyga's story in Geektastic:
I never knew that being in love was a physical thing. I never knew your body reacted. Like when I saw Jamie and my stomach felt like someone had tied lines to it and pulled it in ten directions at once. Or the way I suddenly became aware of myself, of my body, when I sat across the aisle from him in bio--the way I felt my hair and my eyelashes and my lips and my nose and every motion of my body as I breathed, hyper-conscious in every way (p. 302).
Describing physical reactions is hard to do. So often, when I'm describing physical reactions in my writing, I tend to fall on standard phrases, like "my stomach knotted" or "she realized she was holding her breath." Lyga helps us understand Katie's sensations by using a fresh comparison (stomach pulled in ten directions) and by narrowing in on her hyper-consciousness.
Finding a precise way to describe physical reactions requires attention. This week, as a challenge, I will pay more attention to my own physical reactions--when I'm stressed, when I'm happy, when I'm tired, when I'm hungry--and try to describe them in precise, fresh ways.
Reading
I recently started A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly. It's been on my to-read pile for a while now. After Lips Touch: Three Times, I've been craving books with rich writing. In A Northern Light, I love Mattie, the narrator, as well as the way Donnelly creates mystery by alternating between Mattie's current experience working in the Glenmore hotel and her recent past.
Although many more books lie waiting on my to-read pile, I'm on the look-out for other YA books that combine great plot with fantastic writing. Any recommendations?
I have been accused of being too analytical in my writing. Several writing teachers have urged me to write more freely in my early drafts while leaving issues of structure, for example, to later drafts. This recommendation makes sense to me on a logical level, but sometimes writing “to see where the story takes me” frustrates me.
This month, I’m working two short stories. Without intending to, I’ve taken two different approaches to drafting: one is Let-the-Story-Flow and the other is Look-Before-You-Leap.
The first story, which I'll refer to as "Emily Babysits," began with an actual incident, a little kid throwing a full meltdown tantrum at the grocery store. How would a teenager handle such a situation? And so I began writing. I write a long, long story about Emily, who hates babysitting, and the little girl she watches. When I finished, I was surprised by how much I learned about Emily, her family, and her outlook on life.
This method, of course, is the philosophy behind Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month): Don’t worry too much about what to write—just show up at the page and type. Let inspiration take you where it wants to go. I’ve participated in Nanowrimo twice, and each time, I’m pleased to see where thirty days and 50,000 words take me.
But the tough part, for me, is then coming back to this amorphous blob of a novel, or in the case of “Emily Babysits,” story and structuring it into a clear plot. I looked for a clear story focus. It is a short story, after all. Then I drafted up an outline of scenes and started over.
I did not follow the outline. I wrote three new scenes—perfectly fine scenes, only by the time I got to the third one, I realized I was way off track. Where did that cat come from? Why hadn’t the kid Emily babysits shown up? And what was I doing? How could I have spent so much time on these scenes before realizing I was going in the wrong direction?
Spew. That’s what I had written. I had spewed scenes onto the page, and they were going nowhere. Grr. I closed the file and haven’t opened it since.
So my second story, which is my geek story for the StorySleuths StoryChallenge, started with an “assignment.” I began playing around with possible geeky situations. When I found one that excited me, I brainstormed characters. It would be a rivalry story. But that didn’t go anywhere, so I kept at it, focusing on the one character that I connected with most. What made her a geek? At last, after pacing around my office, I realized it wouldn’t be a rivalry… it would be a romance!
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Over at
StorySleuths this month, we’re reading a fun collection of short stories,
Geektastic, as well as hosting
a short story writing challenge. Somewhat coincidentally, writing short stories dovetails nicely with one of my own personal writing goals for 2010, writing short.
Let me explain the motivation for this goal. Novels are my form of choice, both for reading and writing. Opening the pages of a novel, I dive into a new world. And when I close the covers for good, I often miss my favorite characters for days.
While reading a novel requires a time commitment of a few hours or days or even a week, writing a novel requires far, far more. In the past five years, I’ve worked on drafts of three novels. Where reading a novel is like flying from New York to San Francisco, complete with in-flight snacks and entertainment, writing a novel is like walking the same distance, without a map.
Sometimes, it’s easy to get lost.
And really, to make the metaphor more apt, to write a novel, you need to make the trip multiple times, with each revision layering in more emotion, more characterization, more detail. The good news is that by the third or fourth time around, hopefully, you’re traveling a more direct route from start to finish.
In other words, it takes a long time to write a novel.
And I’ve been one of those “I can only do one thing at a time” kinds of people. I made the decision to focus my writing time on my novels only, rather than jump from chapter book to picture book to non-fiction and back. I don’t regret that decision, but sometimes, I hit roadblocks and I don’t make any progress on my drafts or revisions.
I don't just get lost. I stall.
This is where the quantity vs. quality argument comes to play. How many of you have heard the anecdote from the book Art & Fear, where the pottery instructor tells half of the class to focus on quantity alone—he’ll grade them on the number of pots produced, with no concern about quality—while the other half must focus on quality alone—they must only produce one perfect pot. To his surprise, when he compares the work produced by both halves, the quantity group ends up with better quality work as well.
More work produces better work in the long run.
So this year, while continuing working on my novel revision, I also plan to write two short stories a month. I’m hoping short stories will let me work on shaping plot, experimenting with character, and revising. And since I also want to have more fun with my writing, short stories give me an opportunity to write about a variety of subjects—when my novel gets serious, for example, my stories can be light.
What kinds of writers are you? Do you work on one project at a time? Or do you have several projects going at once? What’s your take on the quantity vs. quality story? Have you ever conducted such an experiment?
By the way, if you like the idea of playing with quantity, please sign up for the StorySleuths StoryChallenge. We’re encouraging writers to take a stab at writing a Geektastic-inspired short story. It doesn’t have to be perfect—we won’t be judging stories. Just suggesting a general story topic (something geekish), and asking writers to check back in with us on January 31st. We’re even offering a prize!
Just click over to
StorySleuths StoryChallenge, add your name to the comments, write your own version of a geek-inspired story, and then check back with us at the end of the month. One writer will win a StorySleuths magnifying glass!
Complete was one of the six verbs in my six-word resolution for 2010. My goal is to complete the work I begin. And that means more than just complete a scene or a chapter or a draft. Complete has to mean, for me, take a writing project as far as I possibly can.
To the point where I feel comfortable sharing my work with others.
Can you tell I’m beating around the bush? I can’t even say what I really mean…
Complete work means ready to submit to editors and agents.
Geez, was that so hard? Actually, it was. Here’s the thing—oh, and this is a big confession—I haven’t submitted anything actively for a long, long time.
When I first started writing, I wanted to get published so badly. Anyone who’s been writing for more than a year knows what I mean. You’ve seen newbies at writing conferences or in classes, and they’re the first ones to raise their hands and ask all kinds of marketing and publishing questions, and everyone else knows that they only advice they really need is “Focus on the writing.” Ok, so that was me. I sent out a query letter after my first conference and, a few months later, got a very lovely rejection note to my first submission.
My first and ONLY submission.
Since then, I’ve worked on craft, trying to focus on improving my writing without worry about publication. I've written a couple of picture book drafts, a couple of short stories, and three middle grade novels. All in draft form. Now, it’s not like I’ve never shown these things to anyone. But I’ve never considered them finished.
Now it's time to finish something. To take a story or one of my novels as far as I possibly can. That is my task.
So, now that I’ve made my confession, let me move on to the word complete. In December 2008, YA author Laini Taylor spoke at our local SCBWI meeting. She told the crowd that one of the ways she combats perfectionism is to “cultivate the habit of completion.” I love the way that sounds.
"Cultivate the habit of completion.”
Last year, I said I would do that. I did not. This year, though, I resolve to complete my work. I will not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I will be more like my friend Debbie, who sets target goals for herself and meets them.
How will I do this? Good question. Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, a great new book, has a list of tips for sticking with resolutions on her blog. Here are several tips I plan to follow:
- Write it down (check)
- Hold yourself accountable
- Set a deadline
My first deadline is to revise a short story I drafted last month into decent shape to share with my friend Susan in two weeks. More details on this resolution to come.
Lips Touch: Three Times
I mentioned Laini Taylor above. Last month, I read her new book, Lips Touch: Three Times, a National Book Award nominee. Lips Touch features three stories, each introduced with artwork by Laini’s husband Jim Di Bartolo. Can I just say how much I admire Laini’s lush writing? Her work i
The team over at Teaching Authors is sponsoring a six-word resolution contest. Here's mine:
Write. Create. Revise. Complete. Enjoy.
Repeat.
What a fun way to keep the resolutions simple. Let me know you if enter the contest--I'd love to hear your six-word resolutions! (P.S., for those of you doing the
Comment Challenge 2010, entering the contest at Teaching Authors and then posting your resolution here counts as TWO comments. Don't be shy!)
Back to work. So nice to spend a few weeks with kids and family, and oh-so-nice to get back to the routine of work.
Wondering where I’ve been and where I am now? To answer the second question, I’m at home, and I will not be heading to Minneapolis for the Hamline MFAC residency that begins tomorrow. I decided to take a semester off. I was feeling burnt out (think I mighta mentioned that in an earlier post or two) heading into my critical thesis semester. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I wanted to spend my time on creative writing, testing out all of the great skills I learned while working with last semester's faculty advisor, the wonderful and generous Jane Resh Thomas. Jane’s comment when I told her of my decision was supportive: “The muse hates to be abused.” I therefore resolve to nurture my muse by finding more joy in my writing.
As for my absence from Composition Book, it’s not just due to the holiday crazies. I’ve been blogging over at StorySleuths. Last month we dug into A Season of Gifts by Richard Peck. This month, we’ll be reading short stories from a collection called Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd. Please click on over. In addition to posts from StorySleuths Allyson Valentine Schrier and Meg Lippert, we'll feature posts from Alvina Ling, the book's editor at Little, Brown, and Greg Leitich-Smith, who wrote one of the fifteen stories. Even if you haven’t read the book, leave us a comment to let us know what you think.
Speaking of comments, I’ll be joining the Comment Challenge 2010, sponsored by Mother Reader and Lee Wind. The idea is to leave five comments a day on kidlitosphere blogs for the next 21 days. I always feel a little shy about leaving comments, especially for bloggers I don’t know personally, but I LOVE getting feedback on my posts, so I’m going to be brave and reach out. Be encouraging and enthusiastic. That’s another resolution for the year.
Happy New Year to all! I wish you joy, happiness, good health, and success in your endeavors.
I might have mentioned feeling, oh, weary last week. This week is better. I feel really good about my decision to set my novel aside for a while. It’s been a relief, and I’m actually excited about what I might work on next.
How did I shift from weary despair about the present to excitement about the future? By looking back, to the past, of course.
You know how sometimes different things happen at the same time—a series of coincidences? Well, in the midst of wondering why I ever started writing this novel, I flipped through my old notebooks, trying to find when the story sparked and what enchanted me about it. What had I been trying to achieve in the story?
Then, I saw a link to Linda Urban’s blog post about spine. She talks about your Big Why: “your reason for doing what you do.” I had seen the post several months ago, and it inspired me to read Twyla Tharp’s book on creativity. Why was I writing in general?
I also received my weekly email from Author, the online magazine from the Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association. It had an article by Bob Mayer that encouraged writers to set up strategic writing and career goals. Where, he asked, do you want to be in five years?
I needed a personal mission statement. Fortunately, I had already written one of those, a year ago when I was applying to Hamline’s MFA program. Here’s what I said I wanted to achieve:
I want to write entertaining and suspenseful middle grade and young adult novels about coming of age, finding inner strength, and the excitement of discovery and knowledge. I want to write about vivid characters who show readers the sense of possibility, the essence of hope and the truth of being human. I want to write novels that feature a strong connection to place, with beautiful language, striking details, and multiple layers. In other words, I want to write the kind of book that you can’t put down on a first read, but that you’d enjoy reading a second or third time for new details and deeper meaning.
It’s a little long for a mission statement. I’ll have to sharpen it. Still, it gives me a clearer picture of what I’m working to achieve.
You know how the turkey carcass looks after Thanksgiving dinner? Empty and picked-over? That’s how I felt last weekend. And it was more than normal post-holiday blues. I felt weary, weighed down, blank. I suddenly realized that my work-in-progress is at a dead end. I’ve worked on it so long that the joy has disappeared. My usual recourse in times of stress is to dig into a good book or visit a bookstore. I love to lose myself within a story, following great characters on adventure. And I find solace in bookstores, among the shelves. But somehow during the last few weeks of November, my desire to read also dwindled away.
No reading? No trip to the bookstore? Anyone who knows me can attest to the seriousness of my situation.
In fact, as the weekend progressed, I fantasized about scenarios that involved some kind of sabbatical from all writing and printed material. It would be like those monastery retreats, where you agree not to speak for two weeks, only I wouldn’t read or write. Maybe even for more than two weeks. Maybe for two months.
Of course, as soon as I thought about going cold turkey, I panicked. What would I do if I didn’t write? What would I do with that stack of books to read? How would I survive the holidays without visiting a bookstore?
Julia Cameron says that artists have an “inner well” or “artistic reservoir” that she likens to a “well-stocked trout pond.”
Any extended period or piece of work draws heavily on our artistic well. Overtapping the well, like overfishing the pond, leaves us with diminished resources…. We must become alert enough to consciously replenish our creative resources as we
This month I'll be guest blogging at Story Sleuths with Allyson Valentine Schrier. Starting next week, we'll be posting about writing tips gleaned from Richard Peck's new book, A Season of Gifts.
If you're unfamiliar with Story Sleuths, please click on over. Allyson and her blogging partner Meg Lippert, who teaches Writing for Children at the University of Washington, read and analyze respected new children's books as writers, searching for tips and ideas about how to improve their own writing. I think of their blog as a combination book club for writers (comments are welcome) and master workshop on writing. In the last two months, they featured Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and Rebecca Stead's novel When You Reach Me.
During the first week of December, Meg and Allyson will look at two picture books, Snow Day by Komako Sakai and A Penguin's Story
While many people in the Children's Literature community spent last week at the National Council of Teachers of English conference in Philadelphia, I attended a different sort of literary event, working as a cashier at the Book Fair for my daughter’s elementary school.
Do you remember getting those newsprint flyers for Scholastic Book Orders when you were a kid? Helping out at book fair always reminds me of the joy I felt when my teacher handed out those order forms. I would spend the entire bus ride home circling my choices, and then I would eagerly wait for the books to arrive.
(Confession #1: Even now, I can’t wait for my daughter’s order forms to come home once a month.)
The Scholastic Book Fair brings those flyers to life. Our school library was transformed into a veritable bookstore. We sold everything from Jerry Pinkney’s beautiful new picture book, The Lion and the Mouse, to posters of cute puppies.
(Confession #2: I’ve always fantasized about owning a bookstore. This was my chance, for a couple of days, to shelve books, talk books, sell books.)
And what fun Book Fair was! Mad rushes at lunch recess to purchase bookmarks and pencils before the bell. Baggies filled with pennies, nickels, and dimes, oh my! Children buying Christmas presents for their teachers and siblings. Happy faces over stacks of crisp, new paperback books.
(Confession #3: Of course, I added to my stack of reading while I was there…)
That should hold me over for a while… Happy Reading!
By the way, you can click over to Jane Yolen's journal entry for a complete report on NCTE fun in Philadelphia.
Short story: A vacation + homework deadline for Hamline + life = too much time away from novel revision
Longer version: I feel like I lost the thread of my story sometime during the month of October. What is this novel about? Is it about anything? Should I keep going? Trust that something will emerge?
I hate the way doubt creeps up and takes over. Sometimes doubt sends me into a spiral, stealing precious time away from writing and paralyzing me. When that happens, I tell myself I have to keep plugging along. What else can I do? I knew that writing required persistence, skill, and discipline. I had no idea that writing required so much faith. Faith that a story will emerge. Faith that time and effort will yield results someday.
Did anyone see the Junot Diaz article in November’s Oprah Magazine? Diaz is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. He describes the process of writing his novel. He wrote every day, eight hours a day, and never got past page 75.
“Want to talk about stubborn? I kept at it for five straight years. Five damn years. Every day failing for five years? I’m a pretty stubborn, pretty hard-hearted character, but those five years of fail did a number on my psyche. On me.”
Every day failing for five years—that kills me. Sometimes I wonder if I can keep going. Can I keep trusting that if I show up every day that eventually, I will finish a book, produce a work that matches the vision in my head? Do I have faith?
Diaz says that his struggle taught him what a writer really is.
“In my view, a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.”
I hope he’s right.
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