Putting those Darn Words on the Page

by silioso

Hello fellow writers and friends!

As I mentioned before, we are moving into fiction, and that’s today’s topic. I ma going to try to help you get started with your story, following the methods I use and tips I’ve come across. The story I’m writing is a sister story, a mirror story, a story of self — of which is set ablaze through words. My story has gone through different working titles1, and I want you to know that when you start writing, you don’t need a title. What you need to do is eradicate the idea of a title from your mind. If a title seems to stick with you, then make it your working title. My working titles for this story have been REALITY, Homefire, and Sisterfire. However, the final title is: FRACTURE.2 When I started writing FRACTURE, I only knew that I wanted to write about two sisters that somehow incorporated a train and an orphanage. The idea for a train as a significant and interesting element in this story came from Marilynne Robinson’s novel, Housekeeping, in which the train is a recurring image. The orphanage will help link this story into the fictional world that I am creating.

Your story may magically lie itself before you, but most writers do not experience that. We have to do work — serious, frustrating, confusing, and awe-inspiring work. Many new writers will plan a story they already know; that, or they go in writing ‘blind’, and not that cool ironic kind of blind writing. They will write the former as a cut and dry version of the story they know. They have a tendency to write facts and dialogue. This sort of objectivity is a sort of tool that experienced writers exploit to take their pieces to the next level. New writers will write the latter as an interesting exploration of the world around them, and when writers write those stories blind, they lose scope of their story. They might create a world so vast and intricate that their characters and the narrator cannot navigate; and thereby, the story wonders. When an experienced writer goes into a story blind, he/she goes in with the tools and constructs of his/her style and themes with which they are personally attuned. Those writers use their exposure to craft a ‘new’ story.3

When I approached FRACTURE, I kept the ideas in my head, trying to connect all of them, and then consider what that would do to the story, and what it would do to the world I was creating. I decided that sisters’ house would become the orphanage in my fictional world, albeit it is not explicit in FRACTURE. At this point, I already decided the name of the orphanage, Home. The metafictional discourse alone on irony of an orphanage being called Home, was ripe for the picking. The idea for the orphanage came from David Foster Wallace’s Enfield Tennis Academy in Infinite Jest. The tennis academy in his novel acts as a center point for a majority of the plot. There is a large cast of characters that Wallace gets to juggle at the academy, and a large group of people allows for extremely absurd characters. Absurd and strange characters are always interesting to read — see any popular TV show or best selling book. 4 I decided that the sisters, instead of running away on a train and trying to find their remaining relatives, shortly after becoming orphans, the train becomes part of a further fictional world. You can think of this in terms of the film Inception. I write a first fictional world that the characters inhabit, and then write a second fictional world into which the characters travel. This is similar to diegesis; however, diegesis typically does not involve the fictional worlds being blended together (since normally there is only one fictional world, of which there are stories inside stories) nor the characters fully overlapping.

Without getting into why I made the choices I did to achieve my style of writing, which includes many metafictional tools, the importance is the synthesis of the story. Once a writer get the main idea for her/his story, then the writer must write. It seems simple enough, but this is the hardest and most tedious portion of the job. It would be fantastic if, once the writer had the story in her/her head, then it could be laid out onto paper in an instant, but that isn’t what happens. The process of writing a story, no matter the length, a relationship. There are days that you are going to love your writing and you are going to be crazy passionate about it, but there are also days when you are mad and at the verge of tearing your hair out. Sometimes you have to walk away from your story and take some time to breathe. The important thing about your writing being a relationship, is that you always come back to it. At the end of the day, no matter where you are, no matter what you’re doing, you are in a relationship with your story — you made those words, and it is your job to see them through. That being said, even when you are done writing a story, you are never done with your story. It is forever a part off your life.5

You must write. You have to force yourself to write, regularly. Admittedly, I do not write everyday, nor every other day, but I do write multiple times a week, and sometimes I write multiple times a day. I am a strong advocate of writing your story longhand. No matter your penmanship, you gain so much from writing longhand. People may argue that typing their story is better for them because they have terrible penmanship, or that they write too slow, or their hand cramps (easily fixed by writing longhand more often). Another common reason that people type, is that typing is faster. That is true; however, typing allows for jagged thoughts to be put on paper (i.e.: your story). Since typing is so much faster than longhand, the brain (which already thinks faster than we can type) has less time to develop sentences and phrases that are more precise and ‘desirable’ for the situation. If you print, or write cursive (my personal favorite), your brain has time to generate, edit, and flourish your sentences as you write them. This can save valuable editing time. Also, the physical activity of writing allows you to interact with your story more so than with a virtual interface. I also like the concept and permanence of putting words directly on the page — this is why I have used a manual typewriter too. Another advantage of longhand story writing is that you can take your story with you anywhere, anytime, without worry of technological considerations. Also, a notebook and pencil or pen tends to weigh less than a laptop computer.

So, now you have started writing. You have your working title, and you have a story concept that is strong. But wait, you have reached the dreaded first sentence. This is the first sentence your readers will read, and the first instance that your readers could judge you. You could spend four week on the prefect sentence, but then you’ll have a second, third, and forth sentence that also requires attention. There are many ways to deal with the first sentence dilemma. You can try writing a sentence, ignoring its quality, and then drawing a line through it. It’s best to move past your initial sentence. A film and literary technique: in medias res (Latin: in the midst of things) starts the story in the middle of a scene or action. Instead of trying to introduce all of your characters and settings in a rapid fire manner, the scene allows you to ease into needed information. Needed information is information that makes your story feel real. 6

Everything that we’ve discussed so far in this post has been to get you and your story started. For now, the goal is to craft your story. Do not worry about about cool tips or tricks, or how you can work out a scene so that it works perfectly. We will discuss authorial decisions, choices, and regrets at a later time. Remember to notice how you are writing your scenes, how you are introducing your characters and the dialogue they use (if they have any).

If you have any questions, concerns, or requests for future posts, just email here. If you are curious how to connect your ideas for a story or for how you might write a scene or summary, then email me. Also, if you would like me to look at anything you have written, or if you have a book/essay/&c you think I might enjoy, let me know. Until next time;

Yours in passionate craft,

Silas C.

  1. A working title, for those that are unaware, is a title that acts as a filler for the grand namesake of capital-t title. A working tile need not be perfect or overly thought out. The purpose of a working title is to allow the reader to stop giving herself/himself a reason to not write, such as: “I can’t focus on this story because the title isn’t right. It’s not perfect. It doesn’t sell the story. So, I must stop all work on this story until I can think of the perfect title.” This is the worst thing a writer can do. A working title acts like a code-name so you can refer to your story without saying: (as in the story I’ll be talking about) “this is a story about sisters, but it gets more complicated than that, because X, Y ,Z happens and then Q and R happen, which is a whole other issue. . . &c” Simply put, a working title is a tool so you can write more. ↩
  2. In both REALITY and in FRACTURE, the “A” is inverted as a stylistic choice that can reflect the idea of mirrors in the story. Also, “A” is the first letter of one of the main characters — a possible happy accident. ↩
  3. I do not wish to discuss the debate of whether or not authors rewrite the same story over and over, but in different forms, nor do I want to give my opinion on whether or not every story has been written before, at this time. ↩
  4. A bit of reader-theory in fiction: The strange characters in a piece of fiction allows the reader to be drawn into the story. The absurdness of a character allows the reader to comfortably separate herself/himself from the text, while it is those very same attributes that pulls the reader back into the story, aligning herself/himself with the character. This creates layers of irony in the story. Metafiction has a multitude of tools that exploit this ideology. ↩
  5. This is why I can’t give you a formula to write a good story. Your life crafts your story, not some popular opinion that says you should write a certain way. Although the fruit of writing is the words on the page, about 85% of the work of writing is done in your head. ↩
  6. There are stories and authors that do not want the reader to get a sense of realness of the fiction. This can be seen in Infinite Jest when Hal’s narration deflects from the topic to something else and the details become overly specific. Also, a character’s name, like Pemulus, reminds the reader that he/she is reading fiction. This interacts on a level of irony. ↩