Sifting through the comments to last week’s inaugural Friday writing blog I found a couple of questions that I thought went well together. Some of you asked about how much planning goes into a manuscript, a few touched on other matters of preparation such as research, and Jennicki and Girlclumsy amongst others wanted to know where ideas came from and what you did with them once you had one of the little fuckers. For me these all related questions.
A common mistake of the baby author is lightbulb fascination. The big cartoon lightbulb goes on over their heads with a big cartoon flash and Eureka! — they’ve got it. The idea for the Great American/Australian/what ever novel. Unfortunately so bright and blinding is the light thrown out by the big cartoon lightbulb that they are blinded to everything else. Rushing to the desk they start pounding the keyboard, still blinking and half blind, tripping over the furniture, knocking over the desk toys and last nights half empty moth-filled glass of wine. They type for hours, maybe for days, in a flurry of excitement because of this great idea they’ve had for a book.
And then…
And then…
Nothing. The words stop flowing. The idea which seemed so brilliant and so close to fruition, suddenly seems vague and almost impossible to grasp as it retreats and retreats for ever out of reach. What the hell happened?
I’ll tell you what happened. You exploded out of the blocks and sprinted away as though you were running 100 m race, when in fact what you had signed up for was a year-long ultramarathon, a brutal, grueling and unrelenting endurance race that is as much about attrition as it is about skill or willpower.
To deliver a manuscript for a 160,000 word novel (Falafel was 47,000, Weapons was 155,000, Without Warning was 200,000) you need to plan for at least a year’s work. And that’s if you are a full-time writer with goldplated hovercraft and an army of Playboy bunnies to massage your aching shoulders and pop peeled grapes into your mouth while you hammer away at the keyboard. As a part timer, squeezing in whatever writing you can, when you can… Man, I don’t even want to think about that.
So what does planning and preparation involve?
Unfortunately that can mean different things to different people. Not everybody storyboards their manuscript like a movie. I have done it with Designated Targets, after having got myself into all sorts of trouble with Weapons of Choice because I charged into it exactly as I described above. Weapons was based on a great idea that came to me in the library one day when I was avoiding work on Leviathan by flicking through Matthew Reilly’s Ice Station. Time travel meets technothriller. What’s not to love? And that was pretty much it for planning and prep.
With Targets I took six weeks to methodically lay out the plot from the first page to the last. Each chapter was broken down into its POV elements and summarized in note form long before I wrote the first page of the book. So on day one I could tell you what was going to happen in the second section of Chapter 37. Or at least that was the plan. What happened of course is that the characters took over. If they are good characters they will do that. For instance in weapons, Dan and Julie were never supposed to get together. They were just characters who met on the page early in the book and hit it off. They hit it off so well that their unexpected relationship became a significant narrative arc through the entire trilogy.
You cannot plan for serendipity. If your characters come alive in your imagination they will do what they damn well please and you will have the devil’s own job getting them to stick to the plan.
Does that matter?
No, as long as they do not diverge so far from the main line of your story arc that they pull everyone else off course as well. When you are writing genre fiction in particular you need to have at least some idea of where you were going, and where you intend to end up on the last page. It will happen, if your story develops a life of its own, that subplots and characters develop under their own steam. But you need to maintain some level of control. There are plenty of books which got away from their authors. I’m not going to name any of them, but I’m sure you can think of one or two you’ve read that would have been a lot better had the editors and publishers been a little harsher with the blue pencil.
I am mindful that in advising you to put some effort into plotting out your story before you write it I am flying in the face of the established practice of some very successful authors. Garth Nix in particular has given me exactly the opposite advice, saying that the sacrifice of spontaneity and the loss of the magic of happenstance involved when you storyboard an entire manuscript is just not worth it. But both Garth and I are published writers of long experience. Most of you are not. So I’m telling you, you are much more likely to finish your first book if you invest some time in figuring out what the hell you’re going to write before you write it. It’s not easy and there are some elements of every plot which can only be worked out in the writing. Only when you have created and immersed yourself in your imagined world will you understand it well enough to be able to say with true certainty how the world and the characters in it will react to certain developments. That’s why a plan for a manuscript must necessarily be looser and more free-form than, say, the blueprints for a warp engine.
That’s planning. How is preparation different?
I guess it’s the difference between drawing up the plans for D-Day and actually gathering the resources, the men and matériel, building the landing craft and troop transports, manufacturing the weapons, training the personnel, raising the capital to pay for the whole fucking thing, and, well, do you get the idea?
Preparing to write a book like Leviathan was not that much different from preparing to write Weapons of Choice, even though they are very different products. For both I spent months reading and taking notes, just as though I was preparing to write a PhD. I gathered my references. I did my interviews. I tracked down the relevant experts and talked through everything I did not understand about the topics I was about to pretend I knew all about. Are you writing an alternate history set during the hundred years war? Then my friend, you have some very long and tiring days ahead of you in the library as you become an expert on the hundred years war, on the people who fought it, on the technology they used, on the institutions and the states and the personalities involved. And of the vast amount of knowledge you acquire about this topic only the smallest fraction will actually appear in print. The rest will sit like the frame of a soaring high-rise, hidden away, while it supports the great weight and stresses you will load onto it.
But preparation can go even further than that. If you are setting your story in a purely imaginary realm you have taken on the difficult task of getting the reader to believe in something they know not to be true. We call this the suspension of disbelief, and we commonly make the mistake of assuming the suspension is the work of the reader. But it’s not, it’s the work of the author. Your characters must stay in character, which means you must know all about them before you start writing their story. That is why so many authors write long, detailed biographies of the characters before they set the first line of their novel down on paper. Genre authors and literary authors all do this. But genre authors have another demand on them. Not only must they invent characters, they must build worlds.
But that is a topic for another day.
Finally, I see that I have said very little about where ideas come from. Well they don’t come from sitting around scratching your arse, staring into the middle distance. They come from thinking, and reading, and watching television, and movies, and conversation, and magazines, and ditzing around on the Web, but mostly they come from thinking. Not just consuming media passively, but from watching, listening, and reading actively, critically, but most of all imaginatively. This is something that writers do all the time. Pretty much every minute of every day without even be conscious of it. And it relates to planning and preparation because thinking, actively, critically engaging with media and ideas in all the forms is where the idea for your next story is coming from.
Nice one!…very interesting as always
Sound advice! And all this time I thought my sporadic writing blocks were due to too much gin over the course of the week. Plan happy is the way to go then.
Pratchett used to say, when it came to the question of “where do ideas come from” that one “shouldn’t ask the tightrope walker where his balance comes from when he’s on the tightrope”.
Orin’s rules of writing non-fiction.
(1) Find somewhere quiet.
(2) Apply arse to chair.
(3) Don’t give yourself excuses to miss deadlines.
Damn it! I will prove you wrong Mr. Birmingham.
I will provide clear evidence that arse scratching is the ultimate ideas generator!! Now, let’s see, where will I start on my thesis?
*sits back in chair, scratches arse, and dissolves into a day dream*
Thanks, JB. I’m really enjoying these posts.
A question with ideas though – I definitely agree with the interacting and engaging with media, and I like to think I do a fair bit of that. But how do you work out which ones are worth pursuing? I’ve tried some things and then end up ditching them as duds…
I find that last paragraph very true.
An advantage I feel I have is that I’m used to creating biogs for characters from my RPG design days.
But then i fall down because I’m a crap typist.
As a part timer, squeezing in whatever writing you can, when you can… Man, I don’t even want to think about that.
YOU GOD DAM BLOODY GIRL!…….yeah..fkn persistance
So where does the room full of monkeys with typewriters fit in?
I mentioned sometime ago when you ask for feedback on the future of the cheeseburger, that I would love to see some of your preparation documents. Character bios, sketches of locations or any kind of storyboarding you have done. Not only would it be useful for prospective writers, it would also be downright interesting!
Kind of like the chapter that was your last post.
Nice one JB.
How do you know when to stop editing and changing? How do you know when the refining process and the wordsmithing is over? I guess your editors do that….I can change and adjust and add and delete forever…I’ve got 4 unfinished blogs ‘cos I can’t quite “get it right”. maybe that just means I’m shite. Or I need more practice.
I kinda like the idea of taking an old, manual typewriter to some remote location without electricity (I’d say the beach, but I’d prefer to avoid the increased risk of rust in my nice 1940s Imperial).
I once fantasised about coding that way. Type -> scan -> OCR -> copy -> paste -> build -> compile -> link -> test. Pointless, but in a mildly satisfying way. Never actually did it, of course but I’d be impressed by anyone who did (though also worry slightly for their sanity).
I’ve actually considered writing stuff longhand, but I think the motor control has faded and the muscles have atrophied…
Certainly something I wanted to hear, Birmingham.
I was already thinking that waiting for some ninny with a hammer that says “ACME INSPIRATIONAL TOOL” to bonk me on the head was a bad habit.
Now to work on “I am Claine”…
See, it is art, planning process excecution deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions.
Shit, John a couple of decent lesbution scenes and parental angst and the next novel will be literature.
Great post but I can’t help wondering why so many writers feel compelled to write about writing? I am dabbling myself btw so the advice is valuable and encouraging. 9 to 5 I work in I.T. by comparison, nobody ever writes at such a personal level about how to be an I.T. dude… or maybe I’m just not that well read. Or I was too busy imagining and not paying attention.. which I now know is a good thing anyway.
I’ve actually considered writing stuff longhand, but I think the motor control has faded and the muscles have atrophied…
Neal Stephenson writes longhand – which, when you consider the size of some of his books, is pretty hardcore.
Wow I couldn’t have read this at a better time. I have two ideas on the go and was struggling with how to approach it. Cheers JB.
KFD, I’m doing the friday writin’ blogs purely as a karmic thing. It can’t all be about the bucks.
Thanks, just as I was starting to consider doing something I’ll forget all about it. That save me years of angst.
Just picking up on KFd’s comment as well :
JB- I thought a similar thing – not about why writers write about writing (there’s a sentence) – but it crossed my mind that it’d be awful to see you tire yourself out doing so, considering your weekly output/ obligations. But , so long as you choose you do it, you’ll never bore me on the subject. It’s just fascinating.
(btw- a few yrs ago on ABC Radio National there was a fab series of talks by many different writers talking about their writing process).
If I can put a more self-centred question to you for later consideration (and if you don’t ever get to it, that’s fine!!) :
As far as the cognitive side goes, I feel like I’m on the right track, just reading what you’ve said today. For example,absorbing lots of information and staying awake to what’s going on around me- tick; i like to do that anyhow. Letting ideas go around in my mind -tick, Plotting things out before it’s on paper yes- A LOT, but …that brings me to my problem: I get loads of ideas and I know what the story is about – ie on a deeper level what it’s about, and conceptually I understand what I’m trying to do and I sort of know how to write ; I just can’t seem to get a PLOT going- the “superficial” part in a way but its the thing that makes people read a story or not!! Major problem , yes???!!!
Help!! JB? anyone? Be savage. It’s not I lack a feeling of freedom in myself, but I just freeze when it comes to the thought of developing a character and just the playful whimsy it takes to turn an intellectual idea or an emotion into , you know – A STORY!! WHERE THINGS HAPPEN!!
I feel so terribly frustrated by it because I feel like I understand where it can go, on an intellectual level and emotionally , but h.t.f does one just have a whole story inside them ? Is this the great unanswerble question? Do I just accept that w/o that natural attribute it will never happen – ie are there peope who naturally have a story sitting there in their heads and others who simply don’t ? I knew this person who could write prolifically because a story would come out , but it was the crappest writing on other levels so it didn’t seme a fair universe to me- still I SO envied the ability.
Oh my god. Thank you so much for this. I should so print these out, highlight key passages and tape them to my mirror to read over as I get ready every morning.
Scratch ur arse long enough something will pop out, guaranteed. Just wanna hope an idea is the first.
Sorry, had to get that off my consciousness.
Double plus excellant. Good stuff JB, I’ve read lots of ritin’ advice, but not from someone who’s Kung Fu I admire as much.
“doing the friday writin’ blogs purely as a karmic thing”
I had the Karmic Repo man around the other day. Net cost $800 and my Hilux off the road for a week.
I hate that.
[i]Neal Stephenson writes longhand – which, when you consider the size of some of his books, is pretty hardcore.[/i]
Wow, that is some serious scribbling… I just picked up Anathem the other day (it’s joined the pile of books-in-waiting) and it is a hefty tome – around 1000 pages at a guess. I hope he doesn’t suffer from writer’s cramp…
I’m also picturing one of those oft-seen movie scenes of a longhand manuscript sailing away on the breeze. Surely in this day and age, the availability of backup copies would make doing it via electronic media worthwhile…
…although I guess scan and/or OCR, or photocopying is a backup option of sorts?
Timmo – good link on Stephenson writing using fountain pen:
http://www.inkygirl.com/neal-stephenson-writing-and-editing-with-a-fountain-pen/
Here is a method I use which is sort of a compromise between the massive step by step outline and going without an outline at all.
CLOCK is an outline format which can be effective at generating a workable plot. It is a very slightly modified version of a method put forward by James Scott Bell in Plot and Structure.
C=Concept
L=Lead
O=Objective or Objectives
C=Conflict or Conflicts
K=Knockout
The Concept is a general statement which describes the story you intend to tell boiled down into a few sentences. It is difficult to start if one is not entirely certain of their concept.
The Lead is the hook, the carrot which entices readers to start and continue reading your story. One example of a lead is to place a dead body in the first scene. Most readers will continue to read in order to discover how the person died. One cliché of this concept is the saying, “If it bleeds, it leads.”
The Objective or multiple objectives is the desire of the protagonist, who is the lead character in the story. A standard story engine is driven by human need and desire. Understanding what the lead character’s objectives are will determine the next stage of story development.
The Conflict or multiple conflicts are the fuel for the story. They challenge the character and in Western Literary tradition they represent the difference between fiction and non-fiction. A conflict against an antagonist gives the protagonist an opportunity to grow, to change, to come to a realization.
The Knockout is the summation of your story, a way to leave the reader feeling as if they have completed the story.
It is worth pointing out that among more recent writers there is a desire to move away from this model to a vague, undefined story structure which often leaves matters of plot unresolved. Further, some writers feel that plot is a burdensome restraining device and work without any concern for the conventions of plot.
The above is from a handout we use where I teach in the Alternate History seminar to get students started if they are planning a fiction project. I’ve also talked about this method in the creative writing class I take over and over again with Terri Lowry where I teach.
When I use this method I find that the Knockout is often vaguely defined or not at all. I like to allow for the characters to make their own choices, just as Birmo did with Dan and Julia as the AoT trilogy evolved.
I think the above gives you maximum flexibility while retaining at least some structure.
As for the rest of the article, I concur with everything Birmo has said. Research is especially important for alternate history projects.
Respects,
Murph
On the Outer Marches
This is brilliant.
Up there with the most instructive, illuminating and encouraging passages in King’s On Writing. It’d be great to see this make its way into the international creative-writing world wordsphere.
What you’ve described is what the great actors talk about when they research a character obsessively, or when David Fincher dresses the Zodiac set with 1970s newspaper piled 20-deep. The “vibe” permeates, creating the person or the place, beyond what’s on the screen or page.
Hats off, JB, for putting it so honestly but encouragingly.
The thing about longhand is that, unless you have someone else do your typing, you’re guaranteed to revise your text at least once, before the material is committed to file.
Timmo, OCR is no good for handwriting, but gray-scale images compress quite nicely and storage is cheap, so yes digitisation is very suitable for backing stuff up.
But I think most of us could not really write much without a keyboard these days (adventures in speech recognition notwithstanding). I certainly can’t write as fast as I can type, but maybe that’s the point – some resistance from the medium that slows you down and forces spending more time thinking.
KFD, presumably you’ve come across the BOFH, or perhaps you remember alt.sysadmin.recovery on usenet. More seriously I’d recommend Limoncelli and Hogan, The Practice of Network and System Administration, which perhaps is not as introspective as this sort of thread, but has a lot of answers to similar questions posed in the IT realm. Some of Eric Raymond’s writing is quite introspective along those lines, but be prepared to disagree with a lot of what the fellow has to say. Likewise Stallman, now I think about it.
I just want to say that I have my bachelor’s degree is in Creative Writing, and several semesters of my time plus an outrageous amount of money have nothing on the two writing posts JB’s put up here, for free.
Seriously.
John, if your schedule ever allows for it you should definitely teach a class at your local university every semester ala Paul Boylan.
I wish I’d read this stuff five years ago. I would’ve been so much farther along in my writing.
To Murph-
Thanks for CLOCK.
I know you weren’t addressing your coment to me personally, but I found it very, very useful.
Without stating it explicitly, you’ve made me see what I resist (jn the same way I resist talking abolut new technologies) : I don’t like thinking mechanistically; I like to think the story is going to ‘feel’ its way onto the page w/o robotic method , but the reality is, it won’t; you’ve got to be a bit robotic and “how to” to get it there. The guide you’ve set out is actually very good- like a long ladder and each part of the sequence takes you to the next plot point (which is what I can’t naturally do)
Great stuff here JB. You’ve given us more in this one blog than we might get in a library of tomes.
And Murph – I just love that CLOCK idea – I think I’ll run with that for my current WIP
And to everyone else – if you get a great idea at 2.00am for godsake get up and write the damned thing down. You will not remember it in the morning!
Good god, people, it’s different for every published writer. And you, Birmingham, why do you close your eyes to the real US and insist upon making every American character white?
J.
You people want to be writers? Get two cats.
J.
Trivia: Che Guevara was Irish. Patrick Lynch (of County Galway), an emigrant to Argentina, was an ancestor of Che Guevara.
Open your eyes.
J.
kudos on the karma thingy birmingham.
we’re most definitely old school including the 2b lead pencil applied to just about anything you can scribble on.
even toy with a slateboard and chalk at times.
music notation is the same.
for some reason it feels better, brain appreciates it too but most prob’ly senility or altersack disease.
we do use chainsaws (the axe works better on foxes) for the totems.
with rhyme, or anything deemed top shelf i goferit with a fountain pen or quill dipped in whatever leftovers are floating around. (a thumbnail dipped in tar :)
all my uni assignments, every fkn one of them was a handjob.
pz.v.
William Burroughs’ ‘Word of advice for the young’ had a great line that I’ll always remember, even if I’ve never actually followed the advice: “Do not proffer sympathy to the mentally ill – it is a bottomless pit”. I guess it’s the same principle as “Do not feed the troll” in a usenet and/or web based forum context. Thus, a rule that everyone feels ought to be adhered to, but which most people ignore at some stage or other :)
Sweet Jane-
“You people want to be writers? get 2 cats” WTF?
Are you just joking around or are you one of those people they talk about who likes to hang around on the internet determined to make people feel bad about themselves? If so, why would you want to do that?
Unless you either explain that it’s your sense of humor, or you are willing to apologise for trying to be cruel to people for wanting to write, I’m going to completely blank you every time I see your comments, because I dislike sadism and Im not buying in.This is a forum for writing, I believe.
Actually one of the best pieces of writing advice I’ve got through this site was from Hughesy. It should be required reading for anyone with dreams of making it as a writer. Here is the link.
http://annettehughes.blogspot.com/2009/01/who-needs-agent.html
Abigail, Jane is our pet troll, so feed at caution. It’s mostly harmless, generally off topic (yet to read any of JB’s books obviously unable to operate a library card) and occasionally entertaining and useful.
PS everyone pretty much takes your approach as it cannot explain it’s sad existence and persistence.
Feel better now. Karma is a good thing to feed. Y’all have a great thing going here. Been following Blunty since reading WW recently (just had to take WW to the cash register at the bookshop I picked it up in after reading the subheading). Looking fwd to AA too.
Decided that writing about writing is a good thing. Most people have their own style and approach but I think most writers grow from reading about how others do it…
It’s not a self indulgent thing either. If it helps to get more people to write something meaningful in an interesting and readable way, that’s gotta be good.
“Wow gee, my cousin’s dog was an Irish setter so I guess that makes me Irish too!”
No. Irish people come from Ireland.
Birmo, is link spam enough of a problem on this blog that posts that contain links (I have two in this thread that have yet to appear as I type this) don’t turn up? I’m getting to the point where I’m sorta thinking that I won’t post links in future because by the time you are able to moderate, the conversation has long since moved on.
Orin – it’s not consistent. I have got links up, and I’ve lost comments not containing links or rude words as far as I recall. I’m assuming some programming Cletus behind it all.
Last week I couldn’t spell Bayesian algorithm, now I are, erm…
Abigail and Carolyn, glad you liked that. Keep in mind, it isn’t my tool per se. I didn’t invent it. I only modified what James Scott Bell had in Plot and Structure.
As for books on writing, Bell would be a good place to start. I’ll have some other suggestions later. Unfortunately I have to go earn fifty bucks listening to people tell me how to run my college classroom for two hours.
Sigh. The things I whore myself out for.
Respects,
Murph
On the Outer Marches
Damian – it is an approval thing rather than a spam script – and it blocks all hyperlinks.
If you are logged on with the account/browser that you used to submit the comment, you can see the comment (but no one else can until it is approved). That’s why it looks like some are auto-approved.
If you log on with a different browser, you won’t be able to see the comment.
It is probably also why no-one has really mentioned it – unless you regularly browse the site from multiple computers in a short amount of time, you won’t notice that your comment containing the hyperlink hasn’t turned up for other people as you can still see it (you’ll probably just assume that people are ignoring you ;-).
Bangar & Damian-
Ohhhh, I seee. I get you, thanks.
Murph & JB-
Last night I was thinking about research and how you use it in a story and I wanted to ask something- just a open-ended question really:
With regard to research, you’d really have to watch how much was going into the book, wouldn’t you, so that it didn’t read like “and here now is all of my mind blowing knowledge of hot air balloons during the French Revolution period”- d’you know wot i min?
lol- Maybe I just want to say that so I can criticise the practise because it drives me insane.
But then again, there’s Moby Dick where there are full chapters on the whaling industry and it works because the book is so epic it can carry it.
I am asking how do you guys feel about research as a story device? I mean, say you do miles of reading on a specific thing, do you then feel “I have to put all of that in because it took me so frigging long to read it” or do you maybe use three facts of a possible 300?
But anyone , please, jump in a answer- it was just that JB and Murph brought it up.
as the name implies.
word.
press.
discriminatory and unprincipled modbots are abhorrent.
what we need is …. here WP Fk this link over.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMYrz_3pfgs&feature=related
pz.v.
oops- I should expand a little on the Moby Dick example:
Another reason it seems to work is because the actual story is very simple (but runs deep), so it can afford to work as an expansive, vivid portrayal of life on a whaling boat- almost as a relief from Ahab’s obsessionality. But if the story moves along at a faster pace, then elements like staying true to the real world must be a lot harder to collapse into the rest- yes?
Orin, in the case I’m thinking about, someone else had responded to my post with a link in it within a few minutes. This doesn’t contradict the approval process you mention, though. Mind you, it was a link rather than a bare URL and I wonder if that made a difference.
Abigail, I share your interest in this issue with research and the temptation to put too much in the end result. When you consciously pare your writing down in order that it does not contain anything unnecessary, how far can you go? A certain amount of explanation is usually required to carry the reader. That leaves you with the “show don’t tell” injunction, or rather the various tools writers have to infodump upon the reader what is essential for the plot.
Some writers can be very clumsy with this, even widely read, published bestseller authors. Some feel that having a character other than the narrator tell counts as showing. For example, two soldiers have a casual conversation while pissing in the snow, which improbably results in their explaining exactly who they are and what they are doing in whatever place they are in, optionally also including something about the history of the place and/or their military unit.
Most good writers are more subtle, however, and more or less successful at slipping the necessary information in. What interests me is the process of withholding, rather than dumping, necessary information. What’s the absolute minimum we can get away with revealing? The classical detective fiction writers are the masters of this, where the reader is given a promise that they are given exactly enough information they need to identify the murderer themselves (actually both Christie and Conan Doyle broke this promise repeatedly, as I recall, resorting to all sorts of bizarre tidbits that the reader could not possibly have known to come up with the wished-for surprise twist).
I think the important take-home point here is 1) do the research; but 2) don’t get/feel too precious about it.
Abigail, whether it is fiction or non fiction, you always have to make a judgement call on how much research gets into print. With fiction, perhaps the best analogy is the iceberg example.
On the printed page of any bit of fiction readers probably only see five to twenty percent of the world the Writer has created. The Magic comes from that unwritten eighty percent that is research. And not just traditional research on institutions, history, events, whatever but research into the characters you have created, the worlds they live in and how they’ll react to them.
It would be impossible to explain everything that is driving a given character or situation. As one of the research assistants I can tell you that there is plenty that never sees print yet it informs how the characters behave. That research makes them authentic to the reader.
And it is the little things that do the job.
“Its’ fucking jammed, Sergeant,” the Private said.
The Sergeant took the Private’s M-16, slapped the mag, pulled the charging handle and looked into the chamber. A bent round flicked past his nose. He released the handle, tapped the forward assist and pointed the weapon down range.
A squeeze of the trigger rewarded him with a satisfying pop. He safed the weapon and handed it back to the Private.
“Didn’t you learn anything in basic?” he asked. “I’m not going to have time to hold your hand, wipe your ass and help you breathe when we get into the Sandbox.”
“Sorry, Sergeant.”
A writer could probably cut and crop that a bit and Birmo does when I give him a chunk like the above. Sometimes he refines it, other times he leaves it about like I’ve got it above. Other vets read that and go, “Yeah, SPORTS. Slap, pull, observe, release, tap, squeeze. I remember that.”
And bammo, Birmo’s got the veteran reader following along.
The problem is that the civilian reader goes, “Wow. Did I really need to read all of that?”
It is a balancing act and there is no right answer for it.
Respects,
Murph
On the Outer Marches
Good stuff Murph & all.
Many many moons I did some “writing for the mass media” subjects at uni. Something that has stuck with me for 15 + years was discussed in a writing for radio lecture.
Say it out loud & bold.
“This 38 calibre pistol which I hold in my right hand is loaded.”
Stupid & clumsy eh? Why?
It was a lesson in what you can trust the reader/audience to assume and what they don’t need to be explicity told.
I suspect (not having Birmo or Murphs cred to know) that there are strong paralells between radio scripts & a novel’s content.