Now Write!

by Laurie Lamson

  So I started with an arena. Wesley, the young ensign, falls in love for the first time. I wasn’t familiar enough with the show to know if they had done this. Every show will do this kind of episode, but newbies like us don’t get to do them. For some lucky reason, they wanted us to go on. They seemed to be on the edge of their seats, waiting for an interesting storyline that I was praying for my unconscious to help me with. I continued spinning a story. I talked about a young female leader from another planet that the Enterprise needed to transport to her home planet. Everyone seemed to be nodding like it was okay up to that point (even my partner, who had no idea where I was going). I felt I needed some surprise and I knew whatever I came up with was going to be a surprise, at least to me. And then I smiled. The female leader turned out to be young, beautiful, and humanoid. But what Wesley learns, to his surprise, is that she is a shape shifter. There was a pause that seemed like a black hole. Then everyone was happy and we ended up working on the show and actually got to occupy Gene Roddenberry’s old office as story editors.

  EXERCISE

  This exercise is based on assignments I give my students to get them involved in using surprise in their writing. It’s also based on my own personal homework assignments I give myself. These are sneaky ways to trick your unconscious to share its untapped gold.

  1. The first thing to do is acknowledge that based on feedback or your own nagging sense, something about what you have written is not working. You’re either stuck or have written something cliché or perhaps too thin, superficial, and obvious. We are going to work on that section for the purposes of this exercise. So take a two- to five-page scene from your screenplay or portion of your book, and copy it to a new file or print it out. You’re going to put this portion of your work into a creative boot camp.

  2. If it’s a drama, rewrite it as a comedy. Write it in that genre with all your heart, milking it for any comic potential. If it’s a comedy, write it as a drama, digging deeper into the subtext to find the inherent lurking drama. Now read what you wrote. What about it surprises you? Is there one thing you uncovered from your unconscious that you can use to freshen up, deepen, or expand that section of the work?

  3. Look at this or another section of your work. To turn it on its head and surprise yourself and the reader, try these other forms of rewriting to trick your creativity into surprising you:

  a. Write your story from a completely different historical perspective. If it’s science fiction set it in the twenty-fourth century, the old West, or Elizabethan times. Again, see if you discover some element of surprise that you could insert into your original story.

  b. Change the gender of your characters, thereby surprising yourself with the choices they come up with, motivations as well as actions that, once you are done, you can mine for surprises.

  c. Take a scene or a chapter and find a completely original location that makes no sense at all for your story, but write your characters and circumstances into that location. Explore what you come up with for more surprises.

  Surprise always works to grab your audience and to keep you glued to your chair, writing yourself out of corners and into a professional writing life.

  LANCE MAZMANIAN

  Break the Compass

  LANCE MAZMANIAN has many thousands of hours in the Hollywood trenches of physical production at all budget levels, and with top directors, producers, and crew. He’s spent decades behind various keyboards, where he has written a screenplay or two. He has also spent time in the labyrinth of film and TV distribution.

  Kill yourself.

  Didn’t expect that, did you?

  For a screenwriter creating stories, or strings of words, or characters, or environments, I believe strongly that the first task is originality. Yes, I know, ain’t nothing that’s never been done (as Bill Shakespeare once said so beautifully), but in trying for original language and worlds, we can often come at least close to two words or two ideas that nobody else ever thought to stick together.

  I’ll use an analogy to demonstrate:

  Let’s say your script has a speeding 2013 Ferrari F12berlinetta, silver, of course. It’s driving down an average street, toward an average intersection. Light’s green.

  Does the Italian supercar make a left, a right, go straight, turn around and go back, or maybe just stop?

  None of the above: As the Ferrari speeds through the intersection, it lifts straight into the sky. And disappears.

  Unexpected. But it seemed like a normal day, right? And yet, flying Ferrari.

  I stress again: This is analogy; it’s not meant to literally echo BACK TO THE FUTURE or even BLADE RUNNER. It’s just an illustrative example of doing precisely what the audience doesn’t expect. This same trick could apply to dialogue, character choices, transitions, locations, whatever.

  Of course, if you simply try and assemble a patched-up chimera that’s green on one side and mirrored on the other, chances are it not only will lack screen context, but will also fit no framework of cinematic reality whatsoever . . . not to mention it’s likely to look and feel crazy, like someone shoehorned Dr. Seuss into an Erica Jong novel.

  So, the trick is to create these original ideas and put them in a corridor with the familiar, the sane, the safe (especially if you’re not writing sci-fi, horror, etc). And that’s tricky, indeed. After all, they who walk the razor’s edge don’t always get Bill Murray.

  Considering the above, four people who do this originality remix very well are QT (Tarantino), Charlie Kaufman, and, of course, the Coen Brothers. In these guys’ pictures and words, we always peek through a lens that’s just slightly off. It mostly works very well, and they each leave in their wake oft-imitated originality (or oft-imitated reconstructions of originality).

  EXERCISE

  Imagine that the Ferrari mentioned above suddenly comes crashing into your living room. No one hurt (thank God), but what’s your initial reaction? What do you do?

  Think of that first, gut, predictable response. Note it. Now, do something else. That is, imagine time has stopped and you actually have a few seconds to think clearly about your next possible “other” initial reaction. Do it; note it. It must, of course, be different from the first.

  Now, stop the clock again, and think: What’s yet another (third) possible initial reaction to this beautiful silver Ferrari suddenly appearing next to the sofa, uninvited? Note it. You might have to actually pause and consider. I mean, how many possible reactions are there to such a thing, anyway?

  Okay, that’s three potential reactions. One, two, three. Now take it to four.

  Chances are, that number four reaction is the one you least expected to reach or execute, and then, of course, it’s the one the audience will also least expect.

  Why deal with this deep digging? Because predictability and cliché are always bad, and even the very best writers often produce unusable prose/ideas on a first run. Moving four steps away from our first efforts sometimes cleans any and all amateur fare from the air. Over time, it becomes an automatic, near instantaneous form of self-editing.

  And now the pièce de résistance: Apply this exercise paradigm to scenes, character construction, lines of dialogue, reactions, and so on.

  Call it the Four Corners rule of creating with words: First corner is the usual, obvious, “gut” choice; second corner is a little deeper into original territory; third corner is “midway through the mine”; corner number four is where the queen lives.

  Of course, don’t let me stop you from going to five, six, seven, eight.

  Let me be clear, though, in closing: In all the above, I’m absolutely not saying your first words and ideas created via stream of consciousness aren’t or won’t be brilliant channeling. They might well be. But, they might well not.

  Chances are, the first choices we make as writers are the weakest. Some of us have editors and collaborators to smoke the foul melodrama
and trite soap opera from the page, thereby forcing us farther down the line to more interesting choices.

  But some of us don’t have editors and agents and so on, standing by. The above might help in that case.

  Onward.

  SIMON CLARK

  Paint It Dark: Creating an Eerie Atmosphere and Foreshadowing Ominous Events

  SIMON CLARK published his first novel, Nailed by the Heart, in 1995, and many dreams and nightmares later he wrote the cult horror-thriller Blood Crazy, and other novels including Stranger, Vengeance Child, and The Tower. His latest novel is a return to his Vampyrrhic mythology with His Vampyrrhic Bride. Clark lives with his family in the atmospheric, legend-haunted county of Yorkshire in northern England.

  Oooh, that’s scary.” This could be your reaction if you’re enjoying a well-written horror story. Yet what is present in the text that scares? Is it when the werewolf attacked, the vampire pounced, or the monster roared? Probably not. I’m pretty sure those shivers started to trickle deliciously down your spine when you read the early parts of the story when, for example, a character first sets eyes on the haunted house.

  I write horror. My job is to frighten. But I aim to frighten in a way that is enticing and pleasurable. So many writers, who are new to horror, rush their hero or heroine to a scene where there is full-blooded carnage that disgusts or shocks the reader. The truth is that gruesome excess soon becomes tedious.

  If we’re agreed that the best horror fiction requires some careful scene setting before the truly horrific action takes place, then I invite you to join me in the exercise that follows.

  Before we reach the nitty-gritty of the exercise, I’d like to tell you why it is important to my own writing. As I’ve already said, my job is to frighten. So when I’m writing a description of a house, or even the weather, I’m mindful that it should not be a plain description of architecture or rain. I ask myself what trigger words I can employ that tell the reader that ghostly events are on their way, or that the hero is heading relentlessly toward danger.

  The easiest way for me to demonstrate this is to present an example of the kind of fiction I write. What follow are the opening lines from my novel Vengeance Child:

  “The midnight rain did not whisper. It struck the big house hard. Rain clattered at windows. Drops hit the patio table in a salvo of vicious bangs. Heaven’s bullets. A sound like war. As if the earth had been invaded from above. Take no prisoners. Batter the house into the ground . . .”

  So why did I write the first paragraph of my novel in such a way? By the time you’ve completed the exercises, you will have found the answer. What’s more, there is a very good chance you’ll be writing fiction that makes the reader shiver and murmur, “Oooh, that’s scary.”

  Generally, eerie fiction will contain certain words and phrases that serve as something akin to hypnotic suggestion. That is to say, they implant in the reader’s mind the notion that uncanny events are approaching, and that the characters will face danger from perhaps an inexplicable or supernatural source. The use of these key words and phrases might be termed “the language of horror.”

  “The Signal-Man” by Charles Dickens is well worth studying. This deceptively simple ghost story opens with the narrator visiting a signal-man who is based in his signal-box beside a railway line. At the beginning of the tale, the narrator gazes at the railway line, which emerges from a tunnel. Notice those powerful trigger words in the following:

  “. . . the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air. So little sunlight ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthy deadly smell: and so much cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had left the natural world.”

  A less talented author might have written, “The railway line emerged from a dark tunnel.” The genius of Dickens mesmerizes the reader with his adroit use of words. He reinforces the fact that the location is ill-lit with the use of gloomier and black. The phrase so little sunlight drives the point home. He describes the architecture as “barbarous,” so he’s imbuing the structure with an air of violence. Again, the threat is reinforced by the smell of the earth being “deadly.” Dickens evokes the cold and the eerie gloom of the place, then prepares us for the supernatural horror to come by announcing that the character feels as if he’s “left the natural world.”

  The object of these exercises is this: to learn how to use the power of words to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. To weave words and phrases in such a way that the description of a house, for example, becomes the electrifying evocation of a frightening, haunted place. If you practice, you will learn to use the language of horror. You will scare the reader in such a teasing and pleasant way that you leave them wanting more.

  EXERCISE

  Practice this technique with these short assignments (half a page each is ample):

  1. Describe a haunted house. Firstly, talk about the house in plain terms. For example, “The house was built from brick. Its windows looked out over the park.” Then insert trigger words to imbue the house with an uncanny aura. Perhaps like this: “The old, dilapidated house was built from bricks that were the color of blood. Its windows looked out over the park. They resembled cold, staring eyes as they regarded that forbidding and lonely realm of trees, which harbored the shadows of night.”

  2. Describe a sinister individual. Experiment with trigger words that suggest something is dangerously amiss with our stranger. Pay attention to the eyes. For example, “His eyes had a spectral glow.” Or “ghost-lights glinted in her eyes.” Or “In the stranger’s eyes she glimpsed the suffering of a thousand orphaned children.” Be adventurous!

  3. Using the language of horror, describe a stretch of river as it flows beneath a city bridge.

  4. Convey the menace of a tree where witches were once hanged long ago. Are its branches like hooked fingers clawing at the sky? Does its “brutal trunk” loom over the road? Do “monstrous patterns in the bark” suggest evil faces? Does the shadow it casts “chill the blood and darken the meadow”?

  And when the breeze passes through its leaves, what sound does it make? Sighs? Whispered voices? Chuckling sounds? Can you describe the tree so it seems that you’re describing a malicious and violent monster? Or can you describe that melancholy old tree in such a way the reader feels as if they are reading about the tragic victims who ended their lives there?

  Of course, you can continue to practice painting your descriptions dark. You can also vary the above prompts: Describe a cat found in an abandoned church, a truck owned by a madman, or a gold brooch belonging to a woman who poisoned her first husband—and the second, and the third!

  JOHN SKIPP

  The Choreography of Violence

  JOHN SKIPP is a New York Times best-selling novelist and editor, zombie godfather, splatterpunk poster child, Bizarro elder statesman, and cheerful cultural agitator-turned-filmmaker who lives in Los Angeles, making crazed art-o-tainment for people who like that sort of thing.

  I’m always amazed by how many exceptional writers have no idea how to stage an action scene. Which is fine, if you have no intention of writing one. Perhaps, having spent months weaving complex, memorable characters into a richly textured, lushly plotted narrative, you think the hard part is done.

  But if that big exciting payoff your whole story’s been building up to turns out to be the least exciting sequence in the book, please consider the following Rules to Kill By.

  There are many ways to goof up an action scene. Most of them have to do with lack of immediacy, extraneous detail, verbal flab, and general unbelievability.

  If you’ve ever been in a real-life violent encounter, you know how intensely, frenetically intimate and immediate its sensory engagement is. How blurred by momentum it gets. And how clearly certain key moments emerge.

  This is why the cinematic vocab
ulary of conflict has gleefully expanded from two guys beating each other up in bland wide shots and over-the-shoulder coverage to insanely you-are-there POV (point of view) footage of the fist, the face, the knife, and the wound, alternately sped up into hyper-velocity and slowed down to micro-second increments—using every technical trick in the book.

  But when it comes to writing fiction, there are no buttons you can hit that speed things up or slow them down, push in or pull out on the damage being done.

  This is event-based writing, not ruminative writing. It’s all in how you pace it and plan it. Using nothing more than carefully picked words. White space. Punctuation. Tight editing. And scrupulous attention to detail.

  A master class example is the chapter in William Goldman’s Heat (published in the UK as Edged Weapons), wherein our hero takes out two guys with guns, in eighteen meticulously detailed seconds (as I recall, roughly one brisk paragraph per second), armed with nothing but a credit card.

  It’s one of the most stunning action sequences in modern lit, because it grounds its startling triumph in:

  1) Stripped-down, propulsive language that never strays from the point, or the physical specifics;

  2) Tactile immediacy that engages the senses, with beat-by-beat choreography so scrupulously thought out that as it screens in your mind’s eye, you go, Wow! If that happened, it would go down exactly like this; and

  3) Psychological and emotional acuity expressed purely through physicality. Without digression. Without asides or remembrances. Purely focused on the action at hand.

  Because that’s how action is. When you’re in it, you can’t think about anything else.

  I suggest you root your action in the experience of either a) one character at the center of the chaos; or b) several characters that you cut back and forth between, ratcheting up the stakes to your grand finale.