The A to Z of Writing Fiction: X, Y, Z…

May 5, 2024January 23, 2024 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

*Snowy marsh in spring, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

In this series of articles, I draw from key excerpts of my textbook on how to write fiction The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! whose 26 chapters go from A to Z on the key aspects of writing good and meaningful fiction.

X is for Use eXceptional Language … but Don’t Overdo it

What makes some writing stunning and other writing lackluster? Mostly, it’s the language—the words—you use. And, it isn’t just what words you use; it’s how you use them. Here are a few things you need to consider when translating your work into something that sings:

Use active verbs and reduce modifiers: many writers, not just beginners, slide into the pattern of using passive and weak verbs (e.g., were, was, being, etc.). Then they add a modifier to strengthen it. It doesn’t. Actively look for strong, vivid verbs. This is a key to good writing. I can’t emphasize this enough.

Avoid using excessive prose: novice writers often use too many words to describe an event, action or scene. An overabundance of words slows down the story and obscures plot and action.

Use alliteration, metaphor, simile, personification (but don’t overuse): these devices bring lyricism and cadence and powerful imagery to your prose. However, as with anything powerful, you need to use these judiciously. Use them where you wish to convey a strong image and to punctuate your prose.

Be mindful of word-accuracy: more often than you might think, a writer inadvertently misuses a word to convey an idea or emotion.

Read your writing aloud & punctuate your pauses. Reading out loud helps define cadence, tone and pace of your prose and streamlines your writing. When you read aloud, pay attention to where you naturally pause. You may wish to put in a comma, semi-colon or period there.

Size your paragraphs: paragraphs are visual elements that help people read; they break up text on a page in logical places to provide white space for reader ease. This is one of the reasons some passages are harder to read than others; long paragraphs are more tiring to the eye. Find those logical breaks and put them in.

Size your sentences: as with paragraphs, overly long sentences can try a reader’s patience and you may lose them entirely. Too many short choppy sentences can also reduce your prose to a mundane level. Varying your sentence length in a paragraph creates the lyricism and cadence that makes prose enjoyable to read.

Y is for Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Have you taken the time to consider tense in your story? While most stories are told in the past tense (e.g., Vinnie ran out of the house), I’ve seen many written in the present tense (e.g., Vinnie runs out of the house). You see the latter more in literary and esoteric works, where the immediacy and dream-like quality of present tense is in keeping with the kind of story being told. I write mostly genre fiction (e.g., science fiction, SF thrillers, historical fantasy, etc.) where the story-telling is normally fast-paced. These read better in the past tense. Stories which follow a more reflective tone can be quite powerful in the present tense.

In her series The Dragon Quartet, Marjorie B. Kellogg alternates from past tense to present tense as she hops from one protagonist’s point of view to the other’s. This deliberate shift in tense between sections works very well. The key is that she is consistent.

In the manuscripts that I read for novice writers I often find what I call uncontrolled shifting of tense within a sentence or paragraph. OWL provides these hints:

Use past tense to narrate events and to refer to ideas as historical entities.
Use present tense to state facts, to refer to perpetual or habitual actions, and to discuss your own ideas or those expressed by an author in a particular work; also to describe action in a literary work, movie, or other fictional narrative.
Future action may be expressed in a variety of ways, including the use of will, shall, is going to, are about to, tomorrow and other adverbs of time, and a wide range of contextual cues.

Z is for The Zen of Passionate Writing

Ralph Keyes, author of The Courage to Write, admits that “what makes writing so scary is the perpetual vulnerability of the writer. It’s not the writing as such that provokes our fear so much as other people’s reaction to our writing.” In fact, adds Keyes, “the most common disguise is fear of them, their opinion of us, when it’s actually our own opinion of ourselves that we’re worried about.” Keyes suggests that ultimately “mastering techniques [of style and craft] will do far less to improve writing than finding the will, the nerve, the guts to put on paper what you really want to say.”

Welcome to the threshold of your career as a writer. This is where many aspiring writers stop: in abject fear, not just of failure but of success. The only difference between those that don’t and those that do, is that the former come to terms with their fears, in fact learn to use them as a barometer to what is important. How do you get past the fear of being exposed, past the anticipated disappointment of peers, past the terror of success? The answer is passion. If you are writing about something you are passionate about, you will find the courage to see it through.

This is ultimately what drives a writer to not just write but to publish: the need to share one’s story, over and over again. Some of us only have one story we need to tell (Margaret Mitchell only needed to tell one, Gone With the Wind); others of us have many to tell. Either way, what is key here is that to prevail, persist, and ultimately succeed, a writer must have conviction and believe in his or her writing. You must believe that you have something to say that others want to read. Ask yourself why you are a writer. Your answer might surprise you.

The first step is to acknowledge your passion and own it. Flaunt it, even. Find your conviction, define what matters and explore it to the fullest. You will find that such an acknowledgement will give you the strength and fortitude to persist and persevere, particularly in the face of those fears. Use the fears to guide you into that journey of personal truths. Frederick Busch described it this way: “You go to dark places so that you can get there, steal the trophy and get out.”

Every writer, like her protagonist, is on a Hero’s Journey. Like the Hero of our epic, we too must acknowledge the call, pass the threshold guardian, experience the abyss and face the beast before we can return “home” with our prize.

The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! (Starfire World Syndicate) May 2009. Nominated for an Aurora Prix Award. Available through Chapters/Indigo, Amazon, The Book Depository, and Barnes & Noble.

The Fiction Writer is a digest of how-to’s in writing fiction and creative non-fiction by masters of the craft from over the last century. Packaged into 26 chapters of well-researched and easy to read instruction, novelist and teacher Nina Munteanu brings in entertaining real-life examples and practical exercises. The Fiction Writer will help you learn the basic, tried and true lessons of a professional writer: 1) how to craft a compelling story; 2) how to give editors and agents what they want’ and 3) how to maintain a winning attitude.

“…Like the good Doctor’s Tardis, The Fiction Writer is larger than it appears… Get Get Published, Write Now! right now.”
David Merchant, Creative Writing Instructor

*Otonabee River glistens under a spring sun, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

Click here for more about my other guidebooks on writing.

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.

The A to Z of Writing Fiction: W…

April 28, 2024January 23, 2024 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

In this series of articles, I draw from key excerpts of my textbook on how to write fiction The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! whose 26 chapters go from A to Z on the key aspects of writing good and meaningful fiction.

W is for Who, Where, When and Why of Doing Research

Research is something many writers dislike and find daunting or even intimidating. In truth, as a writer, you are doing research all the time: when you’re riding the bus or train to work, when you’re traveling on vacation, when you’re having a lively discussion—or better yet an argument— with a friend or colleague. Everything you experience and observe is research. This is what I call non-directed research. It’s also called living. Writers, like all artists, are reporters of life, actively participating and passively observing. A writer is an opportunist, gathering her data through her daily life experiences. Writing fiction draws on this but also on much more…

When writing about a realizable and believable world, whether it takes place in contemporary New York or far future planet Zero, you will need impeccable world building (which includes setting, circumstances, surrounding characters and events) and that will always ultimately require research. you will find very quickly that in order to build a consistent world (even if it’s mostly from your own imagination), you will need to draw upon something real to anchor your imaginary world upon. Whether this reflects a powerful myth or forms an alternative version of a real society, you will still need to apply some rules to follow, so you don’t lose your reader.

With so many useful internet sites and search engines, research has become far easier. But there is also more risk. Finding and confirming information as reliable is an important aspect of doing research. When doing research, particularly on the Internet (but anywhere), you should do several things:

• Use more than one source, particularly for important things; this will give you a wider range of material from which to discern accuracy and reliability.

• Verify your sources and preferably cross reference to measure out objective “truth” versus bias.

• Try to use primary sources (original) vs. secondary or tertiary sources (original cited and open to interpretation); the closer you are to the original source, the closer you are to getting the original story.

• When going to more than one source, try to get a range of different source-types (e.g., conservative newspaper versus blog versus special interest site, etc.) to gain a full range of insight into the issue you’re researching.

Don’t forget that highly valuable and satisfying research can take on the form of interview. You can gain incredible insight into the subject of your research by using a live expert. The advantages he or she has to a book or online database is that they interact with you and may give you something you didn’t even know you needed. Experts include people in your community, your neighbors and friends, professionals in business and in the universities and other educational facilities. Special interest forums and sites can be used to access people to interview.

I keep a journal or scrapbook for every novel I write. This permits me to do several things:

1. Organize relevant research material into one place for easy access (which makes up for my appalling note taking practices).

2. Satisfy my inclination for info dump and expository back-story by providing a place to house it—in my journal, where it belongs, instead of in the story.

By the time I was through with it, the journal I’d kept of my last book—a historical fantasy set in medieval Prussia and modern-day Paris—was its own rich compendium of interesting information, lovingly put together with photos of Paris, drawings and sketches of castles, armour, and long swords, maps of great battles, spreadsheets of timelines and family trees and, of course, commentary on all the great cafés and patisseries in Paris between Rue Princess and Boulevard Saint-Michel.

“…Like the good Doctor’s Tardis, The Fiction Writer is larger than it appears… Get Get Published, Write Now! right now.”
David Merchant, Creative Writing Instructor

Click here for more about my other guidebooks on writing.

The A to Z of Writing Fiction: P…

April 7, 2024January 23, 2024 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

*Snowing in cedar forest, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

In this series of articles, I draw from key excerpts of my textbook on how to write fiction The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! whose 26 chapters go from A to Z on the key aspects of writing good and meaningful fiction.

P is for Plotting with Purpose

“Plot is the things characters do, feel, think, or say, that make a difference to what comes afterward,” says Ansen Dibel, author of Elements of Fiction Writing: Plot. I’ve also heard authors describe plot as all the nasty things they throw at their main character to stop them from getting where or what they want or need. Plot is motion. “Plot is a verb,” says Dibell. “For a reader to care about your story, there has to be something at stake—something of value to gain, something of value to be lost.”

Although plots will vary as much as individual stories, there are some basic elements and forms. Here are some:

• Cause and Effect: this is simply when one event leads to another. Many writers talk about scenes and sequels when constructing stories (see below).

• Thematic: this is where events are tied together by a thematic thread, a common relationship, a central event, place, character or theme.

• Lyric: this is when plot is organized like music, with a cyclical return to key images, events or themes that grow deeper each time (Finnegan’s Wake, by James Joyce, for example.)

• Hero’s Journey: this plot approach follows the mythic steps of the hero’s journey.

Plot structure generally follows a progression from scene (action) to sequel (reaction) and back to scene again. A scene has the three-part pattern of: goal, conflict, disaster. A sequel follows with this three-part pattern: reaction, dilemma, decision. Plot structure generally follows a thematic story arc. A seven-point plot structure goes like this: hoot, problem, backfill, complication, action, the dark moment, resolution. This step-wise plot approach reflects the three act elements of the “hero’s journey”.

Bill Johnson said that every story makes a promise at the beginning to the reader. Those promises, says Dibell, are mostly unspoken ones. And some are made indirectly through pattern. As the journey continues, problems build on the previous ones, always moving the main plot toward the final crisis. “The job of a middle,” says Dibell, “is to build toward and deliver crisis.”

“Detail on detail, incident on incident, character on character, the pattern(s) begin to form,” says Dibell. “…they’re what hold your story together, give it both diversity and unity.” Dibell describes plot as a tapestry of pattern, form, shape and color that share recognizable meanings. Which brings me to subplots, the threads that make up the story’s fabric.

Subplots are more common in long fiction, where they are used to deepen a story and add layers that make it more intriguing and tease out more depth to the story. Subplots may provide varying aspects of a theme, from community to individual as played out by different characters. Ultimately, subplots and how they are crafted, provide the writer with the means to transcend plot into what Dibell calls pattern.

Dibell describes “braided” plots, in which two or more subplots are woven together, and parallel plot lines, in which two plots share almost equal footing. This happens when strong protagonists carry each plot. Parallel plot lines often run counterpoint to each other in pace, tone and colour. Each plot becomes richer and stronger when contrasted with the other. And they are always connected in some way, in many ways. In Matrix Reloaded, Neo’s introspective and thoughtful plot with the architect of the matrix runs counterpoint with Trinity’s action plot as she sabotages the matrix and battles an agent. Both demonstrate conflict and tension but the tone and pace are opposite. This contrast only heightens each plot line. Notice also how the two plot lines are connected and eventually converge in the final scene where Neo saves Trinity’s life by restarting her heart. Earlier on, while Trinity is totally engrossed in her problems, Neo becomes aware of her struggle through the architect’s artful hint; this prompts Neo to choose his path to join her plot. His awareness is the bridge between the two plot lines. If you look carefully, you will find many other ways the two plot lines are connected, visually, mentally and viscerally and how they inevitably draw together in that riveting last scene; “how thoroughly,” Dibell says, “the story belongs to itself.”

Crawford Kilian, SF writer and author of Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy, set down these ten commandments:

Nothing should happen at random
Plot stems from character under adversity
Give each character an urgent personal agenda
The plot of a story is the synthesis of the plots of its individual characters
The plot “begins” long before the story
Foreshadow all important elements
Keep in mind the kind of story you’re telling
Ironic plots subvert their surface meanings
The hero must eventually take charge of events
Plot dramatizes character.

“…Like the good Doctor’s Tardis, The Fiction Writer is larger than it appears… Get Get Published, Write Now! right now.”
David Merchant, Creative Writing Instructor

*Light snow by the river, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

Click here for more about my other guidebooks on writing.

The A to Z of Writing Fiction: M, N, O…

March 31, 2024January 23, 2024 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

*Snowing in a cedar forest, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

In this series of articles, I draw from key excerpts of my textbook on how to write fiction The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! whose 26 chapters go from A to Z on the key aspects of writing good and meaningful fiction.

M is for Master the Metaphor & Other Things

During a brainstorming session, my business partner quizzed me on the major problems that writers face: “What are their Waterloos?” She was using metaphor to make a point. You don’t have to look very far to find examples; everyday speech is full of them: like “raining cats and dogs; “table leg”; and “old flame”.

Metaphor directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects. It is, therefore, considered more powerful than an analogy, which may acknowledge differences. Other rhetorical devices in the ‘metaphor family’ that involve comparison include metonymy, synecdoche, personification, simile, allegory and parable. While these share common attributes with metaphor, each compares in a different way.

The term synecdoche substitutes a part for a whole or a whole for a part (e.g., the expression “all hands on deck” refers to the men; or the expression “use your head” refers to your brain). Synecdoche is a common way to emphasize an important aspect of a character.

Metonymy uses one word to describe and represent another (e.g. the suits from Wall Street). Metonymy works by association whereas metaphor works through similarity.

Personification gives an idea, object or animal the qualities of a person (e.g., the darkness embraced her; the creek babbled over the rocks).

Similes can imply comparison (e.g., His mind is like a sword) or be explicit (e.g., His mind is sharp like a sword). This is what makes the simile such a useful tool to the writer: you can choose to be vague, letting the reader infer the relationship, or be direct.

Simile: His love was like a slow dance

Metaphor: Love danced in her heart

Allegory is an extended metaphor in which an object, person or action is equated with the meaning that lies outside the narrative. In other words, allegory has both a literal and a representative meaning.

The kinds of metaphor you use (extended metaphors particularly) rely a great deal on your narrative voice, the type of story you’re telling, and the language you’re using. Here are two from Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye:

His hair was bone white.

I got the drunk up [the stairs] somehow. He was eager to help but his legs were rubber.

The metaphor is often tied in to the overall theme or plot line of the story, providing tone to the story and sometimes foreshadowing.

N is for Now It’s Time for Revision

Ten things you should consider when revising your first (and subsequent) draft(s).

1. Let your work breathe: once you’ve completed your draft, set it aside for a while. This lets you make objective observations about your writing when you return.

2. Dig deep: now that you have the whole story before you, you can restructure plotlines, subplots, events and characters to best reflect your overall story. Don’t be afraid to remove large sections; you will likely add others. You may also merge two characters into one or add a character or change a character’s gender or age.

3. Take Inventory: it’s good to take stock of how each chapter contributes to plotline and theme; root out the inconsistencies as you relate the minutiae to the whole.

4. Highlight the Surges: some passages will stand out as being particularly stunning; pay attention to them in each chapter and apply their energy to the rest of your writing.

5. Purge & Unclutter: make a point of shortening everything; this forces you to use more succinct language, replacing adjectives and adverbs with power-verbs. Liken it to writing for a magazine with only so much space (check out Chapter U for more ideas). Doing this will tighten prose and make it more clear. Reading aloud, particularly dialogue, can help streamline your prose.

6. Point of view: this is the time to take stock of whether you’ve chosen the best point of view for the story. You may wish to experiment with different points of view at this stage and the results may surprise you.

7. Make a plot promise: given that you are essentially making a promise to your readers, it is advisable that you revisit that promise. Tie up your plot points; don’t leave any hanging unless you’re intentionally doing this, but be aware that readers don’t generally like it. Similarly, if you’ve written a scene that is lyrical, beautiful and compelling but doesn’t contribute to your plotline, nix it. But keep it for another story; chances are, it will work elsewhere. The trick is to file it where you can later find it.

8. Deepen your characters: the revision process is an ideal time to add subtle detail to your main characters. A nervous scratch of his beard, an absent twisting of the ring on her finger, the frequent use of a particular expression: all these can be worked in throughout the story, in your later drafts. Even minor characters can shine and be unique. When you paint your minor characters with more detail, you create a more three-dimensional tapestry for your main characters to walk through. This heightens realism in your story and involvement of your reader.

9. Write scenes: use the revision process to convert flat narrative into “scene” through dramatization. Narrative summaries read like lecture or polemic. They tend to be passive, slow, and less engaging. Scenes include action, tension and conflict, dialogue and physical movement.

10. Be concrete: Rosenfeld describes your novel as a world in which your reader enters and wants to stay in for a while. You make it easy for her by adding concrete details for her to envision and relate to. Ground your characters in vivid setting, rich but unobtrusive detail. Don’t abandon them to a generic and prosaic setting, drinking “beverages” and driving “vehicles” on “roads”; instead brighten up their lives by having them speeding along Highway 66 in a Mini Cooper, while sipping a Pinot Noir.

O is for Outline or Synopsis?

A synopsis is NOT an outline. Both are useful to the writer, yet each serves a very different purpose. An outline is a tool (usually just for the writer) that sketches plot items of a book. It provides a skeleton or framework of plot, people, places and their relationships to the storyline. It permits the writer to ultimately gauge scene, setting, and character depth or even determine whether a character is required (every character must have a reason to be in the book, usually to move the plot). To put it basically, the outline describes what happens when and to whom, while the synopsis includes why.

Elizabeth Lyon, author of The Sell Your Novel Toolkit, suggests that a synopsis should usually include these seven items:

• Theme

• Setting and Period

• Plot summary

• Character sketches

• Dialogue

• Emotional turning points

• Subplots

The theme, explains Lyons, “provides a rudder for an entire novel.” She suggests condensing it into one sentence or phrase: to have a friend you must be a friend; cooperation lies at the heart of evolution; love is the true source of human wealth; there’s no place like home. You can also portray your theme in a single word (e.g., forgiveness, revenge, trust, prejudice, evolution).

Lyon suggests that the plot summary is like a skeleton upon which to flesh out character and theme. Two things you need to consider are that 1) you must summarize the complete novel (beginning, middle and end) and 2) you should not confuse a plot summary (essentially an outline) with a synopsis, which incorporates more than plot. “The best-written and most impressive synopses,” says Lyon, “are those that make it clear that a story is character driven.” Lyon recommends that you limit your sketches to the main characters that drive principle theme in the story.

The first sentence of my synopsis of Collision with Paradise focuses on the main character:

When Genevieve Dubois, Zeta Corp’s hot shot starship pilot accepts a research mission aboard ZAC I to the mysterious planet Eos, she not only collides with her guilty past but with her own ultimate fantasy.

While the sentence conveys information about the plot, it is given from the viewpoint of a character’s motivations and feelings. The reader is informed at the outset that character development is at the heart of the story.

The emotional turning points are the focal events that are directly linked to the theme of the story. These are the “so what” parts of the story plot—where the character reaches an epiphany and, as a result, changes—and are ultimately linked to the climax of the story.

“…Like the good Doctor’s Tardis, The Fiction Writer is larger than it appears… Get Get Published, Write Now! right now.”
David Merchant, Creative Writing Instructor

*Light snow falling by the river, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

Click here for more about my other guidebooks on writing.

The A to Z of Writing Fiction: G, H, I…

March 17, 2024January 23, 2024 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

*Snowing in the Kawarthas, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

In this series of articles, I draw from key excerpts of my textbook on how to write fiction The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! whose 26 chapters go from A to Z on the key aspects of writing good and meaningful fiction.

G is for Defining your Genre & Going Beyond It

Although genres are not precisely definable, genre considerations are one of the most important factors in determining what a person will see or read. Many genres have built-in audiences and corresponding publications that support them, such as magazines and websites.

For a long time people considered that books and movies that are difficult to categorize into a genre were likely to be less successful commercially. This is no longer the case, thanks to online bookstores like Amazon, that are able to ‘shelve’ books under multiple categories for people to find. In fact, having your book cross several genres (called “cross-genre” or slipstream) may even provide an advantage in that your book will occupy not just one but several niches—akin to placing your bets on several horses rather than just one.

So, if you haven’t figured out what genre your writing falls under, start figuring it out now; your future publisher and marketer will want to know because they, in turn, have to tell their distributor and bookseller where to shelve the book. This is why you need to do this, no matter what you think of categorizing your work; the alternative is leaving it to Jack in the marketing department who may not have even read your book, but used the cover picture to figure it out. Yikes!

The key to this exercise, whether your work falls under one or more categories, is to understand your work well enough to be able to categorize it. And, by all means, break the rules of categorizing—just know why you are.

H is for House or Home…Creating Memorable Settings

Setting fulfills most of the core aspects of a story. Without a place there is no story. Setting serves multipurpose roles from helping with plot, determining and describing character to providing metaphoric links to theme. Setting, like the force in Star Wars, provides a landscape that binds everything into context and meaning. Without setting, characters are simply there, in a vacuum, with no reason to act and most importantly, no reason to care.

Settings can not only have character; they can be a character in their own right. A novelist may often find herself, when portraying several characters, painting a portrait of place. This is setting being “character”. The setting functions as a catalyst, and molds the more traditional characters that animate a story. Think of any of your favourite books, particularly the epics: The Wizard of Oz, Tale of Two Cities, Doctor Zhivago, Lord of the Rings, The Odyssey, etc. In each of these books the central character is really the place, which is inexorably linked to its main character.

Settings depict the theme of your story through metaphor. The setting and all the objects in it are described to your reader through your POV character. This gives you an excellent opportunity to show the mood, temperament, judgment and bias of your character and their place in their world.

I is for Interviews and other Weird Experiences

As a writer of either fiction or non-fiction, you will at some time require information from a real person. Depending on the nature of your research and its intended destination and audience, you may wish to conduct anything from a casual phone or email enquiry to a full-blown formal face-to-face interview. This will also depend on who you are interviewing, from a neighbour to a government official. The pillars of good journalism include:

thoroughness
accuracy
fairness and
transparency.

Here are some tips on what to do:

Do your research ahead of time: read up on your subject and include both sides of an issue (if that’s relevant). This helps you to respond intelligently with better follow-up questions.
Ask open-ended questions: avoid yes and no questions and get them to elaborate. Asking “why” solicits explanation, which will give your article depth.
Ask for examples: this provides a personal aspect to the article that gives it warmth and makes it more interesting.
Ask personal questions: what’s the worst thing that can happen? They can simply say no; the up side is you may get a gem. The personal angle from the interviewee’s perspective gives your
article some potential emotional aspect that gives it human-interest.
Ask the interviewee for any further thoughts to share: it’s an innocuous question, but can offer-up more gems. What it provides you with is the possibility of getting something you might not have thought of, sparked by your conversation.

Here are some tips on what NOT to do:

“There’s no rush.” Never reveal your deadline. Think about it; what do you normally do when there’s a deadline? Right…say it’s sooner than it really is.
“I’ve never covered this topic before.” This kind of information is inappropriate and may make your interviewee uncomfortable (worrying about your unproven abilities to properly interview her instead of focusing on her). Besides, it’s not what you know but what you learn that counts.
“I’ll be using what you say extensively.” Don’t assume and make promises you may not be able to keep, until after the interview.

“I don’t get it.” If you don’t understand something, get clarification rather than make a negative remark that tends to stop them dead in their tracks.“You can review the piece before it’s published.” This is something that can be dealt with over the phone to confirm facts; the source doesn’t need to see the whole piece before it’s published.
“This is going to be a fantastic article!” Keep your tone professional; there’s nothing wrong with being positive, but you should maintain a professional attitude that inspires confidence in the interviewee.

“…Like the good Doctor’s Tardis, The Fiction Writer is larger than it appears… Get Get Published, Write Now! right now.”
David Merchant, Creative Writing Instructor

Click here for more about my other guidebooks on writing.

The A to Z of Writing Fiction: D, E, F…

March 10, 2024January 23, 2024 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

*Country road in early spring, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

In this series of articles, I draw from key excerpts of my textbook on how to write fiction The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! whose 26 chapters go from A to Z on the key aspects of writing good and meaningful fiction.

D is for Get the Dope on Dialogue

One of the most important devices to spice up narrative and increase pace is the use of dialogue. There’s a reason for this: we read dialogue more quickly; it’s written in more fluid, conversational English; it tends to create more white space on a page with less dense text, more pleasing to the reader’s eye. Dialogue is action. It gets readers involved. Good dialogue neither mimics actual speech (i.e., it’s not usually mundane, repetitive or broken with words like “uh”) nor does it educate the reader through long discourse (unless the character is that kind of person). Good dialogue in a story should be somewhere in the middle.

While it should read as fluid conversation, dialogue remains a device to propel the plot or enlighten us to the character of the speaker. No conversation follows a perfect linear progression. People interrupt one another, talk over one another, often don’t answer questions posed to them or avoid them by not answering them directly. These can all be used by the writer to establish character, tension, and relationship.

E is for Exposition

In fiction, exposition breaks away from the ongoing action of a scene to give information. It can be one paragraph or go on for several pages. Exposition often provides contextual information critical for the reader to buy in to character-motivation or the ideas promoted in the story. It gives a story its perspective and larger meaning by linking the reader with the thematic elements. If scene is action and plot, exposition feeds reflection and theme. Exposition can appear in the form of background, setting, back story or overview. It is most often expressed through a POV character’s reflection and observation.

Exposition is something every writer grapples with in a story. Where to put it? When to add it? How much is too much? How little is too little? Working out when to explain the plot and when to leave the reader to draw their own conclusions can be tricky for even experienced writers, says author Elsa Neal. Ansen Dibell, author of Elements of Fiction Writing: Plot, describes exposition as “the author telling the reader something—telling, rather than showing.” Telling is much less effective and interesting than showing. It follows then that exposition is much less dramatic and less vivid than a scene. This is why you need to break exposition up into small bite-size pieces rather than a huge caloric meal of information. A good rule to follow is to minimize exposition as much as you can.

Okay, it’s good to add exposition. But there is a way and a time to do it. You need to balance the show-and-tell part of your narrative and to maintain a rhythm in your pace and tone. This means doing several things:

restrain yourself and keep your notes to yourself
arouse then explain
build exposition into the scene
put exposition in between scenes
let the character explain—but be careful!
Use interior monologue

F is for Finding Your Muse

In over twenty years of writing both fiction and non-fiction I really hadn’t given much thought to writer’s block until recently, when I was challenged on it. This is not to say that I never experienced it. I did; I just kept on writing. “What?” you say. “Then, you didn’t really have writer’s block.” Well, I did, but only for that particular project, and only for one aspect of that particular project. The key is to have multiple projects and recognize that each of these has multiple tasks aside from writing (e.g., editing, research, discussion, etc.) that you can work on.

For instance, besides Novel A, whose plot had me stumped, I was working on two short stories and a non-fiction article. I was also actively posting science articles, essays and opinion pieces on my blog. In addition, I was writing news articles for an online magazine and doing my regular stint at the environmental consulting firm, writing interpretive environmental reports. I kept on writing.

I let the plot of Novel A sit for a while as I continued to write. That didn’t mean I couldn’t work on Novel A in other capacities: copy editing or polishing language, for instance. The point I want to make is that it’s helpful to have other things on the go mainly because this will let you relax about the project that has you stumped. And you need to relax for it to resolve. It’s a little like looking for the watch you misplaced; it will find you once you stop looking for it.

“…Like the good Doctor’s Tardis, The Fiction Writer is larger than it appears… Get Get Published, Write Now! right now.”
David Merchant, Creative Writing Instructor

Click here for more about my other guidebooks on writing.

The A to Z of Writing Fiction: A, B, C…

March 3, 2024January 23, 2024 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

In this series of articles, I draw from key excerpts of my textbook on how to write fiction The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! whose 26 chapters go from A to Z on the key aspects of writing good and meaningful fiction.

A is for Alien Architecture: Building from Scenes to Worlds

Most writers will tell you that the scene, not the sentence or word, is the smallest component—the building block—of a story. The scene forms an integral part of a larger plot structure that consists of a series of dual scenes and sequels. Dwight Swain, author of Techniques of The Selling Writer, breaks these down further into:

Scene: goal, conflict, disaster

Sequel: reaction, dilemma, decision

What’s important to remember is that the world you build is part of the story. It isn’t just a lot of “interesting” detail. As I mention in Chapter H for “setting”, the world you build, like a character in your story, plays a role in defining and supporting its theme. The major qualities of your world are, therefore, best derived for plot and thematic reasons—which come from “story”. The rest—the details—are things you can find in books or websites, or get from experts in your local university, etc. Don’t let science intimidate you but ensure that you get it right by using your resources and verifying your information with an expert. Use your local libraries, universities, colleges, and online resources. Interview scientists, technical people and other writers. That’s part of being a writer too.

B is for Blazing Beginnings

In an April 2001 article of Writer’s Digest, JoeCardillo (director of Southern Vermont College’s creative writing program) suggested that the three elements of hooking a reader resemble the steps he uses to train his Samoyed puppy: 1) arouse interest; 2) delay, then 3) reward.

The writer arouses interest in the reader by providing enough detail to get the reader to ask questions. Now they want something. You tease them with the delay; that keeps them reading and turning the pages. It also gives them the chance to try to come up with the answers themselves. In some books it can be a game between reader and writer; can the reader come up with the answer before the writer provides it? The reward comes in stages. Don’t answer all the questions at once. Parcel them out slowly. That’s what the book—the story—is for.

There is no beginning without an end. In a workshop at the 1998 Surrey Writer’s Conference Elizabeth Lyon, author of The Sell Your Novel Tool Kit (2002), suggested that the beginning of a novel should “reflect the entire book. There should be a tie-in [between] the beginning and the end.” This is sometimes called “framing” a story, where the principal thematic problem is given in the beginning and then resolved in the end.

Bill Johnson, author of A Story is a Promise, describesit as a promise tothe reader. The beginningof a book sets up acovenant between writerand reader, a covenantfor a journey they willtake together towardresolution. Johnson describesthe story promiseas doing three things,similar to Cardillo’s three steps (arouse, delay,reward). Johnson calls them setting out a story’score dramatic issue (the promise), movement,and fulfillment of the promise.

C is for Charismatic Characters

Your characters have a dramatic function, a role in advancing the plot and/or theme; they need a reason to be there. Your characters are the most important part of your book (more so than the plot or premise). Through them your book lives and breathes. Through them your premise, idea and your plot come alive. Through them you achieve empathy and commitment from the reader and a willingness to keep reading to find out what’s going to happen next: if the reader doesn’t invest in the characters, she won’t really care what happens next. Dramatic function aside, in order for your character to be memorable he needs to have a charismatic personality. He needs to show qualities that make him distinctive. All memorable characters show some character development (as story arc) from beginning to end of story. The more your character changes over a story, the more she will be noticed.

“…Like the good Doctor’s Tardis, The Fiction Writer is larger than it appears… Get Get Published, Write Now! right now.”
David Merchant, Creative Writing Instructor

Click here for more about my other guidebooks on writing.

*A snowy day in Ontario (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

Losing Myself in the Forest Helps Me Find Myself

December 17, 2023April 27, 2024 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

*Rocky trail through ancient eastern hemlock forest, Catchacoma Park, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

I look forward to my daily walks. I find that walking helps me centre myself. Depending on the time I have, some walks last half an hour to an hour. Others walks will stretch from three hours to a day long. These aren’t city-walks.

*Stream swells in a spring rain in Trent Nature Sanctuary, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

My favourite place to walk is in the forest, by a river.

Perhaps it is the solitude… or the negative ions, the fresh pungent scents of damp loam, moss and trees. The humbling magnificence of these stately trees. The fishy bog smell of algae. Or the unknown treasures hiding in plain sight for me to discover… Whatever the combination, I find it most pleasing. And freeing.

It is also here, wandering in the forest, that my creativity flourishes as I find expression through the joy of discovery.

*Old-growth forest surrounding Pierce Lake, BC (photo by Kevin Klassen)*

The first step is to lose myself…

That’s the fun part: not knowing what’s beyond that hillside or down that ravine on the shores of the creek I barely see or around that bend in the root-gnarled trail among the swamp cedars. Like a moth to light, I’m drawn to the unknown. Ever the explorer.

*Old-growth cedar forest in Jackson Creek forest, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

*Gnarly cedar roots cross a path through morning fog in a swamp cedar forest, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

It is often here, as I walk along uneven trails or maneuver through undergrowth, up hills or down stream banks to explore and record with my camera, that I do my best thinking… Well, best in that it does not feel like thinking; more like simply ‘being.’ As my body responds to Nature’s sensual treasures, my ingenuous mind ‘walks away’ from restrictions of consciousness and roams in a kind of euphoric state of simple joy. Freed from thinking to feel and sense.

No need for a destination. The journey is my destination…

*Gnarly roots of an old yellow birch snake across the old-growth cedar forest, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

*Moss-covered boulder erratic (Nina’s Boulder) in old-growth cedar forest of Jackson Creek park, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

Walking in a forest unclutters my mind. The forest is simple in its natural complexity. Its beauty combs out the tangles of human encumbrance and grounds me in the simplicity of natural life.

*Cookout in old-growth rainforest at Mamquam River near Squamish, BC (photo by Kevin Klassen)*

I go prepared. Depending on the kind of walk, I’ll bring my clementine to snack on or a hearty lunch and fruit snacks that I carry in my backpack, along with a notebook and first aid kit. And, of course, I bring my camera. When I stop for lunch or snack, I choose my location thoughtfully, sometimes a place to sit, but mostly with a view of something worth studying. Lunch or snack stops are particularly alluring with unexpected experience.

*Moss-covered rocks scatter along the banks of Jackson Creek, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

It is then, when I’ve stopped walking and have become quiet, when nature closes around me like a soft blanket and often gifts me with a precious sight or sound. A nearby red squirrel eating a nut. A bird flitting from berry to berry in a viburnum shrub. Oft times, I will be rewarded with the sight of a mushroom right at my feet or next to where I sit. That is often followed by the sight of many more.

As though the one had to be first seen to reveal the many.

*Various mushrooms in Ontario forests (photos by Nina Munteanu)*

Now lost, I open myself to possibility…

Like the propagules of Virginia creeper, my senses reach out to find the unexpected. I’m looking to be surprised. To discover something new that will draw me outside myself.

*Various flowers and trees in southern Ontario (photos by Nina Munteanu)*

The river trickles in the background as I step through dappled light and inhale the organic scents of the forest. The forest and the river help me re-align and focus—without trying. That’s the magic of it. It’s in the not trying.

*Marcescent beech leaves drape over old road through swamp forest, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

I take my camera (and tripod) with me on most walks for those moments that I can never anticipate: like the time a deer stepped gracefully out from behind a tree not three metres from me in a moss-covered red pine forest. I was in the process of setting up my camera on its tripod to capture the trail through the pines when the deer moved gracefully into my sight. Startled, we both froze and stared at one another for a moment made eternity. The deer then sprang away and loped through the trees, disappearing within seconds. I stood, hands fixed on my camera shutter button, and smiled. I had not taken a picture. But I now basked in that frozen moment of fascination between two curious animals, a deer and a human.

I didn’t need a picture; I already had my prize, the enduring memory of that moment.

*Pine trees loom tall at the location where I met the deer in Petroglyph National Park, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

In the April 2014 issue of the Journal of Experimental Pshychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, Stanford researchers Marily Oppezzo and Daniel L. Schwartz demonstrated that walking boosts creative inspiration. Using the Guildford’s Alternative Uses Test they showed that the act of walking significantly increased creativity for 81% of the participants. Oppezzo and Schwartz were able to demonstrate that the creative ideas generated while walking were not irrelevant or far-fetched, but innovative and practical.

*Moss-covered ancient hemlock in the Catchacoma old-growth forest, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

It begins with changes to our chemistry. In the September 3 2014 issue of The New Yorker, journalist Ferris Jabr describes why walking opens the mind to creativity:

“When we go for a walk, the heart pumps faster, circulating more blood and oxygen not just to the muscles but to all the organs—including the brain. Many experiments have shown that after or during exercise, even very mild exertion, people perform better on tests of memory and attention. Walking on a regular basis also promotes new connections between brain cells, staves off the usual withering of brain tissue that comes with age, increases the volume of the hippocampus [a brain region crucial to relational memory and contextual learning], and elevates levels of molecules that both stimulate the growth of new neurons and transmit messages between them.”

*Beech tree with marcescent leaves in a mixed forest, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

So, I walk and I create in my mind and my heart as I prepare to write my next novel…

*Payne Line road in the mists of an early morning rain, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

When a Walk in the Forest Makes My Heart Sing…

December 3, 2023December 2, 2023 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

*Beech trees stand with bronzed leaves as the snow falls in the mixed forest of South Drumlin park, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

Yesterday, it started snowing near the end of my work shift, and I kept glancing out the window as it turned into a heavy thick snow, the kind I just adore. Whenever this happens, I long for werifesteria…

*A pair of beech trees stand pale among hemlocks and poplar trees, South Drumlin park, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

*Beech-hemlock forest after a light snow in South Drumlin park, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

As soon as the shift was over, I snatched my gear and rushed off with my camera and tripod and a pack of blueberries to the beech-maple-hemlock forest nearby. The place is called South Drumlin Park, because the forest runs up and down a hogsback with wonderful trails throughout.

*Marcescent beech trees greet me along a trail in South Drumlin park, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

I was the only person there. I walked and crunched through snow and frost-hardened leaf litter and I let myself get lost in the labyrinth of trails through the open winter forest. The pale beech trees, because they keep their now copper-coloured marcescent leaves, stood out amid the bare maples, oaks, poplars and birch trees.

*Pale bronze beech leaves light up the dark hemlock forest, South Drumlin park (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

I wandered there for hours, inhaling the peaceful freshness and the quiet hush of gentle snowing in the forest.

There were just a few rowdy red squirrels and one persistent bluejay, but all else lay quiet in the deep of the forest. I had found my magic and mystery … It felt sublime and my heart sang…

*Trail through poplars, cedars and hemlocks toward the river, South Drumlin park, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

How Maude Barlow Sparked My Novel “A Diary in the Age of Water”

October 22, 2023September 22, 2023 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

*Maude Barlow, author of Boiling Point, Chairman of the Council of Canadians*

Like a car, every novel has its point of ignition: a spark that sets it in motion. This occurs when a premise or idea comes together with an incendiary moment of clarity or a thematic question. Mine—though I didn’t know it at the time—happened in a church on the Summer of 2016.

I was in a United Church on Bloor Street, in Toronto’s Annex, watching a talk given by Maude Barlow on water justice. The radical talk was based on her recent book Boiling Point, a comprehensive exploration of Canada’s water crisis—a crisis that most Canadians weren’t—and still aren’t—aware. Canada is steward to a fifth of the world’s fresh water, after all. It is a water-rich country. Of the dozen largest inland lakes in the world, Canada holds eight of them. So, why water crisis? Barlow explains. And you should read Boiling Point, particularly if you’re Canadian. It will open your eyes to the politics of water and how multinational corporations—like Nestlé—are already grabbing and funneling water away from Canadians and into the global profit machine.

I sat close to the front of the Church sanctuary to best see her. But I soon noticed that many people had elected to sit in the gallery above. I found myself focusing on a young mother and her little girl. The girl had some paper and crayons and was busy with that as the enthusiastic mother listened to Maude deliver dire facts about corporate water high-jacking and government complicity.

I saw a story there.

What mother would take her pre-school child to a socio-political talk on water? I would later reflect that memory of the mother and her little girl through my characters Una and her little daughter Lynna, the diarist in my novel A Diary in the Age of Water (eventually published in 2020 with Inanna Publications).

Fresh water flows down the barrel of a hand-operated water pump.

My novel really began with a short story I was invited to write in 2015 by editors of Future Fiction and Mincione Edizioni about water and politics in Canada; the premise of this story would later find it’s way into the larger novel. I had long been thinking of potential ironies in Canada’s water-rich heritage. The premise I wanted to explore was the irony of people in a water-rich nation experiencing water scarcity: living under a government-imposed daily water quota of 5 litres as water bottling and utility companies took it all. I named the story “The Way of Water.” It was about a young woman (Hilda) in near-future Toronto who has run out of water credits for the public wTap; by this time houses no longer have potable water and their water taps have been cemented shut; the only way to get water is through the public wTaps—at great cost. She is in a line of people; she’s two metres from water—and dying of thirst.

“The Way of Water” captures a vision that explores the nuances of corporate and government corruption and deceit together with global resource warfare. In this near-future, Canada is mined of all its water by thirsty Chinese and US multinationals—leaving nothing for the Canadians. Rain has not fallen on Canadian soil in years due to advances in geoengineering and weather manipulation that prevent rain clouds from going anywhere north of the Canada-US border. If you’re wondering if this is possible, it’s already happening in China and surrounding countries.

The story first appeared in 2015 in Future Fiction, edited by Francesco Verso, and in 2016 as a bilingual (English and Italian) book and essay published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. The story has so far been reprinted seven times in magazines and anthologies, including “Cli-Fi: Canadian Tales of Climate Change Anthology” (Exile Editions, Bruce Meyer, ed), in 2017, “Future Fiction: New Dimensions in International Science Fiction” (Francesco Verso & Bill Campbell, eds; Future Fiction / Rosarium Publishing, Rome and Greenbelt, MD) in 2018; and in Little Blue Marble Magazine (Katrina Archer, ed) in January, 2019 and in their ‘Best of’ anthology. It was then published in 2022 in Metastellar Magazine and later in their ‘Best of’ anthology. “The Way of Water” received generous praise from review sites and the press worldwide.

After the success of this short story, I realized that I needed to tell the larger story—how did the world—Canada—get to where Hilda was? Her mysterious mother, the limnologist Lynna who was taken away by the RCMP in 2063, clamored for more attention. I remembered that four-year old girl and her mother in the gallery at Maude Barlow’s talk on water politics. And I thought of my characters: young Lynna and her mother Una. How does a daughter of an activist mother behave and think? How best to express her voice? I had earlier written a short story that was a mix of correspondence (emails) and third person narrative (“The Arc of Time” in Natural Selection, later reprinted in Metastellar Magazine), which I felt captured the voices of the characters well. I realized that a diary by Lynna would be an ideal way for her to express her unique worldview and cynicism—yet allow her vulnerable humanity to reveal itself through this unique relationship with her diary. The remaining characters and their narratives emerged easily from there: Una, her activist mother; Daniel, her conspiracy theorist colleague (and her conscience); Orvil, the water baron (and lover she betrayed); and Hilda, her “wayward” supposedly mind-challenged daughter—who appears in the short story that takes place later.

I had a lot of material; I had already been researching water issues and climate change in my activism as a science writer and reporter. In 2016, Pixl Press had published “Water Is… The Meaning of Water”, essentially a biography of water, written from the perspective of mother, environmentalist and scientist. I had practiced as a limnologist for over twenty-five years and could mine my various personal experiences in the field, lab and office with genuine realism. I chose Wetzel’s Limnology (the classic text book I used in my introductory limnology course) for quotes to each of Lynna’s entries; this added an opportunity to provide additional metaphor and irony through Lynna’s scientific voice. I placed the child Lynna (who was born in 2012) into actual events in Toronto, where I currently live. This pushed the story further into the area of documentary and blurred the lines between fiction and non-fiction to achieve a gritty and textured reality. Lynna also taught limnology at the University of Toronto, where I currently teach.

Just as Water Is… served as a watershed for all my relevant experiences as mother, environmentalist and scientist, A Diary in the Age of Water would galvanize many of my personal experiences, doubts, challenges and victories into compelling story. Although parts of the story wrote themselves, the entire book was not easy to write. There were times when I had to walk away from the book to gain some perspective—and optimism—before continuing. When I found myself drowning in Lynna’s voice, I invoked Hilda to guide me to shore. I found a balance that worked and compelled. Ultimately this opened to some of the best internal conflict and tension I have experienced in my writing.

Like water itself, A Diary in the Age of Water expresses through many vessels and in many perspectives, spanning hundreds of years—and four generations of women—with a context wider than human life. Through its characters, A Diary in the Age of Water explores the big question of humanity’s deadlock with planetary wellness and whether one is worth saving at the expense of the other. One of the characters asks Lynna the hard question: “If you had the chance to save the planet [stop the mass extinctions, deforestation and pollution ravaging the planet], but it was at the expense of humanity, would you do it?”

Water is, in fact, a character in the book—sometimes subtle and revealed in subtext, other times horrific and roaring with a clamorous voice. Water plays both metaphoric and literal roles in this allegorical tale of humanity’s final journey from home. The story explores identity and our concept of what is “normal”—as a nation and an individual—in a world that is rapidly and incomprehensibly changing—and in which each of us plays a vital role simply by doing or not doing.

A Diary in the Age of Water promises to leave you adjusting your frame of reference to see the world, yourself—and water—in a different way.

*Illustration on Liisbeth article (photo collage by PK Mutch and Dreamstime*

This is what PK Mutch of Liisbeth and Ariel Kroon (PhD graduate of English Literature at the University of Alberta and co-editor at Solarpunk Magazine) say about A Diary in the Age of Water, published by Inanna Publications in 2020:

The novel has received wonderful praise and prizes, including the Literary Titan Award, the Foreword Indies Award and finalist in the International Book Awards. I wonder if Maude Barlow has read it?… Maybe I (or someone) should get her a copy, huh?…

*Maude Barlow with ‘Save our River’ sign*

Maude Barlow is a Canadian activist and author of Blue Gold, Boiling Point and several other books on water justice. She chairs the board of Washington-based Food and Water Watch and Ottawa-based Blue Planet Project. Maude co-founded the Council of Canadians and chaired its board for over three decades.