eyes on the horizon

poetry and written fragments and inspiration and advice | j, quiet hooligan, NYC, they/them

[dovebeast-deactivated20240411]

Listening to 'From First Draft to Plot with Alexander Chee' and he talks about how one of the problems with his student's drafts is unmade decisions, that story is about making decisions, and he also says" the other big problem I find with student drafts besides unmade decisions is that implications in the initial scenes have not been dealt with and sometimes the draft, as a result will be a pile of inventions with implications that are still unmet and because the implications are unmet the writer keeps inventing things thinking the writer has nothing to write about when in fact the writer is ignoring what the writer has already written."

[localairport]

It's airplane week at Lidl

[tarysande]

Writing Tips from an Editor (Who Also Writes)

People throw around the phrase “Show, don’t tell” all the time. But what does it mean? Really?

When I’m editing a client’s work, I always explain what I mean when I say “Show, don’t tell,” so I know we’re on the same page (pun intended). 

FYI: This advice is really 2nd or 3rd draft advice. Don’t tie yourself in knots trying to get this perfect on the first go. First drafts are for telling yourself the story. Revisions are for craft. 

Ruthlessly hunt down filter words (saw, heard, wondered, felt, seemed, etc.). Most filter words push the reader out of narrative immersion, especially if you’re writing in 1st person or a close 3rd person. “She [or I] heard the wind in the trees” is less compelling than “The wind rustled through the trees” or “The wind set the bare branches to clacking.” Obviously, the point of view character is the one doing the hearing; telling the reader who’s doing the hearing is redundant and creates an unnecessary distance between the character’s experience and the reader’s experience of that experience. Was/were is another thing to watch out for; sometimes, nothing but was will do, but in many instances—“There was a wind in the trees” “There were dogs barking”—“was” tells, whereas other phrasing might evoke—“The wind whispered/howled/screamed through the trees” “Dogs snarled/yipped/barked in the courtyard/outside my door/at my heels.” 

Assume your readers are smart. What does this mean? Don’t tell the reader what your characters are thinking or feeling: “Bob was sad.” How do we know? What does Bob’s sadness look like, sound like? What actions, expressions, words indicate Bob’s sadness? Does Bob’s sadness look different than Jane’s would?

It also means that you need not repeat information unless you have something new to add to it—even if it’s been several chapters since you first mentioned it. I think a lot of readers fall into this trap because writing often takes a long time. But what takes a writer days or weeks or months to write might take a reader fifteen minutes to read. So, if the writer keeps telling the reader about so-and-so’s flaming red hair or such-and-such’s distrust or Bob’s blue eyes or Jane’s job as a neurosurgeon, the reader gets annoyed. 

The last thing you want is your reader rolling their eyes and muttering, “OMG, I KNOW” at the story you’ve worked so hard to write. It certainly means you don’t need to have characters tell each other (and through them, the reader) what the story is about or what a plot point means.

Along these same lines, let the reader use their imagination. “Bob stood, turned around, walked across the room, reached up, and took the book from the shelf.” Holy stage directions, Batman! A far less wordy “Bob fetched the book from the shelf” implies all those irrelevant other details. However, if Bob has, say, been bedbound for ten years but stands up, turns around, and walks across the room to fetch the book, that’s a big deal. Those details are suddenly really important.

Write the action. Write the scene with the important information in it. Let the reader be present for the excitement, the drama, the passion, the grief. If you’re finding yourself writing a lot of after-the-fact recap or “he thought about the time he had seen Z” or “and then they had done X and so-and-so had said Y,” you’re not in the action. You’re not in the importance. Exceptions abound, of course; that’s true of all writing advice. But overuse of recapping is dull. Instead of the reader being present and experiencing the story, it’s like they’re stuck listening to someone’s imperfect retelling. Imagine getting only “Last week on…” and “Next week on…” but never getting to watch an episode. I’m editing a book right now with some egregious use of this. The author has a bad habit of setting up a scene in the narrative present—“The queen met the warrior in the garden.”—but then backtracking into a kind of flashback almost immediately. “Last night, when her lady-in-waiting had first suggested meeting the warrior, she had said, ‘Blah blah blah.’ The queen hadn’t considered meeting the warrior before, but as she dressed for bed, she decided they would meet in the garden the next day. Now, standing in the garden, she couldn’t remember why it had seemed like a good idea.”

That’s a really simplified and exaggerated example, but do you see what I’m getting at? If the queen’s conversation with the lady-in-waiting and the resulting indecision are important enough to be in the narrative, if they influence the narrative, let the reader be present for them instead of breaking the forward momentum of the story to “tell” what happened when the reader wasn’t there. Unless it’s narratively important for something to happen off-page (usually because of an unreliable narrator or to build suspense or to avoid giving away a mystery), show your readers the action. Let them experience it along with the characters. Invite them into the story instead of keeping them at a distance.

Finally, please, please don’t rely on suddenly or and then to do the heavy lifting of surprise or moving the story forward; English has so many excellent verbs. Generally speaking, writers could stand to use a larger variety of them. 

(But said is not dead, okay? SAID IS VERY, VERY ALIVE.)

[apoemaday]

Shadows

by Mary Oliver

Everyone knows the great energies running amok cast terrible shadows, that each of the so-called senseless acts has its thread looping back through the world and into a human heart. And meanwhile the gold-trimmed thunder wanders the sky; the river may be filling the cellars of the sleeping town. Cyclone, fire, and their merry cousins bring us to grief—but these are the hours with the old wooden-god faces; we lift them to our shoulders like so many black coffins, we continue walking into the future. I don’t mean there are no bodies in the river, or bones broken by the wind. I mean everyone who has heard the lethal train-roar of the tornado swears there was no mention ever of any person, or reason—I mean the waters rise without any plot upon history, or even geography. Whatever power of the earth rampages, we turn to it dazed but anonymous eyes; whatever the name of the catastrophe, it is never the opposite of love.

[p9sh-blog]

[darkmacademia]

List of love poems from ‘Love Speaks Its Name: Gay and Lesbian Love Poems’, edited by J. D. McClatchy.

[filmnoirsbian]

WHY ARE YOU HAUNTED?

A survey

[slowheart]

this is still my absolute favorite poem by jane wong and honestly my absolute favorite poem in the entire world… i have a comfortable crisis over it like every month

[wafflewarrior111]

So... I found this and now it keeps coming to mind. You hear about "life-changing writing advice" all the time and usually its really not—but honestly this is it man.

I'm going to try it.

[missroserose]

I love the lawyer metaphor, because whenever I see “John knew that...” in prose writing I immediately think “how?  How does he know it?”  Interrogate your witnesses.  Cross-examine them.  Make them explain their reasoning.  It pays dividends.

[heck-in-a-handbasket]

All of this, but also feels/felt. My editor has forbidden me from using those and it’s forced me to stretch my skills.

[16ruedelaverrerie]

An interactive learning tool that can help you understand what makes metered poetry in English tick.

I haven’t posted about English and lit stuff for a good long while! But we’re heading into the start of the academic year, so I was thinking about writing tips– and it reminded me that training the ear in English prosody is my all-time no-holds-barred #1 piece of advice for how to become a better writer on the sentence level. (It’s also probably one of my top three pieces of advice for how to become a better writer overall.) English is a stress-timed language and rhythm makes a difference! The sonic shape of the sentence is part of the reading experience! Writing, too, is an art that exists in relation to time.

One day I’ll achieve my distant pointless dream of having a Patreon podcast specifically about fic writing, but until then, For Better for Verse has always been a very good friend to me. There’s a certain amount of interpretive room in prosody, so I often find myself arguing with the website about its answer keys, but it’s such a good tool for practicing how to pay attention to the sound of writing. FREE ME FROM DEMANDS OF CHARACTER AND PLOT, GIVE ME A SENTENCE THAT SCANS

[nosebleedclub]

Discussion 1/22/21

1. A kinder era 2. Overgrowth 3. Cryptozoology 4. Great grandmother 5. Mind control

[brightsidewrites]

There was something in the water back then. My great grandmother was known to be a crazy person. Whether it was a mental kind of crazy or just misalignment with social mores is up for debate. The era was unkind to both sorts of difference.

Anyway the scientists, or whoever they were, eventually pushed through the overgrown field to the stream. They reached in to the living babble and removed a smooth stone. Then they came back and told us that it was over, we would feel our minds clear up, be more in control of ourselves.

Grandma Ruth stayed the same, got worse even. That summer she drove the Pontiac off the road and into the stream. Handbag in the passenger seat, cool as anything, like she was driving home.

[kafk-a]

on poetry

less than certain: how to teach bewildering poems, rachel mennies

the poetics of disobedience, alice notley

mystery & birds: 5 ways to practice poetry, ada limón

how to write a poem, bhanu kapil

facing altars: poetry and prayer, mary karr

back draft

someone is writing a poem, adrienne rich

some notes on organic form, denise levertov

in defense of poetic nonsense, with a character who shares your frustration, alice notley  

the power of words to save us, marie howe

this quote from adrienne rich

back to the body: an interview with natalie diaz

bewilderment is at the core of every poem, kaveh akbar

[butterflypeaflowertea]

a few additions, if i may :-)

3 statements on poetry, e e cummings

a poetry handbook, mary oliver

how to read a poem, edward hirsch

a retrospect & a few don’ts, ezra pound

poetry is not a luxury, audre lorde

the figure a poem makes, robert frost

[nosebleedclub]

Discussion 1/15/21

1. Rural 2. Suit 3. Eyeglasses 4. Patricide 5. Flourish

[brightsidewrites]

The state overall has a different reputation, but you should know that rural connecticut is just as bugfuck on opioids and racism as the rest of the country's inbetweens. I go south to the city, and wear a suit and fashionable eyeglasses, and sip from my aluminum water bottle with a flourish that is legible to city people. They read in it that opioids and racism are as abhorrent to me as patricide. They read that I have tamed any inbetweens in me on a diet of conceptual art and iced coffee. They read that the suit is ironic, a flourish in itself. Through my fashionable eyeglasses I look north, and the dim grey connecticut houses look back with wide, accusatory eyes.

[muscone]

ocean vuong on writing metaphors

[wrex-writes]

Drafting: Four Methods For Highly Anxious Individuals

(This is a revised version of an old post you might have seen elsewhere.)

Is writing really fucking painful for you? Do you finish a draft of a story maybe once every forty years? Is your computer littered with outlines and abandoned beginnings? Maybe you’ve been told to “write a shitty first draft” but have no idea how to do that because writing takes so much out of you that you can’t do it without at least trying to make it good…but when you do, you inevitably give up and hate yourself.

Chances are, you’re drafting in a way that doesn’t respect the way your mind works. You’re either 1) forcing yourself to deal with too many things at once, or 2) you’re stifling the free, imaginative, playful part of your mind with premature critical evaluation. Or, most likely, both. But you can’t just make yourself stop doing this spontaneously. You need a method of writing that interferes with those habits. Think of it as mental ergonomics. If your back is sore and your neck is stiff, you need a different chair. Similarly, if writing is agonizingly painful, you need a different drafting method.

Here are four methods you can try—or adapt, experiment with, and combine. (Nobody practices a pure version of any method.) For simplicity’s sake, I’ll talk as if you’re faced with drafting a single scene:

1) The Pitch Meeting Method

Don’t write the scene in the actual narrative voice of the story. Instead, write as if you’re describing what happens to somebody you know, somebody who’d be interested and excited about it. You could, in fact, actually address it to someone. Or write as if you’re writing a really long headcanon post.

Write the way you talk. Use your usual slang and vocal rhythms, and get all of your enthusiasm in there, everything you envision, everything you want for this scene. You could even do this out loud and record it, if that’s easier.

Let your desires run wild, even if you don’t yet know how you’re going to fulfill those desires. Say stuff like “and this part is really emotional!” without worrying about how you’re going to make it emotional.

When you’re done, go back and find parts you can elaborate on. Make the description as detailed as you can.

Once you’re happy with this description of what you’re going to write, start writing it. Translate your “sounds like you” prose into a voice more appropriate to the story. But don’t change it too much. Don’t kill the energy your own voice adds.

2) The Expanding Outline Method

This one’s similar, but it works better for folks who like to think structurally.

Make an outline of the scene. Maybe it starts with only a couple of items: two very general things that happen in the scene.

Now take one item and break it down into several items. Then break those items down into several items. Zoom in closer and closer to the action, breaking actions and events down into their constituent parts.

You can include non-event, non-external items like “Character feels [x].” You can even include things like “The reader feels [x].” But go back later and add detail to those where you can. Just keep making your outline more and more specific.

Now, following your outline, draft a prose version of the scene.

3) The Anatomy Textbook Method

For this one, you start with the scene itself, not with a plan for the scene. But don’t try to write the entire scene fully fleshed out in one go. Rather, start with a single element you’re most comfortable with. The dialogue, for instance. Or a description of the action in a bare-bones, stage-directions sort of way. Lay down a skeleton of the scene, and don’t worry if it looks a little…sparse.

Now go over it and add another element on top of that skeleton. Description, maybe. Or more details that flesh out your bare-bones description.

Keep doing this until you have a complete scene.

If you think you tend to leave a certain element out, dedicate a “layer” to that. I’m often quite sparing with characters’ emotional reactions, for instance. So I might go over the scene and do nothing but add in my character’s internal reactions to what’s happening.

You can divide the scene up however you like. The point is, each time you go over it, only focus on one element at a time.

4) The Sourdough Starter Method

This is probably the weirdest, and it might sound like the hardest, but it’s quicker and easier than it sounds. You just have to get comfortable with making a mess.

Start writing the scene, in all its nonsensical, inarticulate glory. Feel free to hate both the form and the content; just keep your head in the scene, walking your mind carefully through what happens, even if you think what happens is stupid. Don’t worry if what you write is boring or wrong or irrelevant, because you’re not actually going to use most of this.

Now read through what you’ve got. It may help to print it out. Go through what you’ve written and mark anything you kind of like or that seems promising. And if rereading what happens has given you new ideas about what should happen instead, write those ideas down too.

Review the promising bits and the new ideas. There might not be much, but that’s okay. Now, start the scene over. Wipe the slate clean and write it all again from scratch. But this time, include those good bits you discovered in the previous version.

You’re not revising that version. You’re using it as a petri dish to grow ideas for the scene. And then you completely rewrite the scene, this time with a little more focus and a better sense of what will work.

You might only do this once, but some people do it several times. It sounds labor-intensive, I know. But remember, each time you write the scene, you’re just barfing it onto the page without much critical scrutiny. And that scrutiny is mostly what makes writing feel so hard.

So those are four methods you can try. I’m sure many more exist. If you’ve tried or know about any, please send them to me!

Next post: the theory of shitty first drafts

Ask me a question or send me feedback!

[frognonbinary-deactivated202412]

i’ve been doing my homework on how to break into a writing career and honestly. there’s a Lot that i didn’t know about thats critical to a writing career in this day and age, and on the one hand, its understandable because we’re experiencing a massive cultural shift, but on the other hand, writers who do not have formal training in school or don’t have the connections to learn more via social osmosis end up extremely out of loop and working at a disadvantage. 

[frognonbinary-deactivated202412]

like, i didnt know about twitter pitch parties!! i didnt know about literary agents and publishers tweeting their manuscript wishlist, in hopes that some poor soul out there has written the book they really want to read and publish!! this isnt some shit you learn about in school! you really need to know the ins and outs of the writing community to be successful! 

[frognonbinary-deactivated202412]

for anyone interested, here’s what i’ve learned so far in my quest for more writing knowledge:

1. Writer’s Market 2019 is a great place to start– it gives you a list of magazines and journals that you can send your work to depending on the genre as well as lists a shit ton of literary agents that specify what genres they represent, how you can get in contact with them and how they accept query letters. this is a book that updates every year and tbh i only bought it this year so i dont know how critical it is to have an updated version  

2. do your research. mostly on literary agents because if you listed on your site that you like to represent fluffy YA novels and some asshole sends you a 80k manuscript about like…gritty viking culture, you will be severely pissed off. always go in finding someone who you know will actually like your work because they’re the ones who will try to advocate for you in getting published.

3. learn how to write a query letter. there are slightly varying formulas to how you can write an effective query letter. you’re also going to want to get feedback on your query letter because its the first thing the literary agent will read and based on how well you do it, it could be the difference between them rejecting you outright and giving your manuscript a quick read

4. unfortunately, you’re gonna want to get a twitter. Twitter is where a lot of literary agents are nowadays, and they host things like twitter pitch parties, where you pitch your manuscript in a few sentences and hashtag it with #Pitmad #Pitdark, some version of pit. a lot of literary agents and publishers will ALSO post their manuscript wishlists, which is just the kind of books they’d like to represent/publish, and they hashtag this with #MSWL (it is NOT for writers to use, only for agents/publishers)

5. connect with other writers, literary agents, publishers at book events. you will absolutely need the connections if you want to get ahead as a writer. thats just kind of the state of the world.

[promptsforthesoul]

[notbecauseofvictories]

For the young who want to

Talent is what they say you have after the novel is published and favorably reviewed. Beforehand what you have is a tedious delusion, a hobby like knitting.

Work is what you have done after the play is produced and the audience claps. Before that friends keep asking when you are planning to go out and get a job.

Genius is what they know you had after the third volume of remarkable poems. Earlier they accuse you of withdrawing, ask why you don’t have a baby, call you a bum.

The reason people want M.F.A.’s, take workshops with fancy names when all you can really learn is a few techniques, typing instructions and some- body else’s mannerisms

is that every artist lacks a license to hang on the wall like your optician, your vet proving you may be a clumsy sadist whose fillings fall into the stew but you’re certified a dentist.

The real writer is one who really writes. Talent is an invention like phlogiston after the fact of fire. Work is its own cure. You have to like it better than being loved.

Marge Piercy