The Confabulator Cafe

Author: ljenkins

  • First-person, Past Tense: Playing to My Strengths

    I am a slave to first-person point of view.

    As I’ve said before, whenever I write a story, I want to connect with the reader. I like the storyteller approach, and I want the audience to feel like I’m talking directly to them, or at least give the illusion that my main character is.

    For me, first-person point of view is the ideal vehicle to accomplish this. First-person is a “warmer” viewpoint than third-person in that it provides direct access to a character’s thoughts and feelings. It makes it easier to sympathize with a protagonist if a reader is experiencing his or her trials and tribulations in real time. (As much as reader time is real time.)

    I can, and have, written in third-person, but when I do, I am very aware of an increased distance between myself and the story. I’m not as in tune with my characters, and the feelings and reactions I write in third-person never seem quite as authentic as they do when I’m tooling around in a first-person protagonist’s head.

    (more…)

  • Soul Mate

    Dear P,

    I’ve never written a letter like this. Never really felt the need to, but what we have is special, and I want to put my feelings to paper, regardless of who may see it in the end.

    They will judge us, but I do not care. The things we have experienced together go beyond anything anyone has ever done for me, and I can honestly say that I would be lost without you. If there ever comes a time when we cannot be together in the way in which we have grown accustomed, my life will no longer be worth living, and I will gladly welcome its end.

    Whenever I see you, my day brightens. Even catching a glimpse of you sets my heart beating faster, and to be able to caress your soft, smooth skin is sweeter than any heaven I have ever imagined.

    Thinking about our special moments always brings a smile to my face. Like that time at the park when we spent all day outside together. We played so hard, and you were so sore the next day you could hardly move. But it was worth it, that feeling of freedom as the sun beat down on us and the warm summer air tickled our skin.

    We were careful that day and mostly kept to ourselves, but still that policeman saw us and tried to chase us away. I was scared as we hid behind the bushes, but you loved it. Your excitement was obvious, and I couldn’t wait to get you home.

    I remember, too, that night in the theater. We sat in back and were nearly caught in our moment of passion. I had grown bolder by then, less hesitant, and you never wavered for a moment. You were rock solid. I have always loved that about you.

    You never seem to shy away from the risks, and whenever I hold you, I feel confident and reassured. I have no doubt people will think I’m ridiculous, but you give me purpose and direction, and I never, ever want to let you go.

    A world without you in it would not be a place worth inhabiting. You are my all, my everything, and I put you above all others. You are the driving force in my life, and you have shaped me into the man I am today.

    You are my best friend, and I am so thankful that you are my penis.

    With all my deepest love,

    Me

  • Dreams: The Free-loading Bitches Who Won’t Help Me Write

    For whatever reason, my dreams refuse to be helpful.

    I know there are some authors who claim they get brilliant ideas from dreams. I don’t necessarily hate those people, but I haven’t met them in person either, so I’m not prepared to say we’d be friends.

    I’ve also read at least one article that recommended sleeping as a way to work through your plotting problems. The idea was that you should think about your story, specifically focusing on those areas that were causing you trouble, as you were lying in bed at night. Presumably, you’d eventually fall asleep (after you finally got over the agony of being stuck on a scene that clearly just wanted to be an asshole), and your brain would continue to search for solutions while your body got the rest it needed.

    Then, at some point, either by dream or some early morning/late night revelation, you’d experience a breakthrough. You would have the answers you so desperately needed, and you and your story would live happily ever after, or at least experience some mild feelings of contentment until the next time it decided to dig in its heels and act like a fuckhead.

    That’d be nice, wouldn’t it? To be able to lay your head down on the pillow and then wake up in the morning with fresh ideas and a clear outline of your plot. It would be like some awesome version of the tooth fairy. One whose visit didn’t require a painful, bloody sacrifice followed by the inevitable letdown when you realize her cheap ass is on a one-quarter-per-tooth kind of budget.

    I’d love to be wired that way. But I’m not. My dreams are lazy, free-loading bitches who contribute almost nothing to my fiction.

    (more…)

  • Ignoring Thunderdome

    I honestly spend very little time thinking about the future of the publishing industry. I find the blank page intimidating enough as it is, and I don’t need additional reasons to feel insecure about what I’m doing.

    I try to avoid news about who is merging with whom or what Mrs. Megapublisher’s stance is on digital rights because I know what would happen if I ever started down that particular rabbit hole. My eyes would be opened to a larger reality that would do nothing to instill confidence in my aspirations. In turn, I would feel the need to exhaustively search for as much positive news as I could, stories about how it’s not nearly as difficult to break in as I had feared.

    (For the record, I equate the difficulty of reaching and maintaining success in publishing somewhere on the order of surviving Thunderdome.)

    (more…)

  • Life and Limb

    My brother Tommy had always been twitchy. He was born wound tight, and growing up in our house hadn’t done the kid any favors.

    But when Tommy stumbled into Momma’s kitchen that day, pale faced and clutching the crumbled paper bag under one arm, the look in his eyes told me something was seriously wrong this time.

    Tommy hesitated in the doorway when he saw me. His eyes darted from me to Momma, but the old woman wasn’t going to be any help. I’d been sitting in her kitchen for going on half an hour now, and she’d only said a handful of words to me. Even now she kept her back to us, washing dishes in the sink, the scalding water turning her arms a bright, angry red.

    “Hey, bro,” Tommy finally said. His voice had a slight tremble in it, like he was fighting to keep it under control.

    “You coming in or not?” I asked.

    Tommy looked toward Momma again, but she was still deep in her own world of crazy. With a look of resignation, he closed the door and joined me at the table.

    (more…)

  • Leather-Bound Beauties (I’m Talking About Journals, You Pervs)

    I recently watched a video of Stephen King talking to a group of university students. It was a question and answer type of thing, and at one point, the subject of keeping a notebook of ideas came up.

    If I’m remembering this correctly (and in the spirit of full disclosure, it’s completely possible I’m not), King said he didn’t have one. He took a survival-of-the-fittest approach when it came to his ideas. If something occurred to him that sounded like a decent story idea, he’d let it rattle around in his head for a while, along with whatever else was in there at the time.

    If the idea was persistent enough and kept presenting itself, he’d eventually get around to writing it. It was his way of letting the cream rise to the top.

    At this point, I’m going to state the obvious: I am not Stephen King . . . yet. (But I’m comin’ for you, old man. You best be keepin’ a lookout.)

    (more…)

  • Reread, Revise, Repeat

    The truth is I have very little idea what I’m doing.

    I came into NaNoWriMo a little bit of a cheat. I had a novel that I’d already spent a lot of time on, and I wanted to finish it, so I used NaNo to do so. Since then, I’ve been letting it cool. I am a big believer in the advice that after completing a manuscript you should get a little distance from it before you dive back into editing.

    The idea is you’re trying to see your story with fresh eyes. If you’re like me, the time away also gives you the opportunity to stop hating your characters. By the end of my novel, I was barreling toward the finish line because I didn’t want to spend one more day with those people in my head. I loved them when I created them, but familiarity does indeed breed contempt, and the gang and I had spent far too much time together.

    Since completing the manuscript, I’ve sent it out to some beta readers, and I’m just now beginning to get some notes. They’ve been mainly positive, but there are also a lot of good suggestions for improvement.

    (more…)

  • Consider the Source

    Critique and rejection are two entirely different things, though one can sometimes accompany the other. If you’re broadcasting your work in any sort of way, you’ll inevitably encounter both. As you do, it’s important to consider both the message (the reason behind the critique or rejection) and the messenger (the person providing the feedback).

    Not all critiques are created equal. Sometimes you will find yourself in a group with writers of varying skill levels, and there may be times when you are encouraged to swap pages with people whom you know you can flat out write circles around. That’s not arrogance. That’s honesty.

    As I mentioned in a previous post, if you’re the one providing feedback, you should take into account the abilities of the author of the work you’re critiquing. Not everyone is ready for the same level of discourse.

    The same goes when you’re the one receiving the critique. Sometimes an author who is early in his or her writing journey will not be very good at assessing another person’s work. Inevitably there are long discussions about word choice or the comma police have made your manuscript look like a crime scene. Sometimes the inexperienced author “just didn’t get” what you were trying to do or say and they will be inadvertently harsh in their criticisms, without any specific reasons for why they didn’t like it.

    (more…)

  • Parade Violation

    Shaun wasn’t normally a guy who carried around a lot of hate in his heart, but after the day he was having, he found he had plenty of room for a little want-to-kick-his-ass.

    When he reached the bottom of the stairs, Shaun saw his brother’s suitcase by the door. He took it as a good sign. Maybe Neil understood how serious this was.

    Shaun found the little prick sitting at the kitchen table. His kid brother, a twenty-four year old fuck up whose life ambition was to own a car wash, was fidgeting in his seat, but Shaun suspected it was an act. Neil had a general idea of what contrition should look like, but he lacked depth and sincerity, so he never quite pulled off seeming sorry about anything.

    (more…)

  • Getting Your Critique On

    I only know one way to critique a manuscript, and that’s with a nervous heart.

    Critiquing is a serious, sometimes tricky, business and shouldn’t be taken lightly. If someone trusts you enough to show you their work, consider it a privilege. Give the task the same level of respect you afford your own writing, and embrace the idea that you might be unsure of the feedback you’re giving even as you give it.

    The important thing to understand is that what an author really wants is an alternate perspective. They’ve probably spent a long time with this story in their head, and now they need to put it in someone else’s hands for a while. Respect their efforts, and do your best to give them an honest assessment of their work.

    At the same, though, you need to remember that no two critiques are the same. Each should be tailored to the author of the work you’re reading, and you’ll have to consider both what the writer wants and what they are able to process.

    (more…)