The Confabulator Cafe

Author: jcampbell

  • Interdisciplinary Love Song

    “People are inclined to say I am Ramona. I’m not sure that’s true, but I did share some experiences with her.” – Beverly Cleary

    If you are a writer, you have heard the saying, “Write what you know.” With all due respect, that is hogwash. What if you don’t know about something? Does that mean you can’t write about it? That seems unnecessarily limiting for a craft that is about constant evolution and experimentation.

    I have always preferred John Gardner’s concept. Write in the style that you love. If you love science fiction, write it. If you love fantasy, write it. If you, like me, love a variety of styles, you will find yourself writing in many different ways.

    I refuse to be confined by what I know. Instead, I liberate myself with learning. It isn’t difficult to pick up enough about any subject matter to give your writing a sense of authority. You don’t need to be able to write a dissertation on molecular physics to have a physicist appear in your story.

    I am an artist, not a scientist. It’s a waste of time to become an expert in pointless things when I could be practicing my craft, which is writing. All I need is enough spice to make the story taste real.

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  • Mercury Beach (Flash Fiction)

    Surely, the shark brought Glen the angel. It wasn’t something he normally would have eaten, but there, in the Yoshi Steakhouse, Glen decided to feast on a flank of the world’s oldest predator.

    That night, lying down to sleep between handmade silk sheets, he closed his sake-weighted eyes and slept the greatest sleep of his life.

    In his dream, he walked upon a pristine, white beach. The wet sand slid slick between his toes. The crisp blue of the clear sky lit against his eyes, so bright he had to squint to see the ocean.

    There, amongst the waves, the angel walked, unlike any woman Glen had ever seen. Her feet slid over the water, unsinking. She rose and fell with the surf. Her naked skin radiated pale white, like a sun-soaked cloud on a summer day. The surf sat her gently down upon the beach, light as the ocean breeze.

    Her sunrise-gold hairs floated in the breeze, her eyes were deep blue whirlpools, pulling Glen into their depths and drowning him. Every detail was a masterwork. She smiled. Glen’s soul wept.

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  • All the POVs in the world, and you had to walk in to mine.

    “It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves.” – Carl Jung

    Point of view is a great tool for spicing up writing. A plot might be a totally different story from a different perspective. The classics are third and first person.

    My preference is for a first-person or third-person limited point of view. I’ve never been a fan of omniscient narrators. They don’t connect well to normal life. I stick close to a specific character and let the audience learn what drives him. Other characters are more interesting when viewed through the eyes of someone with their own prejudices.

    A limited perspective allows the reader to learn with the character. When the protagonist says “Aha!,” the reader says it, as well. When a character is hurt by his failures, hopefully the reader understands. (more…)

  • My Virtual Life

    Sometimes, I wonder how writers managed all of this prior to the Internet. Never has it been so easy to connect with like-minded individuals, to promote your own work, or to research any topic you can imagine.

    I use the Internet a lot. In fact, I would venture to say that I am connected to the Internet in some way a majority of my time. When I am just sitting, waiting, I am often connected on my phone. I demand instant access to information based on whatever activity I am involved in at any given moment. I am an information addict.

    I could write all day about the internet resources I love, but I will try to cut that down and share a few, and throw a few shameless plugs in a lot with them.

    Starting shameless plugs.

    There are the obvious ones. If you are a writer trying to promote yourself, you might want to get a few things. For example you could get a Twitter handle, like @jmcampbelljr. You can set up a Facebook page (separate from your personal Facebook profile), such as www.facebook.com/jackcampbelljr. LinkedIn is a good way to connect with other professionals with a profile such as www.linkedin.com/in/jackcampbelljr. MySpace has a very limited following, but there are still people out there, such as www.myspace.com/jackcampbelljr. You might also want to get a blog, maybe even your own url, www.jackcampbelljr.com, for example.

    Ending shameless plugs.

    The point of all of those things is to promote your writing and reach an audience you might not otherwise reach. The problem becomes that you have so many profiles to update, that it can become cumbersome. That is where you have to play smart. I use TweetDeck, available at www.tweetdeck.com in order to maintain Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn all at once. I highly recommend their desktop program. WordPress, which I use for my blog, can automatically publish updates to Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, MSN, and LinkedIn. I use that feature, as well.

    All of those things are great for self-promotion, but you still have to write something. For writer resources, other than the usual Google and Wikipedia, there are a few sites I like. One I visit nearly every day is www.litreactor.com.  There is a free site and a pay area. The free site has a magazine format, featuring news, columns, interviews, and a community forum. For a subscription fee, you can also get access to a library of writing essays by Chuck Palahniuk and other authors, and a writers workshop of other site members. There are also online classes available, but I’ll warn you now that they aren’t cheap.

    I subscribe to The Writer magazine, so I also visit www.writermag.com and catch up on whatever I have missed in the latest print issue.

    I also frequently enjoy www.fuelyourwriting.com. I’ve seen a lot of stuff I like there. One of my favorite things, even though it may sound corny, are the photographs of other people’s writing spaces. It’s comforting to know where other people work.

    Finally, you have to find someplace to submit. I use two resources for finding markets for my writing. One is www.writersmarket.com. You have to pay for it, but there are a wide variety of markets to peruse through for submission possibilities. You can usually find a promo code online to save a bit on the subscription. I also use www.duotrope.com. Duotrope is free, but runs on donations, so feel free to donate. Duotrope has a great search feature, much better than the one at The Writer’s Market. I highly recommend it. You can definitely find different markets at both of the websites, though. Both have submission trackers, as well.

  • Artistic Endeavors in Granite and Clothespins

    What I love about writing, especially prose, is that when it is done well, it can accomplish many things at once. You can share a story, paint a precise character, address an overall issue, and create a work of verbal art, all at once.

    I am in love with the writing process, with the act of putting words on paper and seeing what happens. I love the feeling inside my brain while I am writing. I feel my brain swell comfortably, as it might feel if I were drunk, slightly disconnected from the physical world around me.

    When it is going well, there are few better feelings on Earth. I have never come away from a writing session and thought, “That was a waste of my time. I never should have sat down.”

    It isn’t that I have always been happy with what I have written. Sometimes, even though I pride myself on having a certain literary artistic quality about my writing, I write total crap. The characters don’t work, the story is contrived, my themes don’t connect, and my prose plods along like a drunken elephant.

    But the feeling of writing, the release of endorphins and miscellaneous bodily chemicals produces a sense of euphoria. If nothing quality is produced, I still get that feeling. Granted, it is much better when it is all working, when my fingers are flying and I know what they are leaving carved in their wake is made of granite, instead of clothespins and Elmer’s school glue.

    I’ve always thought that to be one of my strengths as a writer. I have a decent sense of metaphor and am extremely interested in the sound and feel of my writing. My prose is at its best when it is a work of art, rather than just a work of fiction.

    There is nothing wrong with genre writing. My favorite writers are genre-oriented. I write some genre fiction myself. In fact, I believe “literary fiction” can be written in any genre. Literary fiction hasn’t learned enough from genre fiction, and vice versa. But I have always seen writing as an artistic endeavor, rather than a storytelling process.

    My favorite lines on the page are those that leave an aftertaste. When you read them, it is as if you have tasted the delicate creation of a master chef. The syllables roll off your tongue in a way so tasty that it accents the theme and content of the work itself. When it all works together, theme, tone, and content interweave, creating a tapestry stronger for every thread that runs through it.

    This might come off as word snobbery. I don’t mean it this way. I firmly believe in what Hemingway said. We are all just apprentices in a craft with no masters. My particular interest in writing is total absorption of the theory behind the craft. I love reading about story structures, spiraling narratives, psychological profiles of classical characters, theories of theme development.

    Will any of this make me a better writer? Who knows? But it can’t hurt, and I enjoy the study and practice of it immensely.

  • Decisively, A Writer

    “But the cure for most obstacles is, Be decisive.” – George Weinberg

    Life has a tendency to step on its own toes. Our interests and pass-times are more diverse and numerous than ever in human history. Our own worst enemy is sometimes our success.

    Once upon a time, if you were a writer, you probably didn’t have many other hobbies or interests outside of reading and writing. Now, there is the Internet, our phones, the Internet on our phones. Any interest worth having is accessible by simply getting in a car and driving to it.

    There are times when I think we, as artists, were better off when we had nothing to do other than work on our craft. There are some amazing things available in the modern era. Writers can research nearly any topic without leaving their desks. It has never been easier for writers to network with one another, nor to get their work out there for people to see. Submissions are made instantaneously through email and responses come just the same.

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  • The Exotic Mundane

    “An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world.” – George Santayana

    The writer’s mind is like a sponge, absorbing all moisture from around it, only to spill everything when squeezed. Your life is going to creep in to your writing, even if you don’t subscribe to the “write what you know” belief. Instinct drives the expression of the human mind through art. Writers are artists.

    What’s more, you shouldn’t fight it. Artists are illusionists of reality. We take the real and twist it, deforming fact into fiction. We get our readers to believe our stories by weaving the truth and fantasy into a tight, indistinguishable mesh.

    You absolutely should take aspects of those around you, their quirks, habits, vices, and hobbies. You should use those aspects to create three-dimensional characters. But you should also remember that fiction is fiction, and you must change enough about those people that they can’t sue you for libel or defamation of character. Change their names, appearances, speech patterns, everything.

    Writing is like a puzzle that can be put together many different ways. Unless you are writing non-fiction, you must make sure it is actually a fictional character, no matter how real it seems. Or you can take the advice of Anne Lamott if it is a man. Write that the character has a small penis.  No one will ever claim you were writing about him.

    In recent years, I’ve seen a lot of real life creep in to writing, mostly because I realized it was pointless to write about people living in cities. I’ve never been to a large city, much less lived in one. How could I possibly know what it is like to live in New York City or Los Angeles? Besides, there are more than enough writers writing about those settings. I am familiar with the rural, the suburban, and the dynamics of living in a place where everyone knows about you.

    Very few writers can duplicate that knowledge. I know what it is like to be known by everyone in your area. I know what is like to live in a place where secrets are hard to keep and the difference between friends and enemies is defined by days, rather than names. I know what it is like to have to worry about reputation, not in the media or your career, with your neighbors.

    As such, I dove into reading Flannery O’Conner, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, and others who wrote about similar places. These environments are a part of my life, their people a part of my history, and my fiction is richer for using them.

    Don’t be afraid to use the parts of your life that seem mundane. What is mundane for one may be exotic for another. Spice your writing with the ingredients of your life, and make it a truly special concoction.

  • Raised by Giants

    “…we are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they…not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part…but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size.” – John of Salisbury, paraphrasing Bernard of Chartes

    Writers are readers, so I have been told. Indeed, every writer I know reads with an insatiable appetite for the written word in all its flavors. You can learn a lot from the writers of the past. They allow you to sit upon their broad shoulders and learn from their experience.

    There are many things to learn in writing. I’ve quoted Hemingway before that we are all apprentices in a craft with no masters. That is true. You could write from the first day of your literacy to the last day of your life and you will never know everything.

    You can write a million words, and still a million more will be waiting. All you can do is learn and write.

    That being said, different writers have given me different things.

    I’ve mentioned Ray Bradbury’s book Zen in the Art of Writing several times as being a major influence on me. Bradbury has a love of writing that is infectious. You can taste the love in his writing. But there are also things to be learned in that book. First, you have to write. There is no other way to be a writer than to write. Second, just because you don’t know what to write, doesn’t mean you can’t write. Sometimes I use a technique I learned from Bradbury. I will open a new document. I put a word or two where the title would be, and I just start writing about it. Eventually, a story begins and I follow it. There is no planning or outlining. There are fingertips to keys and stream of consciousness guiding them. This has been very effective for me in the past. Your brain knows what to write, as long as you don’t get in the way of it too much.

    I am extremely interested in dramatic and writing theory. Three act structures, protagonists, antagonists, the relationships between subplots and character arcs. It is really sickening, in some ways. If I can get my hands on a writing book, I read it. John Garner has a collection of them.  The Art of Fiction, On Moral Fiction, and On Becoming a Novelist all sit on my desk. Aristotle’s Poetics has been a required tome for screenwriters, but all writers could learn something from his notes on dramatic theory.

    Some of that stuff gets absorbed into my psyche, and I begin to do it naturally, without thinking. But some of it comes during the re-writing phase. Does my protagonist change? Do I have a strong conflict with my plot constantly driving to answer the story question? Do my sub-plots add to my story by complicating things further for my protagonist, or do they distract from my major plot, or even overwhelm it? I have to ask myself all of this and more. Re-writing is a very conscious process, and you have to bring your logical brain in to it, even if it hurts.

    Sometimes it does hurt. It seems like there are a million rules out there about how writing is supposed to happen. The thing to remember is that you don’t have to use all of them. The number one truth in writing is that if it works it is correct. Every rule has been successfully broken at one time or another. The important thing is that you pick up enough technique and theory that you become a dangerous weapon. You are James Bond. You have a million fancy gadgets to utilize, but you must complete your mission, and you must get the girl.

    A writer is like a puzzle. You see all these pieces laying on the table, and they don’t appear to be in any sort of order. But when you piece them altogether, you get the big picture. Some of my big influences are some of my favorite writers, but that doesn’t really matter. They just have to be another piece that fits into the puzzle that is me.

    All the great writers, even all the bad writers, lift you up and carry you farther than you might have gone on your own. Jump up on their backs and maybe you will see something new. Try something they tried, and then take it farther. Break rules, bend theory, or use them religiously. Just make it work.

  • Teaching Turkeys to Fly

    “More than half, maybe two-thirds of my life as a writer is rewriting. I wouldn’t say I have a talent that’s special. It strikes me that I have an unusual kind of stamina.” – John Irving.

    Congratulations, you wrote a first draft. You are a novelist, a screenwriter, a playwright, a storyteller…by God, a writer.

    Now, are you ready to get to work?

    Some people compare writing to being god-like. If a first draft is like God creating the world in seven days, then re-writing is Darwinism. It takes millions of years, a lot of your favorite creatures won’t survive, and you still might end up with a bird or two incapable of flight.

    There are a lot of different ways to re-write. I’ve read about and experimented with a ton of them trying to figure out how to get my turkeys to fly more than a few feet.

    I have to fight the desire to correct spelling and grammar during my first trip through the manuscript. Every sentence glares at me with the accusation of “You did this to me! Now fix it!” But alas, they will have to wait their turn.  Before I spend a bunch of time etching a coat of arms on my great sword of war, I need to know if the blade is going to snap the first time I swing it at someone.

    Does the story work on a functional level? Every scene should move your plot forward while simultaneously throwing obstacles at your protagonist.

    Dwight Swain, writer of Techniques of the Selling Writer refers to “scenes” and “sequels.” “Scenes” show the protagonists acting. “Sequels” show how he reactions to the fallout of his actions. He goes so far as to break them down even further, but the idea is that protagonist spends a story pursuing a goal and failing at every turn, causing change.

    All my scenes address that goal, essentially (stealing a phrase from my first screenwriting instructor Ron Peterson) answering the story question. The characters’ actions must feel real. If my character acts in an unbelievable way, given what the reader knows, then I failed and the scene needs changed or cut.

    Even if a scene is perfectly good, if it doesn’t give the story something special or isn’t necessary, it gets axed. This is very hard to do sometimes, and is a by-product of my screenwriting training. Watch special features on DVD’s. You will quickly see how many scenes are deleted, even ones that were already filmed. Usually, they don’t add anything. (more…)

  • C Is For Cat (Flash Fiction)

     

    "C is for Cats" by Lindsay Carmichael, as seen on Flickr.com

    C was for Cat, as it always had been. The cats would not stop dancing. They pirouetted, paired off and salsa danced the night away. The rumba was a never-ending mosaic of fur and flash.

    A has been for Apple ever since Adam and Eve feasted on the forbidden. B is for Boy. One American boy, abandoned by his Vietnamese captors. Maybe B was for Bamboo, the strange wood surrounding him. But C was for Cat, and still they danced.

    When you leave a man in starving solitude, there is no telling the directions his mind will flow. In isolation, there isn’t an anchor. Instead, memory and fantasy ebb and flow, a Vonnegut Slaughterhouse mince of time. Bobby, now known as Sergeant Robert Parker, found himself in 1st grade. Ground zero. Day one.

    So many paths lay open to a first grader. You can be anything. Astronaut, President of the United States, a British rock invader…well, maybe not British. Sgt. Parker lay on the hot, dry, dirt floor jealous of Bobby.

    D was for Dog, and Bingo had been his name-o.  Bingo, had only been a puppy then. They grew up together. D was also for Draft, which would turn Bobby into Private Robert Parker, and ultimately kill Bingo. Bobby got the letter in boot camp. An old dog by that time, Bingo sat at the corner of the driveway, next to the mailbox, waiting for Bobby to come home from the war, refusing to eat. That is where they found him, asleep forever. Without Bingo to chase them away, the cats would dance on. (more…)