Why, oh Why?

[Here are my thoughts on Save the Cat by Blake Snyder, for the Progressive Book Club.]

Why, oh why, would anyone dedicate a chapter to made-up genres relevant to nothing?

Snyder stresses the importance of knowing your market and knowing your audience. He recommends approaching strangers within your target demographic to ask what they think of your logline. So why, oh why, does he describe a ridiculous genre of 'Man With a Problem' and crowd Die Hard, Titanic, and Schindler's List under that dubious umbrella? To me, this makes no sense.

Audience aside, Snyder refers to traditional genres: romantic comedy, drama etc., throughout the book, and defines 'genre' as such in his own glossary. So, what, oh what, is the point of chapter two?

Chapter three reveals that a movie needs a hero with a goal. Hmm, okay, nothing startling about that piece of news.

Chapter four discusses structure and uses Miss Congeniality as an example. By now, I'm thinking Mr. Snyder and I are not quite on the same sailing ship, but one of us is obviously at sea.

The visual tools Snyder recommends in chapter five, I found useful. The concept of writing plot points on index cards and arranging them in five acts is by no means original, but I appreciate the practical and visual methods recommended by the author, and I confess, I have tried it.

At around page 121, 64% of the way through the book, Snyder finally caught my attention with the fun advice about the 'Pope in the Pool,' and the 'Double Mumbo Jumbo.' I chuckled at the irony of 'Laying Pipe' and 'Watch out for that Glacier,' and I don't really remember much about the rest of the book.

I give Save the Cat, 5 out of 10. I won't deny I learned something, and it's always worth reading a book if it sends you away with one useful tip, but half of me wishes I had taken the advice of the title and donated my ten bucks to the Snow Leopard Trust.

It's Hip to be a Square... or is it?

March's lighthouse:
Le Phare de Kermorvan,
Brittany, France.
(Original photo by McPHOTO.)

Are you a round lighthouse, or a square one?*

As I flick through my Novel and Short Story Writer's Market, I can't help but notice the word 'experimental' littered throughout the section on literary magazines.

Okay, now everything I do is experimental, but in the literary sense, if there's one thing I'm not (yet), it's experimental. I'm a traditionalist through and through.

Yes, it's true. I'm a round lighthouse.

In defence of the unoriginal, consider the basic expectations of a reader. The Daily Writing Tips website lists the following:

• at least one sympathetic character with whom we can identify and root for;
• a story with a clear beginning, middle, and end;
• a narrative style that draws us into the fictional dream;
• language that conforms to standard rules of syntax, meaning, and punctuation;
• typography that conforms to printed conventions regarding margins, etc.

And what about all those expectations of genre, a word usually preceded by the word 'no' in the section on literary magazines?

• a romance is expected to contain flowery scenes;
• a Western is just not a Western without the manly man with the six-shooter;
• a suspense novel is generally plot driven.

Is there a fine line between meeting the expectations of genre and stereotyping? I think so.

And so, again I ask, are you a round lighthouse, or a square one, or something else altogether? Hexagonal, perhaps?



* For those geometrically sensitive people, are you a cylindrical lighthouse or a cuboid one (or another 3-dimensional shape altogether)?

Christie Power

Friday is International Women's Day. I'm not about to launch into a political discussion, but I will say cheers to the ladies of literature, past, present, and future, and to one in particular who continues to inspire me through the wit and cleverness of her stories.



Dame Agatha Christie doesn't look easy to surprise. That's probably because the Queen of Crime knows all the tricks. How many of these plot devices (sourced from the Christie Mystery website) do you have in your toolbox?

• Red Herrings. A writer must be fair. Introducing vital information on the last page is just plain mean. But who says you can't mess with a reader's mind a little?

• The Unlikely Suspect. A murderous child? An unreliable narrator? Agatha Christie was a master of using the values and assumptions of the reader to construct some excellent twists.

• The Disguise. Does sticking on a fake moustache fool anyone nowadays? Maybe not, but a change of identity - real or metaphorical - is a crafty way of hiding, and eventually revealing secrets.

• A Closed Setting. The comings and goings of real people in the real world can muddy the character pool, especially in a whodunit. So what do you do? Try sticking the players on a boat, or a train, or in a big house in the country.

• The Trap. It's not easy to prove guilt. It may not be standard criminal procedure, but contriving a scene is a nifty way to expose a phony.

• The Illusion. A suspect may fake his or her own death, or employ a distraction, or frame someone else, or discredit a vital witness. Who's telling the truth? And who's telling big, fat porkies?

• The Alliance. What do we really know about a relationship between two people? Lovers may appear to the world as enemies. Siblings might pretend to be strangers. Two heads can be trickier than one.

• Final Justice. Obviously, nobody told Agatha Christie that bad people must be caught and sent to prison forever. According to Wikipedia, the murderer escapes in six of Agatha Christie's stories, and dies in several others.

So who's your favourite female author, and what is it about her writing or stories that you admire?

21 Rhetorical Devices, and their tricky names

What exactly is rhetoric?

To me, it's what a speaker or writer uses to get the message across, usually, with added effect. It's persuasive communication, and if it's not a down-right lie, it can be a powerful and legitimate tool, one we use every day, without even noticing the techniques we're employing. Our good buddy Aristotle even went so far as to relate intellect, emotion, and sense of credibility and fairness to demonstrate rhetoric.

Philosophy aside, there are many rhetorical devices available to the astute writer. Many are familiar: oxymorons, euphemisms, hyperbole, alliteration, metaphors. For those who do not have an MFA and who like to increase or test their literary vocabulary, here is a handful more taken from The Complete Stylist and Handbook by Sheridan Baker. Make up or look for your own examples, even if - like me - you struggle to pronounce the names.

Alluding to the Familiar:

Anamnesis: "A remembering." Emphasizing the point by reminding the reader of a former event. (Today is the day she kissed me goodbye, twenty-four years ago.)

Parachresis: Alluding to, or mixing another's words into your context for emphasis or effect. (Only the low-lifes laughed at my jokes. I guess Oscar Wilde was right about the value of sarcasm.)

Paradiorthosis: Twisting a famous quote. (Friends, colleagues, paperboy, lend me some money.)
 

Building to Climax:

Asyndeton: "Without joining." Rushing a series of clauses to indicate emotional haste. (They charged, they fought, they died in the hundreds.)

Incrementum: Arranging items from lowest to highest. (They devoured the plants, they razed the fields, they swept through the towns, and threatened the nation.)

Synonymy: Repeating, by synonyms, for emphasis. (A low-down, no-good, miserable son-of-a-bitch.)
 

 Intensifying:

Anacoenosis: Consulting your audience, often through rhetorical questions to gain intimacy and urgency. (I ask you, is being a good parent enough?)

Aposiopesis: "A silence." Stopping midsentence. (But the children....)

Erotesis: Commonly known as a rhetorical question. (Does bread pay the bills?)

Irony:

Apophasis: Pretending not to mention something by mentioning it. (I won't mention the time I fell asleep in the park and awoke behind bars.)

Litotes: "Simplifying." Asserting something by denying the opposite. (Not the smallest dog I had ever seen.)

Zeugma: "Yoking." Pairing one accurate word with an ironic misfit. ('Waging war and peace.')
 

 Overstating and Understating:

Auxesis: Using an exaggerated term. (He's a saint.)

Meiosis: Making big things small. (Besides the mansion in the country, he owned a second modest abode by the beach.)

Posing Contrasts:

Chiasmus: "A crossing." Reversing order. (A good man is hard to find; a hard man is good to find.)

Enantiosis, also called contentio: Emphasizing contraries, often with chiasmus. ('Could not go on, would not go back.')

Refining and Elaborating:

Exergasia: "A polishing." Presenting the same thing several ways. (A dream, a vision, an illusion of magical things.)

Repeating:

Epistrophe: Ending sentences the same, as a way to emphasize. (He lives at sea. He loves the sea. He'll die at sea.)

Paregmenon: Using derivatives of a word. (A fantastic fantasy.)
 

Substituting:

Metonymy: Using an associated thing for the thing itself. (The White House said today....)

Synecdoche: Substituting a) the part for the whole (He is a brain), or the whole for the part (China wins the Olympics), b) the species for the genus, or the genus for the species ('the felines [for lions]'), d) the material for the object (He plays brass.)
 

So, does you tongue feel like it's been squished through a meat grinder? (Is that a metaphorical erotesis?)

Or that you need to see a doctor in case you contracted any of these symptoms?

As tricky as the terms are, you have to agree (anacoenosis), rhetorical devices are fun, fun, fun (that's an epizeuxis, by the way).

Enough already! (apodioxis).

I need a nap.

 

February: Martha's Vineyard

Edgartown Lighthouse, Martha's Vineyard.
Original photo is by Paul Rezendes

Back in January, I set sail on my journey of rejection. I committed myself to devising some type of submission plan as I cruised around the Islets of the Scouts.

Now, my trusty ship (The Eggonaut??), with the help of my lighthouse wall calendar, has taken me to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.

I have yet to visit the area in person, but I hear it's very relaxing there, particularly not in February for those of us allergic to cold weather.

It's fitting then, that I take a breath, and enjoy the calm.

The spreadsheets are spreading, the lists are lengthening, and I am gradually polishing my work and sending it out. I'm starting small, fishing for minnows, while the bigger fish continue to circle the boat, demanding attention.

The Edgartown Lighthouse on my calendar reminds me to take it easy, do what I can, and most importantly of all, be patient. The rejections will come and tear at the hull, but until then, I'm enjoying the scenery.




[Rejections this year: One. The postie returned a submission for lack of postage. What really hurts is almost certainly knowing that he or she didn't even bother to read it.
Non-Rejections: One. 9th place in the 13th Annual Writer's Digest Short Short Story Competition. Thanks WD people.]

Bird by Bird: lyre lyre, home on fire

I can relate to that little boy overwhelmed by the avian world. But pay attention to your assignment, young Master Lamott, and the birds might tell you their secrets.

Birds are funny things. The millions of birdwatchers, birders, twitchers, whatever you want to call them, are even funnier still. Years ago, I had a lecturer who was so passionate about birds, he wore them embroidered on his shirts, stamped on his belt buckles, and etched on his boots. He would start an ecology lecture with, “I knew this bird once…,” and never did I hear a tale about a long-lost love,or a mysterious acquaintance in a faraway land. Instead, I slept through an account of the foraging talents of the treecreeper, the social habits of the babbler, and the parental responsibilities of the emu.

But when the lecture turned to the uncanny ability of the lyre bird to mimic just about anything it hears, I considered this a worthy skill, and I paid attention.

The lyre bird learns the sounds of the forest, quite literally, bird by bird, to add to his repertoire of courting songs. Impressively, the Casanova in the video not only does birds, but camera shutters, car alarms, and chainsaws as well.

See for yourself.

For those thinking, okay, nice post about birds, but what's it got to do with Anne Lamott's book about writing, consider this: treecreepers, babblers, and emus have their own appeal, but sometimes, it takes that one special bird to get people thinking. One bird mimicking chainsaws. One bird singing about his own demise.

And so I tell myself to keep on writing, because you just never know which bird will be the one to touch someone's heart.


P.S. I liked the book.

I'll Huff and I'll Puff, and I'll Be Forever Faithful

This amazing photo is from Steve Harris, flickr

Mm mm. Grandma looks delicious! So do those sneaky little pigs. Now if I can just squeeze into this itty bitty lamb skin.

Even though wolves almost never attack humans, from an early age, we are introduced to the wolf as a cunning killer, to be boiled or hacked to pieces at every opportunity.

But did you know that wolves mate for life? The alpha male and female lead a pack and act as the dominant, if not the only breeders in a group of six or ten.

These animals have a stronger sense of commitment and family than a great many humans.

I considered it rather appropriate to model a Saint Valentine's Day post on these remarkable animals. I rather like the idea of a wolf as a protagonist in a story. An intelligent, ruthless survivor; a convenient villian; an eternal romantic.

May your February 14 be free of men with axes, pots of boiling water, and villagers wielding pitchforks.