Stein on Writing (37 page)

A Final Word

Whatever the effect this book might have on your writing, I trust that it will have made you into a more perceptive reader for the rest of your days.

I hope you will have occasion to benefit from the techniques that I’ve been passing on to writers for nearly four decades. In time, some of these techniques will improve your chances of successful publication, or if you’re already publishing, will enhance your work. Hemingway said, “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” We know that’s not literally true. Many of Hemingway’s stories and some of his novels are masterly. He meant we can always learn more. You can return to this book like an old friend for guidance and support whenever you feel the need.

In the course of reading this book, you may have come to the correct conclusion that a writer is a manipulator for whom the end justifies the means, a teller of white lies, a deceiver, all to a good end. He is also a shaper of the destinies of the characters he brings to life, a creator of golden idols he hopes some readers will worship. Hence the form of the following advice.

TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR WRITERS

1. Thou shalt not sprinkle characters into a preconceived plot lest thou produce hackwork. In the beginning was the character, then the word, and from the character’s words is brought forth action.
   
2. Thou shalt imbue thy heroes with faults and thy villains with charm, for it is the faults of the hero that bring forth his life, just as the charm of the villain is the honey with which he lures the innocent.
   
3. Thy characters shall steal, kill, dishonor their parents, bear false witness, and covet their neighbor’s house, wife, manservant, maidservant, ox, and ass, for reader’s crave such actions and yawn when thy characters are meek, innocent, forgiving, and peaceable.
   
4. Thou shalt not saw the air with abstractions, for readers, like lovers, are attracted by particularity.
   
5. Thou shalt not mutter, whisper, blurt, bellow, or scream, for it is the words and not the characterization of the words that must carry their own decibels.
   
6. Thou shalt infect thy reader with anxiety, stress, and tension, for those conditions that he deplores in life he relishes in fiction.
   
7. Thy language shall be precise, clear, and bear the wings of angels, for anything less is the province of businessmen and academics and not of writers.
   
8. Thou shalt have no rest on the sabbath, for thy characters shall live in thy mind and memory now and forever.
   
9. Thou shalt not forget that dialogue is as a foreign tongue, a semblance of speech and not a record of it, a language in which directness diminishes and obliqueness sings.
   
10. Above all, thou shalt not vent thy emotions onto the reader, for thy duty is to evoke the reader’s emotions, and in that most of all lies the art of the writer.
    

When you get the good news of a book contract, let me know and share the pleasure.

SOL STEIN

Action:
In fiction, action connotes something happening that is not necessarily physical movement. Adversarial dialogue is action.

Architecture:
In the design of a larger work such as a novel, the purposeful order of scenes.

Aria:
In any creative form, a longer speech designed to evoke an increasing emotional effect on the reader or viewer. See
speechifying.

Backstory:
The characters’ lives before the story, novel, or film began.

Book doctor:
A person who provides a free-lance editorial service to writers for a fee. Book doctors critique book manuscripts and shorter material; some do detailed suggestions and line-editing of complete manuscripts, services previously supplied by publishers. They charge by the hour or by the nature of the assignment.

Cliché:
A hackneyed expression, tired from overuse.

Coincidence:
In fiction, something that happens by chance and is insufficiently motivated.

Crucible:
In fiction, a situation or locale that holds characters together as their conflict heats up. Their motivation to continue opposing each other is greater than their motivation or ability to escape.

Diction:
Choice of words, probably the best identifier of quality in writing.

Eccentricity:
An offbeat manner of behavior, dress, or speech peculiar to a person and dissimilar to the same characteristics of most other people.

Echo:
In dialogue, an answer that repeats the question.

Engine, Starting of:
The moment when the reader’s curiosity is so aroused that he will not put the book down or turn to something else. It usually carries an intimation of conflict, a character threatened or wanting something badly that he can’t have.

Episodic fiction:
A story told in parts in which one event happens after another without seeming to be integrated into the whole.

Flab:
Extraneous words, phrases, and sometimes lengthier matter the elimination of which strengthens prose.

Flab Editor™:
A copyrighted computer software function enabling the user to highlight individual words and hide them or bring them back at will to see the difference their excision makes in the strength of text. See the Software section of Chapter 34.

Flashback:
A scene that precedes the time of the present story.

Handle:
A short description of the book designed to evoke interest in it.

Immediate scene:
A scene that is visible, as if being filmed.

Jargon:
Words or expressions developed for use within a group that bar outsiders from readily understanding what is being said. The purpose of language is to communicate or evoke; jargon obfuscates or hides.

Line space:
Four blank lines in a double-spaced manuscript, used within chapters to indicate a break, usually of time, or a shift to a different location.

LMP:
The initials of the
Literary Market Place,
the directory of the American book publishing industry, listing book publishers, editorial services, agents, associations, events, and industry yellow pages. This huge, expensive directory can be consulted in many public libraries. It is invaluable for the writer whose work is ready for the market.

Marker:
An easily identified signal that reveals a character’s social or cultural class, heredity, or upbringing.

Metaphor:
A figure of speech that results when words or phrases are brought together that do not ordinarily belong together, yet by their proximity convey a fresh meaning. One thing is spoken of as if it were another. Some of the best novel titles are metaphors (e.g.,
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter).

Motivation:
The source that impels an action, the reason that something is done.

Narrative summary:
Offstage action usually conveyed in general terms.

Oblique dialogue:
An indirect reply not in line with the preceding speech, not directly responsive.

Omniscient:
Describes the point of view in which the author roams everywhere, including the minds of all the characters.

One plus one equals one half:
A formula designed to remind writers that conveying the same matter more than once in different words diminishes the effect of what is said. A corollary of this equation is that if the same matter is said in two different ways, either alone has a stronger effect.

Particularity:
A precisely observed detail rather than a generality.

Point of view:
The perspective from which a scene is written, which character’s eyes and mind are witnessing the events.

SASE:
Seldom spelled out, it is an abbreviation for “self-addressed stamped envelope.” To receive whatever is being offered, you are required to enclose such an envelope with your request or the item or information will not be furnished.

Scene:
An integral incident with a beginning and end that in itself is not isolatable as a story. It is visible to the reader or audience as an onstage event, almost always involving dialogue and other action.

Segue:
Derived from music, it means to glide as unobtrusively as possible into something new.

Showing:
Making fiction visible to the reader as if it were happening before his eyes, moment by moment.

Simile:
A figure of speech in which two unlike things are compared, linked by “as” or “like” (e.g., “He’s fit as a fiddle”).

Speech signature:
Within dialogue, a tag that is characteristic of the speaker, such as Jay Gatsby’s “old sport.”

Speechifying:
Monologue of one person that runs too long.

Static:
Describes a scene lacking visible action or dialogue that moves the story forward.

Suspense:
The arousal and sustaining of curiosity as long as possible. Involves anticipation and sometimes anxiety about what is going to happen.

Tags:
The means by which a speaker is identified, most commonly “he said” or “she said.”

Telling:
Relating what is happening offstage.

Tension:
Delicious moments of anxious uncertainty. Derived from the Latin
tendere,
meaning “to stretch.”

Vanity press:
A firm that advertises to writers, offering to publish their books for a fee. Usually the service is that of manufacturing a small edition and providing scant notice to the public that the book is available. A few of America’s most prestigious publishers have kept a well-guarded secret: they also publish books under “vanity press” conditions. Consider it a last resort for a book a writer must see in print whatever the cost.

Voice:
The author’s “voice” is an amalgam of the many factors that distinguish a writer from all other writers. Many authors first find their voice when they have learned to examine each word for its necessity, precision, and clarity, and have become expert in eliminating the extraneous and imprecise from their work. Recognizing an individual author’s voice is much like recognizing a person’s voice on the telephone.

This glossary Copyright © 1993, 1995 by Sol Stein. Reproduction or excerpting without prior written consent prohibited.

(
JAN
, 2003)—Scanned, proofed, and formatted by
Bibliophile
.