Karinwritesdangerously

The Tale of Peter Rabbit is a beloved classic and it’s still going strong!. It was first written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter to amuse the 5-year old son of her former governess. July 28 is Beatrix’s birthday—she was born in 1866. Her story’s success is a tale worth telling.

Her charming fable was rejected by several publishers. Undaunted, the enterprising Beatrix believed enough in herself and her work to publish the book on her own in 1901. A year later, it was released commercially by Frederick Warne & Co. — and became one of the best-selling stories of all time. Along with five other titles in the series, it has sold more than 150 million copies in 36 languages. 

Seeing she had a hit on her hands, Beatrix went on to become the first author to leverage a literary creation via merchandising. She did it by licensing and commissioning Peter Rabbit-inspired dolls, wallpaper, and tea sets. Smart cookie, that Beatrix!

This made me think a bit about some of the ingredients that have kept Peter Rabbit alive and adored for more than a hundred years. Why does this story continue to delight? Here are a few ideas:

Beatrix creates an enchanting little world, but it’s not without danger: Even little children know that the world isn’t totally safe, that there are Mr. McGregors somewhere out there.

Beatrix gave Peter personality plus: Yes, he wears that adorable blue coat and he has a cute fuzzy tail, but Peter is a feisty little scamp who gets into scrapes. He’s no angel!

Beatrix used wit and humor: Instead of writing a treacly tale about a cutesy bunny, she gave her story legs by using ironic twists and turns to keep both adults and kids engaged.

Beatrix had fun!: After relishing her clever stories and artwork, a reader can’t help but feel that Beatrix thoroughly enjoyed creating them. This pleasure shines through every page.

How hopeful a tale! In our high-tech world, a wonderful story well told and enchantingly illustrated can find life and new fans. Write on!

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When it’s possible to ‘think inside someone else’s head,’ we know we’ve succeeded in breathing life into a fictional person. Once this happens, we can stand back. The character can control his fate.”

“But like dreams, there’s an endless supply of characters waiting to be created and named.”
Alice Hoffman

Characters are the heartbeat of truly memorable fiction, whether they appear in novels or short stories. How do you find that beating heart so you can reveal its inner music with your readers? Alice Hoffman, a widely admired novelist, shared some helpful advice:

Find “the story within the story” about your character — even though it may remain “deep” background that readers will never see. “A character’s interior trauma or past experience is the core around which everything else is built.” Create a rich back story for your character and it will enrich and enliven what your readers see on the page.

Give yourself permission to explore whatever characters you want to explore. As Alice puts it, “…if a writer knows the inner truth of an emotional experience, he can write about it in every setting. As fiction writers, we can be inside the experience of every situation and every character.”

Find your own method of character building. Alice, for example, begins creating her characters “from the inside out.” She doesn’t focus on their physical traits, but rather on their emotional life and psyche. “What does he fear? Does he run from lightning or rush toward it?” 

Step your characters out into the world. One of the techniques that Alice finds useful when crafting a novel is to “live inside the characters — to take them with you into the outside world.” See how they would respond to and interpret an experience as it occurs in real time. Who knows what you might discover!

Let yourself go. Strive for the moment when you become so immersed in your character that you lose yourself. As Alice says so beautifully, “At times, during the process of writing, it’s possible to experience the disintegration of the self. This is the ecstasy of writing and of art, of losing oneself in the process of creation.” Beautiful! Write on! 

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Live in the sunshine.
Swim in the sea.
Drink the wild air.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

WHEREVER
You go
NO MATTER
WHAT THE
Weather
ALWAYS BRING
YOUR OWN
Sunshine

Java Love Café

« Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. »
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“From that day on, I began to sell. The ‘Magic of Enthusiasm’ began to work for me in business, just as it had in baseball….I would not want to give anybody the impression that I think enthusiasm consists of fist-pounding…but if fist-pounding is what you need to arouse yourself inside, then I am overwhelmingly for it. I know this: When I force myself to act enthusiastic, I soon feel enthusiastic.”

“Force yourself to act enthusiastic, and you’ll become enthusiastic!”

Frank Bettger, How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling

Writing is challenging! It’s easy to feel we’re working in a bubble or trapped inside our own heads. When someone else gives us an energetic, positive response to our work — it can make all the difference.

Enthusiasm—our own, or a shot of energy from a friend—what a gift!

Enthusiasm is a vital quality for us as writers on two fronts: First, there’s the enthusiasm we give others when we share our excitement with them about what they are doing. This is a transfer of energy.

Second, and equally — or even more important — there’s the self-motivating enthusiasm we bring to our own work — the adrenalin boost we give ourselves when we bring joy and energy to the page. 

As Frank Bettger’s inspiring comments above suggest, there’s a simple, but powerful technique you can use to light an inner fire — “to arouse yourself inside.” Just “act as if” you’re excited and energized and you’ll become excited and energized.

What does enthusiasm look like for you? Would you bounce out of bed, ready for action? Would your mind be buzzing with ideas? Would you be totally “in the zone” when you began playing on the page?

Whatever the ingredients are for you, why not try “acting as if” you have them in abundance and see what happens? Let “the Magic of Enthusiasm” work its magic on you. I’d love to hear whether this way of working energizes you as we all write on!

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It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved, and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.”
Raymond Chandler

Great opening paragraph, isn’t it? It’s from The Big Sleep. Ray certainly has an eye for details, doesn’t he? In her wonderful book, The Creative Habit, Twyla Tharp talks about Chandler’s use of descriptive detail as a tool for defining his characters and the way he employed a series of “tight shots” to create the settings his characters inhabited.

According to Tharp, Ray was an obsessive kind of guy. He kept made lists of details from his own life and people he knew. He had a necktie file, a shirt file and lists of names, book titles, and one-liners for future reference. He also liked to write on half-sheets of paper, creating just twelve to fifteen lines one a page. And each half-sheet had to contain what he called “a little bit of magic.”

“Up close was Chandler’s focal length,” says Tharp. He didn’t go for the big picture or sweeping images of the state of the world. Instead, he piles on details “until a character or scene takes shape and a vivid picture emerges.”

In Tharp’s view, “focal length” — the distance at which we tend to work — is an important facet of our creative identity. Do you take a wide, sweeping” approach when telling a story, tell it at middle distance, or do you strive to get up close and personal? Something to think about. I like Chandler’s idea of working on a half page and his self-imposed requirement that each page has to have a “little magic.” Think I’ll try it with big index cards and see how it goes. Want to join me?

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Customize

« Learn to alert your reader as soon as possible in a sentence to any change in mood from the previous sentence….Always make sure your readers are oriented. »

No, this post isn’t about mind-altering drugs — it’s about mood-altering prose!

On Writing Well by William Zinnser is one of my go-to handbooks on crafting clear, sparkling prose. And one of the things I love about it is that, just like EB White in The Elements of Style, our boy William isn’t wishy-washy. He has definite ideas about what makes for muscular, readable prose and he lets you know it. Here are some of William’s tips on using “mood changers” in your writing:

Tools of the trade — There are a host of words that do a workmanlike job of signaling to readers that a mood shift is afoot, so that they aren’t confused or surprised by your writing: “but,” “yet,” “however,” “still,” “nevertheless,” “instead,” “meanwhile,” “now,” “later,” and “today.” 

Bring in the “buts” — “Many of us were taught that no sentence should begin with ‘but.’ If that’s what you learned, unlearn it — there’s no stronger word at the start. It announces total contrast with what has gone before, and the reader is primed for the change.”

Use “however” sparingly — If you find your prose is peppered with too many “buts,” William suggests strategically replacing some of them with “however.” “It is, however, a weaker word ans therefore needs careful placement. Don’t start a sentence with ‘however,’ — it hangs there like a wet dishrag. And don’t end with ‘however’ — by that time it has lost is howeverness. Put it as early as you reasonably can — as I did three sentences ago. Its abruptness then becomes a virtue.”

“Yet” and “nevertheless” are great simplifiers — “Either of these words at the beginning of a sentence — ‘Yet he decided to go’ or ‘Nevertheless he decided to go’ — can replace a whole long phrase that summarizes what the reader has just been told.”

Time-frame tipsters — “Meanwhile,” “now,” “today,” and “later”– all help to signal shifts in time frame and can save readers needless confusion. “Now I know better.” “Later I found out why.” Phrases like these help make sure your reader is oriented.

Equipped with these handy mood-altering helpers, let’s all write on!

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« Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know. » Ernest Hemingway

Today, July 21, is Ernest Hemingway’s birthday. He was born in 1890. He knew about struggling and getting stuck when it comes to writing. He also managed to snare a Pulitzer Prize and a Nobel, so he knew how to get through the rough times.

Whenever Hemingway did get stuck or felt he wasn’t being authentic enough in what he was writing, he used a simple approach to extricate himself: “If I start to write elaborately, or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written.”

Great advice! In general, Ernie was sympathetic to other writers who wanted to hone their craft — and over the years, in bits and pieces, he passed on generous doses of wisdom. These gems have been gathered together in a helpful, easy-to-digest book called Ernest Hemingway on Writing. 

One of his most-quoted tips focuses on how to much to write: “The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day…you will never be stuck. Always stop while you are going good and don’t think about it or worry about it until you start to write the next day. That way your subconscious will work on it all the time. But if you think about it consciously or worry about it you will kill it and your brain will be tired before you start.”

He also believed strongly that writers write too much and don’t read enough great literature. His remedy? Reading the masters like Tolstoy, Flaubert, Mann, Joyce, Fielding, Mark Twain, Stendhal and Dostoevsky.

Bravo, Ernest! And now emboldened and energized, let’s all write on!

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« If there is no struggle, there is no progress. » Frederick Douglass

Who wants to struggle, if they can help it? So much easier to take it easy, to give things up when they become a struggle — when they resist giving us the satisfaction we want.

And yet. And yet. As my good friend and mentor Dr. Rob Gilbert says, there’s nothing more satisfying than wrestling with something you truly care about. How true I’ve found this to be in my own life! And if you think about it, it’s probably true for you as well.

Why? Because as our friend Frederick says so well, without struggle, “there is no progress.” Struggle is like the irritant in the seashell that creates a pearl. Or the pressure on carbon that, over time, creates a diamond. Without struggle, there’s no growth, pure and simple. 

Think of a novel you love — and think of the conflicts you found riddling its pages. What would a story be without conflict? An empty shell. It’s conflict that propels a story forward — that makes things happen, forces decisions, and raises consequences. And the bigger the conflict, the bigger the story. As in art, so in life.

Right now, you may be struggling with something big or small in your writing life. It may be a thorny plot point or a ragged paragraph — or something tougher to handle — a character that’s lackluster or pacing that’s sluggish, or complexity that might be confusing to readers because you haven’t done your job well and expressed it simply. Been there and done that! 

Whatever it is, if you care about it, then it’s worth wrestling with. And the tougher the struggle, the sweeter the triumph when you finally figure it out and get it right. Like Winnie the Pooh stuck in a hole with a honey pot — at the end of the struggle, there’s a sweet reward — a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction that’s oh, so fulfilling!

So let’s be like Jacob who wrestled with an angel and received a blessing in return. Let’s struggle joyfully as we all write on!

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If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain:

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain

Or help one fainting robin unto his nest again,

I shall not live in vain.

—Emily Dickinson

Reading aloud is so important that I’ve gathered some writing quotes about it to inspire us all to take advantage of this helpful writing tool:

“The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader.”
Robert Frost

“Always write (and read) with the ear, not the eye. You should hear every sentence you write as if it was being read aloud or spoken.”
C. S. Lewis

“Ever since I was first read to, then started reading to myself, there has never been a line read that I didn’t ‘hear.’ As my eyes followed the sentence, a voice was saying it silently to me. It isn’t my mother’s voice, or the voice of any person I can identify, certainly not my own. It is human, but inward, and it is inwardly that I listen to it. It is to me the voice of the story or the poem itself . . . .” 

“My own words, when I am at work on a story, I hear too as they go, in the same voice that I hear when I read in books. When I write and the sound of it comes back to my ears, then I act to make changes. I have always trusted this voice.”
Eudora Welty

“I still read everything aloud. I have a fundamental conviction that if a sentence cannot be read aloud with sincerity, conviction, and communicable emphasis, it’s not a good sentence. Good writing requires good rhythms and good words.”
Richard Marius

“Every book should have its own voice — what you hear in your head as you read to yourself.”
Mary Lee Settle

One easy way to use reading aloud to improve your writing is to make a recording on your phone or with a tape recorder as you read part of a draft aloud yourself or ask a friend to read it for you. You can learn a lot if you have a “recording session” with a reader because you’re standing outside your work listening to it. That sense of distance can be so helpful and revealing! Ideas to ponder and apply as we all write on!

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