The Fifth Season<\/a>. Now writers are experimenting with it and creating really interesting stories using 2nd person.<\/p>\nWriter’s read novels and discover what can work.\u00a0 Sometimes when something works well enough, it expands an entire genre with imitators.\u00a0 Do you think we’d have as much Young Adult fiction these days if it weren’t for J. K. Rowling?\u00a0 Harry Potter inspired a generation to read, and a lot of those kids that grew up with dreams of going to Hogwarts became writers themselves.<\/p>\n
[pauses to get Scotch]<\/p>\n
What am I saying in this section that isn’t obvious?\u00a0 A good writer doesn’t read another writer’s work in order to steal their ideas.\u00a0 That’s not what this is about.\u00a0 A good writer isn’t looking in someone else’s book to lift techniques, either.\u00a0 A good writer reads to see how someone else might have experimented, and if the experiment paid off.\u00a0 A good writer reads to be entertained and inspired.<\/p>\n
We had a surge of urban fantasy for a while.\u00a0 It was all written in the first person and it usually featured a talented main character in a role very similar to that of a private investigator.\u00a0 Why did we get that surge?\u00a0 Because that’s how Jim Butcher wrote The Dresden Files and other writers picked up the superficial details and tried applying those details to their own work.\u00a0 What I think they failed to realize is that it’s not the setting that makes The Dresden Files so special, nor is it the format.\u00a0 What makes The Dresden Files special is Butcher’s amazing ability to make all of his characters fully realized and interesting.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Learn what Doesn’t Work<\/strong><\/p>\nAfter the previous section, this one should be obvious.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, fiction makes it onto the shelves that includes less successful deviations from the norm.\u00a0 There’s a lot buried in those pages for a writer to learn from.\u00a0 They just have to be careful not to take away the wrong lesson.<\/p>\n
Stephen King is an amazing writer and many of his stories have become ingrained in our culture.\u00a0 Unfortunately, some of his endings suck.\u00a0 That’s just how it goes.\u00a0 What can writer’s learn to avoid when looking at Stephen King’s endings?\u00a0 A big one… avoid the deus ex machina.\u00a0 The Dark Half and The Stand have a bit of that going on.\u00a0 Also, maybe don’t have an underage orgy scene like towards the end of It?\u00a0 Some of these things are probably obvious even before reading Stephen King’s work.<\/p>\n
Twilight is super popular.\u00a0 Stephanie Meyer played with the mythos of vampires, and even if you hate their sparkle, what Stephanie Meyer did with changing the rules and subverting expectations is actually a good thing.\u00a0 The real lesson writers can learn not to do in Twilight has more to do with her world building.\u00a0 Also, maybe we don’t need some of the creepiness of having someone as old as Edward date a girl still in high school?\u00a0 Or maybe avoid having a young adult man “imprint” on a newborn baby?\u00a0 I’m just spit-balling here.<\/p>\n
I’m not trying to bash popular books.\u00a0 On the contrary, I have a great respect for any author that has persevered and\u00a0reached the point in their career where I’m trying to go.\u00a0 Maybe someday, I’ll have some books out that people can read, and also learn things that don’t work.\u00a0 I humbly hope to reach that point.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Community<\/strong><\/p>\nWriters go into their cave, hunker down over their computers or notebooks or concrete slabs, and they write alone.\u00a0 They type\/write\/carve their words, extracting images from their head and making them take shape in a permanent form.\u00a0 It’s a solitary act, but once you’ve started, you’ve joined a large and diverse community whether you realize it or not.<\/p>\n
Writers are everywhere.\u00a0 Writing wisdom can be found anywhere.\u00a0 There are more people out there offering advice on how things can be done or should be done than there are writers publishing books.<\/p>\n
[pauses to sip Scotch and let those words sink in]<\/p>\n
Though writing is a solitary activity, you will want and need people to join you as you make progress on your books.\u00a0 This could be writer’s groups, editors, agents, long-suffering spouses that are either thrilled or horrified by your books, friends wishing you success and jealous rivals poking voodoo dolls hoping you won’t get too far ahead of them.\u00a0 There are online communities, offline communities, seasonal communities, regional communities, and communities that you only see occasionally when you go to conventions.<\/p>\n
The writing world is big and if you want to be a good citizen in it, you should read the works of other people sharing that community with you.\u00a0 It’s fair, because you’re going to ask them to read your work.\u00a0 So just do it.<\/p>\n
As has already been established, you’re going to be entertained and\/or educated when you read someone else’s work.\u00a0 It’s good for you in all of the other ways we’ve talked about.\u00a0 That it makes you a good citizen of the larger writing community is just a side benefit.<\/p>\n
At one point in your career (the point where I’m currently sitting, in fact) there will be more writers reading your work than non-writers.\u00a0 So be a good sport and buy their work, too.\u00a0 Promote it when you can.\u00a0 Be gracious and lift them up.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Final Thoughts and Confessions<\/strong><\/p>\nAll of the things I’ve said in this post are ideals to work towards.\u00a0 I have work to do in everything I’ve talked about.\u00a0 I read for entertainment and to learn, but I don’t spend as much time reading as I should.<\/p>\n
I mentioned The Fifth Season earlier.\u00a0 The truth is, I didn’t finish that book.\u00a0 I was listening to it on audio and the experience frustrated me to the point I couldn’t continue.\u00a0 Eventually I’m going to get it written form and read it just so that I can talk about it more intelligently.<\/p>\n
The necessity of continuous reading as a writer is an ideal.\u00a0 It’s something to work on.\u00a0 On this matter, maybe we all have a bit of work to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s Sunday evening and time for me to write my 14th blog post in a row!\u00a0 Let’s see what topic I set myself up for night.\u00a0 Surely I planned ahead, realizing that fatigue would be settling in at this point.\u00a0 I must have given myself something light and easy to write about, right?\u00a0 Right? [brief […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1053"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1054,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions\/1054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}