Immediate Fiction

Contents

Introduction

1. Rules of the Page

2. Theory

3. Story

4. Fine-Tuning

5. Use or Abuse—
Self-Editing

6. The Active Ingredient—
Emotion

7. Showing

8. The Second Time Around—
Re-writing

9. Method—
How To. How Not To.

10. Under the Sun—
Uniqueness. Universal Plots.

11. Point of View

12. The Ticking Clock—
Fitting It In

13. Dead Weight—
What You Can Ignore

14. The Long and the Short of It—
From Short Story to Novel

15. Hitting the Wall—
Blocking and Unblocking

16. Stage and Screen

17. To Market to Market—
When to Submit, How, and Why Conclusion

Introduction

A good story cannot be denied. Like falling in love, it's irresistible. It hits you before you have time to think. It touches your heart before it reaches your head. You're drawn in—whether you want to be or not. And you don't stand around asking, "Is it good?" or "Is it real?" These questions don't even come up. I've been walking through a room where a dramatic scene is playing on the TV, and been struck by a single line, a line that pulled me into the story. I have to stop and see what is happening. That's the kind of story you'll learn to write in this course.

The craft and techniques of
Immediate Fiction
are those used by all great writers. Whether a story is true or not doesn't matter. The craft is identical. A good story creates an experience and puts you in it, living and feeling it as if you were there.

All of this we're calling
Immediate Fiction
, because good stories are immediate. They're happening here and now, around you and in you, in the moment. But this is also about crafting and creating stories and about how to get yourself to sit down and do it. With
Immediate Fiction,
you will begin writing immediately, the moment you sit down. There are even techniques to help you sit down. And don't think get-

ting yourself there and sitting down can't be a problem—even for the best of writers. "Ninety percent of life is showing up," the saying goes.
Immediate Fiction
will make it easy to show up.

After you do sit down, you won't be wasting time wondering what to do or where to start or how to get in the mood. You don't have to be in the mood or wait for inspiration or the Muse to strike, because with this method
the Muse is you.
You'll learn how to become your own Muse and not waste time looking for magic to come from somewhere outside yourself.

Immediate Fiction
is the craft of story, but it's also
the craft of self—
finding what you have and making it work for you. So, it's immediate in two ways.
What
you create is immediate, and
how
you create is immediate. You're creating immediate fiction immediately.

One thing it's important to be aware of at the outset is that no problem is too small to paralyze you, and none is too big to be conquered. Problems are as big or as small as you make them. Writers have a knack for magnifying tiny troubles into great obstacles. So, if you've been doing that, don't worry. You'll learn how to get out of it.

This course is laid out with first things first. Follow it straight through, and you'll do fine. Each part starts with the theory behind what we're setting out to accomplish. The theory gives you a deeper sense of how things work. The first chapter covers the creative process—what to keep in mind to stay out of trouble. Chapter 2 is a short exploration of stories (the
why
of story—why every reader reads, why every writer writes). That flows right into chapter 3, the actual craft and technique of creating stories—how to do it—
how, what, when,
and
where.
You start writing at the end of chapter 3, with exercises designed to uncover what you have and tap into the drama in your ideas. Each chapter has its own set of writing exercises at the end.

Since each chapter flows into the next, you don't need to skip around,
but
if you're dying to get into the heart of putting a story to

gether, go straight to chapter 3. Chapter 4 refines the story elements more precisely, making it even easier to breathe life into your story. Chapter 5 covers self-editing, staying on track, avoiding pitfalls—figuring out what you have and what to do with it. Capturing
emotion
on the page, and evoking it in the character and the reader, are covered in chapter 6. Chapter 7 covers the basic technique for creating the experience on the page in full scenes. Chapter 8 moves into expanded rewriting techniques—what to do when you go back over your work. Work methods, different ways of approaching your story, are covered in chapter 9. Originality (what is it? how do you achieve it?) is covered in chapter 10. That chapter also explores universal plot forms. Chapter 11 covers point of view. If you feel you have no time to write, chapter 12 will show you how to get going in just minutes a day. Chapter 13 covers extraneous concepts and methods that often confuse the issue—what you can do without. Chapter 14 explores the difference between a short story and a novel and how you can turn any short story into a novel. If you're seriously blocked, go straight to chapter 15. Chapter 16 shows you how to turn your story into a stage play or screenplay if either is your goal. Chapter 17 covers what you need to know to market your work—how to submit, where to submit, agents, publishers. Even though the chapters are arranged in a specific order, each stands alone and deals with its topic completely.

THE ROAD TO HERE

I'd like to tell you how I got here. It's important because I
did
get here and even more important because
many don't
—many who could and should, but don't through no fault of their own. It's a trip along a tangled path, one you may be on already, one that may have led you to this very course. It's one you will avoid if you haven't set out upon it

already. My journey isn't about me as much as it is about the world of writing and the teaching and learning of writing.

I took my first writing course at night at a junior college in Chicago. I took it just to pick up a few credits while I was working and saving money to go back to college full-time. I had no idea what I was doing in the writing class, but I had a lot of energy, and I had no conceptions or misconceptions because I had almost no literary background. The teacher and the class liked my writing. I was thrilled and started thinking that maybe, someday, after I got a degree in a sensible subject, I would do some writing. Our night class produced the first literary magazine in the Chicago junior college system.

I went back to school full-time at the University of Illinois, majoring in psychology but writing in my spare time. After a year, I took another writing class, taught by a professor who was a well-known author. I was excited and eager, a serious student ready to be molded into a successful writer by this literary expert. Now that I'd been writing awhile, I was full of questions: Why was it I kept starting stories I couldn't finish? Why did my clear ideas so often drift off into tangled messes? What should I do when a story I was writing that was full of energy and drama suddenly shut down and stopped dead before my eyes, never to rise again?

Unfortunately, the professor had few answers. He told us little about how stories work. "Write a twenty-five-hundred-word story for next week," he said. The following week he proceeded to take our writing apart, telling us what was wrong with it, but little about how to fix it. At the end of the course I had more questions than I had when I started, including: Was it beyond me? Was I just too dense?

The next time I had an elective, I took another writing course from a different professor. By now I had formulated my confusion a touch more. I kept wondering, "Does it have to be this hard, this vague, this disorganized?" I couldn't figure out if the problem was I just wasn't getting it or they just weren't giving it. It seemed like guesswork, trial and error, hit or miss, with no real guiding principles or techniques. "Does everybody do it this way?" I asked in class one day.

"How else could you do it?" the professor said.

"I don't know. I'm not very clear on exactly how this works."

"Look," he said. "It's art, not science. It doesn't come easy. If you want me to make it easy, maybe you shouldn't be here."

What was he saying? Do it his way or get out? "I'm not trying to be lazy. I just wish I knew a little more about what I'm supposed to be doing," I said.

"You work and work and work, and eventually you start to get a feel for it. It takes years."

Here I was again with more questions. Years? How many? When did you start to get a feel for it? What was
it
anyway? Did it hit you all at once, or did you get it little by little? What did the
feel
feel like, exactly? How did you know if the
feel
you were feeling was the
real feel
? I didn't ask any more questions, because I didn't want to get kicked out. After all, what did I know? Put in my years and wait for the
feel
—if that was what it took, I'd do it. Still, it seemed there should be a better way.

The more I wrote, the more possibilities I could see. My big fear was that I would follow the wrong one and drift off in a direction that would take me nowhere. If my aim was off just a fraction at the start, I might miss the mark by a mile.

Next, I took what I call the shit course. It was at one of Chicago's most famous universities, and it was taught by another well-known author. The first day, he swaggered in, looked at us with contempt, and said, "What makes you think the shit you write is worth reading? What makes you think the world needs to hear anything you have to say?"

Uh oh! Here was something else to worry about. Was my writing
worth
reading? Did the world
need
it? How could I know that? I was here because I liked writing. I just wanted to learn to be a good storyteller. I wasn't trying to tell the world anything.

It turned out that this teaching style was common at that university. "We know everything. You know nothing" was their motto, and this professor and author could have been their poster boy. He told us we were shit and then proceeded to shit on us and our writing throughout the entire course. He was scary, but I held on, clinging to the hope that he was wrong. It turned out that he
was
wrong—totally wrong. Neither concern—whether your writing is
worth reading
and whether the world
needs
to hear it—has anything to do with being a successful writer. Writers have enough to do without having to wrestle with such intangible issues.