by Jason Joyner | Aug 1, 2012 | Blog, moving on, ruts, writing, writing craft, Writing Wednesday
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| photo by Catie Rhodes |
Who’s been in a rut before?
Everyone raise your hands. We’ve all done it. Whether it is with our food choices, our daily activities, or our writing, we’ve been in the place where we get stuck and can’t move on to new and exciting things.
The rut is comforable. You don’t have to think about it. The path is set, all you need to do is follow it.
My family just did a weekend road trip that included seeing part of the Oregon Trail. To me it was amazing to think that thousands of people trekked west in the mid-1800’s for a new life. The standard path was so well worn that there are still ruts visible over some grassy hills in southern Idaho after all this time.
I’ve been stuck in a grammatical rut for the last couple of chapters. I’m trying to finish for a deadline. That might be pushing me to stick to a comfortable routine. My rut is this: “James wanted to finish his coffee, but Kristin was giving him that look.”
Nothing wrong with that by itself, right? My problem is that I keep using this compound sentence structure EVERY paragraph it seems. I don’t want simple short sentences every time, but this way of using a conjunction is becoming to repetitive. SEE! I just did it again.
Argh. It is hard enough pushing toward the end. I can see it. The end. No more mirage shimmering in the distance. It really is there. But in fighting toward it I still want to do a decent job and not have to return to edit every single “Blah, blah, blah, BUT/AND/SO blah, blah, blah” clause that I can’t seem to avoid.
At least I am recognizing it. We all have blind spots as authors. Better to know now than be surprised withthe edits. Now, how to get past this? There’s always the “bomb under the sofa” technique.
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What say you? What have some of your ruts been? Anything goes here! For writers, how did you get out of said rut?
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by Jason Joyner | May 2, 2012 | alliterate much?, Blog, writing, writing craft, Writing Wednesday
I think I’ve gone a long time as a writing blog without having a post on “write what you know.” I had second and third thoughts on whether I should bother. I’m sure there are 4.634 gazillion blog posts on the subject.
The term write what you know is considered a good adage to follow. If you quilt, you can write compelling fiction about a team of quilters. If you like motorcycles but hate quilting, let the first group do the quilt stories.
There are people who rail against this advice. “If we only wrote what we knew, we wouldn’t have any science fiction. Or historicals. Or sparkly vampire love fests.” (Maybe that last one wouldn’t be a bad thing.)
I would say, they’re both right.
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| I didn’t have to eat durian to describe it |
I work in medicine. I spent two months in Thailand. This may have have some influence on my WIP involving a medical student traveling to Thailand. It makes it easier to start there, as I have background in it. When I’ve had critiques, people comment on the sections where I use the tropical location, or have a suspenseful scene with medical overtones. These parts seem to resonate more.
Writing what I know seems to be paying off right now.
The rub is that I don’t know if I can write the same stuff forever. I haven’t been to every country, and I don’t think everything I write will be set among tropical breezes and exotic fruit. Obviously authors write about many things they don’t know firsthand. They do their research, use real world experiences as references, and play off of them to write something new and unique to them.
Brandilyn Collins has an excellent three post series on her old blog where she can take anyone and put them into the mindset of a murderer. If we wrote what we knew, a lot of mystery and suspense writers have some skeletons in their closets. Maybe literally. But Brandilyn’s method helps an author go to a place they would never reach otherwise (we hope).
There you go. I’m officially on the fence. Sometimes you need to write what you know. Other times demand something original, but you can still find analogies in your life to make it pop.
What side of the fence are you on?
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by Jason Joyner | May 2, 2012 | alliterate much?, Blog, writing, writing craft, Writing Wednesday
I think I’ve gone a long time as a writing blog without having a post on “write what you know.” I had second and third thoughts on whether I should bother. I’m sure there are 4.634 gazillion blog posts on the subject.
The term write what you know is considered a good adage to follow. If you quilt, you can write compelling fiction about a team of quilters. If you like motorcycles but hate quilting, let the first group do the quilt stories.
There are people who rail against this advice. “If we only wrote what we knew, we wouldn’t have any science fiction. Or historicals. Or sparkly vampire love fests.” (Maybe that last one wouldn’t be a bad thing.)
I would say, they’re both right.
|
| I didn’t have to eat durian to describe it |
I work in medicine. I spent two months in Thailand. This may have have some influence on my WIP involving a medical student traveling to Thailand. It makes it easier to start there, as I have background in it. When I’ve had critiques, people comment on the sections where I use the tropical location, or have a suspenseful scene with medical overtones. These parts seem to resonate more.
Writing what I know seems to be paying off right now.
The rub is that I don’t know if I can write the same stuff forever. I haven’t been to every country, and I don’t think everything I write will be set among tropical breezes and exotic fruit. Obviously authors write about many things they don’t know firsthand. They do their research, use real world experiences as references, and play off of them to write something new and unique to them.
Brandilyn Collins has an excellent three post series on her old blog where she can take anyone and put them into the mindset of a murderer. If we wrote what we knew, a lot of mystery and suspense writers have some skeletons in their closets. Maybe literally. But Brandilyn’s method helps an author go to a place they would never reach otherwise (we hope).
There you go. I’m officially on the fence. Sometimes you need to write what you know. Other times demand something original, but you can still find analogies in your life to make it pop.
What side of the fence are you on?
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by Jason Joyner | Mar 19, 2012 | Blog, blogging, guest post, Jordyn Redwood, Missing Monday, Redwood's Medical Edge, writing
Today is normally Mission Monday at Spoiled For The Ordinary, but I have a different mission for you today.
I wrote a guest post for Redwood’s Medical Edge, a great blogging resource for writers by author and RN Jordyn Redwood. We connected a couple months ago in the blogosphere and it worked out that I could contribute an article on the difference between mid-level health care providers, like physician assistants and nurse practitioners. There can be a lot of added conflict if you use a mid-level in your story, but I’ll let you read the article over there for full effect. Thanks for hosting me Jordyn!
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by Jason Joyner | Mar 19, 2012 | Blog, blogging, guest post, Jordyn Redwood, Missing Monday, Redwood's Medical Edge, writing
Today is normally Mission Monday at Spoiled For The Ordinary, but I have a different mission for you today.
I wrote a guest post for Redwood’s Medical Edge, a great blogging resource for writers by author and RN Jordyn Redwood. We connected a couple months ago in the blogosphere and it worked out that I could contribute an article on the difference between mid-level health care providers, like physician assistants and nurse practitioners. There can be a lot of added conflict if you use a mid-level in your story, but I’ll let you read the article over there for full effect. Thanks for hosting me Jordyn!
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by Jason Joyner | Jan 12, 2012 | Blog, medical, unforseen delays, writing, Writing Wednesday
Our regularly scheduled programming was delayed due to the family stomach flu making its presence known. After a day of being wiped out and generally useless, I figured it was time to talk about medical issues in writing.
If it hasn’t come out before, I work as a physician assistant. No, I’m not still working on finishing medical school as some people ask. Being a PA is its own profession. We just were saddled with an unfortunate title when we started. Some people want us to be physician associates(?), but I digress.
Obviously it is easy for me to write medically in my fiction, and it is a great way to introduce conflict, tension, or roadblocks to my characters. For those who aren’t in the medical field and want to make a medical condition a part of their book, it takes good research to make it believable. That’s true for everything, but there’s plenty that can go wrong in medical research. I read a novel with an astronaut who was hiding multiple sclerosis. No way would she have been able to hide such a thing, and it always bugged me when it came into play in the plot.
There’s plenty to be found on the internet these days, but you do have to be careful of your sources. Someone came to me today asking about “liver stones.” Google can be an enemy as much as a friend here!
I would suggest reading from reputable sources first of all. WebMD, CDC, your professional organizations like the American Heart Association – all of these would be good primary sources. If you want to address a controversial issue, look for those as well, but make sure you understand the foundation of the issue and both sides if you can.
Don’t just rely on the web. Most health care providers I know would be happy to give you some advice. I would be fine answering questions, and I have asked specialists at conferences about issues that were out of my field of practice. Be respectful of their busy schedules, and I am sure you can find someone who can help you out.
One person who has a specific blog for this is Jordyn Redwood’s
“Redwood’s Medical Edge.” She is a nurse with lots of emergency and pediatric experience, and she provides regular content on medical issues, from historical medicine to current issues. Want to know how fast someone would bleed to death?
She’s got the info for you!If I have one pet peeve, it is characters’ getting hurt in some way, and the author forgets about it. Mary Sue just leaped from her second story window to escape the Big Bad Guy, and hurt her ankle – but she still runs away a few pages later with nary a limp. Keep it real, people!
This is a quick discussion of medical issues in fiction. There are so many avenues to explore here. If there are specific topics anyone would like me to discuss, leave them in the comments and we can have fun with those.
Just remember to wash your hands people!
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