For those into fiction writing ...

Author David Ignatius (also a Washington Post columnist) wrote the first chapter of a "summer spy serial" and is taking reader submissions for subsequent chapters. He chooses one, and the story goes on. Sounds like fun.

What good editors do, by Stephen King

Like so much of what we discuss in here, King is talking about fiction writing/editing (specifically, editor Gordon Lish and writer Raymond Carver), but what he says certainly applies to our newsroom, or any newsroom:

In King’s opinion, “a good editor should improve the writer’s work by doing a number of useful things: posing questions the writer should have answered and didn’t, suggesting places where thematic concerns can be reinforced to make a more pleasing whole, and pointing out (gently) infelicities of language. What an editor should never do is superimpose his or her own beliefs about style and story on the author’s work. An editor should be an expert midwife, not a surrogate parent.”

39 steps, 10,000 words

Some pretty cool thoughts on what you can learn about storytelling -- mainly visual, but print too -- from Alfred Hitchcock films, courtesy of a blog called 10,000 Words. It touches on everything from dialogue to foreshadowing to streamlining your storytelling.

And there are video clips, too.

Here's another writer's take on Hitchcock and storytelling.

It's great to be edited (and I mean, I'M being edited)

If I've ever worked with you on a story through revision after revision, and you were like, 'Dang, I thought I was done!,' I just want you to know that right now, I'm in your shoes.

I've been working with my wife on what would be a picture book for young grade-school kids about a matter of great import: What would happen if the Tooth Fairy ever met the Easter Bunny while they were making their rounds.* (This is fiction. I have not been staking out little kids' houses the night before Easter to do research.)

Both Betsy, my wife, and Buffy have been my editors on this. I wrote it a while back and sent it to them for a read. I figured I was done. Great sense of accomplishment; I'd taken an idea and actually created a beginning-to-end conflict/resolution story that, by God, wasn't half bad.

And then Betsy and Buffy weighed in. And I revised it. And they suggested things. And I revised. And so on ... and this morning I finished probably the 10th revision of the story. (And it still needs work.)

It is now so different, and so much better, than it was the first time I put it down, I can hardly imagine why I thought I was done. But that, I realized, is what a writer/editor relationship is all about -- the writer creates and the editor helps see around the corners the writer can't see around when he/she is writing.

It's a great learning experience for me to be on the other side of that equation. In the last edit, for example, Buffy even flagged me on using 'ing' verbs instead of 'ed' verbs ... which is something I am attuned to as an editor but something I missed in my own work as a writer.

Betsy, who used to be an early childhood teacher and can tune in to the frequencies used by little kids, has helped me with the tone of the story -- that is, making it more silly. Once during revisions, I had to think long and hard about the weighty issue of what, exactly, a rabbitt would exclaim upon bashing into a fairy; and what a fairy would say at the same moment.

I know all this work will make me a better writer; I'm hoping it makes me a better editor too.

*You're welcome to read it if you want.

A storytelling guidebook

This is an older column by Roy Peter Clark, and I'm not sure exactly why it showed up on the Nieman Narrative Digest's Web site just now. I think he wrote it during when the journalism world was abuzz with scandals like Jayson Blair and memoir writers who were admitting they made up stuff about their lives and thought it was OK.

Anyway, since we talk a lot in here about using fiction-writing techniques while dealing with facts only and telling true stories, this is an excellent read and very important to our storytelling work.

What do you call ...

... an author that you're reading for the first time? Not a first-time author ... maybe a first-read author...

Anyway, I just started Peter Mathiessen's 'The Snow Leopard.' I've never read Mathiessen, and it got me thinking about how often we read authors for the first time, or, put another way, how hard it is sometimes to read someone other than an author we really like.

This is toughest for me with fiction authors. For example, I'd read Michael Chabon if he wrote directions on how to poke a stick in your eye, and I'd love it. But it's often hard for me to make the leap to a fiction author I'm not familiar with.

That said, I will read Milan Kundera (thanks to recommendation from Jeff) and Cormac McCarthy for the first time this year. I have an old Robin Cook novel hanging around. I plan to pick up something from Philip Roth (thanks again to Jeff). That's it for new fiction authors.

How do you find/try new fiction writers? Anybody you'd recommend to me or others reading this?

This'll scare you

I just heard Neil Gaiman read the beginning of his graphic novel "The Graveyard Book" on XM, and now I have to get my hands on it. It's about a young boy who's raised in a graveyard by whatever/whoever inhabits a graveyard.

***(update on this post: Go here to listen to Gaiman read. He's pretty damn good. It's actually a video, but I'd suggest closing the window and just listening.)***

It's allegedly a young-adult novel, but whatever. The book opens with a killer having disposed of three people in a house and about to go after the toddler. Here is the exquisite opening, and tell me if this doesn't sound worth following to the end:

"There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.
"The knife had a handle of polished black bone, and a blade finer and sharper than any razor. If it sliced you, you might not even know you'd been cut, not immediately.
"The knife had done almost everything it had been brought to that house to do, and both the blade and the handle were wet.
"The street door was still open, just a little, where the knife and the man who held it had slipped in, and wisps of nighttime mist slithered and twined into the house through the open door.
"The man Jack paused on the landing. With his left hand he pulled a large white handkerchief from the pocket of his black coat, and with it he wiped off the knife and his gloved right hand which had been holding it; then he put the handkerchief away. The hunt was almost over. He had left the woman in her bed, the man on the bedroom floor, the older child in her brightly-colored bedroom, surrounded by toys and half-finished models. That only left the little one, a baby barely a toddler, to take care of. One more and his task would be done."

Serial & graphic-novel storytelling

I may be the last person to figure this out, but the New York Times' Sunday magazine has some cool storytelling -- serial narratives (fiction) and graphic 'novels' or strips that run in multiple episodes. They're here.

One page per day?

Now that he's released another book, novelist Philip Roth has given us a little more information about his writing process. In an interview with NPR, the author of "Goodbye, Columbus," "Immortality," "Sabbath's Theater" and a host of other masterworks said he puts in a long days writing.

On an average day, he produces one page. On a good day, maybe three. On a bad day, nothing. And that's one page before secondary revisions begin.

That floored me. Just think about the amount of copy you produce and the rate at which you do it. Perhaps it's why he's a genius.

Stephen King graphic short story

25 episodes, one a day beginning July 28. Watch them all here and deconstruct the storytelling techniques and framework of King's story, 'N,' and the techniques used in the visual telling of it.

Storytelling on a map

This is fiction, but check it out and you can see how we could use it, or something like it, to tell a true story.

Imagine a police chase rendered like this.

Imagine a feature story about a well-traveled pro baseball player rendered like this.

Imagine a story about a relief mission to New Orleans rendered like this.

Other possibilities....?

Looking for a challenge?

Probably some of you are familiar with Worth 1000, which is known mostly for its online Photoshop and photography contests.

They also run what they describe as text contests, where anyone who's registered (it's free) can enter the latest writing challenges. Almost all of them are fiction-based, but it's a good chance to try something new.

For instance, here was a recent challenge:

The rules of the game are thus: Write a story in which one of the characters is ill. (Not deathly ill, no deadly diseases, no long suffering illnesses. This is strictly about a character who is temporarily sick.) Think inFLUenza or the common cold. From humorous to serious is acceptable for this contest. From the whining child with a bell, to the executive who is sneezing his way through a major presentation, to the couch potato who can't find the remote that he/she is laying on.

Keep in mind that profanity is not acceptable. All entries must be in accordance with our text rules and guidelines. As always, quality is a must. You will have 7 days for this contest, so make your submission count.

Word Guideline: 700 words.

You don't get to read any of the entries until the submission deadline passes; then, you're encouraged read and rate them all. Contest winners (determined by vote results) receive virtual trophies and "credits" good for the entrance fees to future challenges.

I'll post a link to my entry in the "illness" contest once submissions end. Meanwhile, here are a couple of neat text and image contests that are now finished. It's a different kind of storytelling, but definitely a creative one.

Locked away (text)

Spoons (photoshop)

Office supplies (photography; obviously, I loved this one.)