The Eighth Element
By Donald Maass | December 7, 2022 |
As you can imagine, I’ve read a lot of manuscripts. How many? Many thousands, certainly. Generally, they are good, just not ready. Why not? There are eight common lacks but the last one is the hardest to pin down. It’s not so much a craft technique as it is a quality.
The missing quality is one that falls somewhere between insouciance and recklessness. It has aspects of courage and authority. It’s easier to say what it’s not. It’s not safe. It’s not careful. Few writers believe themselves to be writing timidly but like I say, I’ve read a lot of manuscripts. Most are quite readable or, looked at another way, unobjectionable. Not that a novel should offend readers, but neither should it make few ripples in readers’ minds.
In writing fiction, the learning curve is long and the bar to leap over to print publication is high. It’s understandable that over time many writers bend toward getting their fiction “right”. Maybe not a slavish fit for a given market sector but at least one that will smoothly please finicky gatekeepers. Not without art, no-no, and definitely with an original premise and solid craft but, in the reading, a product that dutifully shows high respect for everything from characters’ sensitivities to marketability.
It’s paradoxical, but the very values that would seem to make a manuscript acceptable can be the same values that produce a novel that isn’t particularly memorable. The quality of being memorable or—let’s be ambitious—timeless, doesn’t come about by writing safe. I don’t mean breaking rules, although there’s a lot to be said for that. What I mean is writing without regard to “don’t”.
Timeless stories are written with high authority. It’s authors who don’t apologize or wonder if they are worthy. They assume that they are and not only that, they have been appointed to tell us who’s who, what’s what, and to do that in their own quirky way and if you don’t like it then go jump in a lake. It’s as if those authors don’t care a damn who approves their novels but care like hell about the ache and joy of the human condition.
Proust, Woolf, Faulkner and Vonnegut did not write timidly. Tolkein did not think small. Bridget Jones, let’s be honest, is a drunk. Neil Gaiman doesn’t give a damn if you think he’s borrowing heavily from myth or fairy tale. Neither J.K. Rowling or Suzanne Collins care if you find their novels of derivative of others’ stuff. Angie Thomas tells it like it is, so take that. Mary Gaitskill, by no means alone, has no problem making you blush. And then there’s that fattest of middle fingers to middle brow literature, Lolita, a jaw dropper first published in 1955.
I’m talking about fearlessness, being recklessly independent of all expectations and at the same time utterly bonded to all of us. A lot of things get in the way of that, not just the intimidating standards of publishing—whatever those are—but authors’ inhibitions and influences.
Influences? Wait, aren’t those a good thing? If by influence you mean inspiration, then yes, but influence is inescapably coupled with constraint. Constraints can be crippling, inner constraints most of all. Fearing to err. Worrying about sounding cocky. The terror of feeling naked. To write fearlessly is to risk those things in assurance that to avoid them is to wind up with a story that is no better than acceptable.
Fearlessness shows in everything from arresting premise to mythic characters to moral challenge to wildfire prose. To make this practical, there are some challenges today just for you:
- Write a passage that says why—despite what everyone thinks, says, and advocates—love hurts like a bitch.
- Write a passage in which being lost is not a temporary condition but is a state is as final as tombstone.
- Write the one sentence that you are absolutely not allowed to write.
- Rewrite the first page of your WIP knowing that this is the last day of your life. (How do you know that it’s not?)
- Write the next paragraph in your WIP as if it is fireworks going off.
- Write a sex scene like your parents, family and friends will never be allowed to read it.
- Write the opposite of what you believe and convince me.
- Write about a feeling that is mean, ugly, small and unfiltered.
- Write about hopeless generosity or goodness that is stupid.
- Write something sad about something small or joyfully about a major disaster.
- Write the moment when your protagonist no longer gives a fuck.
- Write why the hell this damn mess in your story matters more than anything.
- Write what’s going to piss me off but you don’t care.
- Tell me what’s wrong with things, and so what if I don’t want to hear it?
- Write into your novel something that will make me scream in protest and/or break my heart.
- Make your next sentence something better than plain prose. Make it snap, sing or singe.
- Write better than your favorite author and/or better than anyone. Write that way right now. Who’s telling you that you can’t?
So let me ask you, why are you reading this blog post? Do you really think that I can tell you how to write something that only you can write? Sorry. I can suggest to you plenty of solid craft as I’ve done here for more than ten years. What I can’t do is light a fire inside you. Anyway, you don’t need me to do that. You don’t need me to hand you a match. You’ve got that already.
Now go burn down this world with your words. To hell with polite. Make us listen to you. That will make me happy.
Do you think your WIP is fearless? I don’t believe you. What’s one thing in it that will shock, clobber, dazzle or amaze me? You think so? Even one sentence? Let’s see.
Donald Maass (he/him) founded the Donald Maass Literary Agency. in New York in 1980. He is the author of The Career Novelist (1996), Writing the Breakout Novel (2001), Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook (2004), The Fire in Fiction (2009), The Breakout Novelist (2011), Writing 21st Century Fiction (2012) and The Emotional Craft of Fiction (2019). He has presented hundreds of workshops around the world and is a past president of the American Association of Literary Agents (formerly AAR).
[coffee]
Something cool this way comes from ‘Writer Unboxed’ on the first Wednesday of every month. I read your entire post as if it were written in all caps. As for not being able to write a fire within us…. Donald Mass you are a flame thrower! Thank you.
I got so fired up I left out an ‘a’ in your name! Apologies
NO WORRIES. (WONDERING IF FROM NOW ON I SHOULD WRITE IN ALL CAPS?)
Wow Don. Just Wow.
Well gee, thanks.
It feels like Christmas with all these prompts. Thank you!
I feel fearless. Using a pen name helps, especially with the sex scenes. Plus, life is too short to write safe.
Here’s a bit off the first page – 3rd paragraph down, as Eddie introduces himself. Sorry, it’s more than one sentence, but I had to give some context for the last one.
I’m nobody to the story. Just think of me like a backdrop, like a mural of an old postcard, blown up to show you how special this place was, once upon a time.
Maybe the mural is on a side of a beachfront building and you realize the building in the postcard, it’s this same building, only a hundred years ago. There are mermaids on half shells, gargoyle faces of muses and actors, anchors and haunted sailing ships. In the crumbling concrete behind the chicken wire that holds them up, you can still glimpse the details of that carnival life, the way it must have been a hundred years ago, how it can be right now.
Wonderful!
Good stuff, Ada. Without even knowing the context, I’m engaged. The style — the word choice and sentence structure especially — and the voice hooked me at once and made me want to get to know this person and his/her situation.
thank you so much, Christine.
1. Thanks for teaching me a new word. I think it’s important that we say — out loud — when we’re agnostic. When we didn’t know something and learned. That’s the start and end of wisdom: curiosity, play. So thanks for that!
2. I’m trying to recapture this very recklessness. I’m reminded that many of these “brave” books didn’t even sell well initially. There’s sort of a ramp-up in word of mouth that happens over a body of work where people start to “get it” and then talk about it. Some examples:
— Brave New World was HATED on by HG Wells because it “betrayed the future as a concept.” Yes. Precisely. That was the point. Huxley was _not_ a futurist, but many Nazis were… turns out worship of technology has an effect on humanity.
— Wuthering Heights was reported by Graham’s Lady Magazine: “How a human being could have attempted such a book as the present without committing suicide before he had finished a dozen chapters, is a mystery. It is a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors.” You’d get booted off Old Twitter for that kind of talk (and, by the way, if you’re struggling with thoughts of self harm or having a crisis of depression, please call 988 in the states).
— The Great Gatsby was hated by readers as “an inconsequential performance by a once-promising author who had grown bored and cynical.” True, but it was still bravely honest for him to do that.
— The Catcher In The Rye also fell flat at first.
The list goes on. Sometimes it’s our grandchildren that get it.
Sometimes a traveling bishop stumbles upon Brother Lawrence’s scribblings in the trash can.
Or Stephen King’s wife for that matter.
Write bravely anyways. Good word.
Your novel Bell Hammers is one big, long risk with no apologies. Write on, Brother.
Well that’s kind of you to say, though I’m not so sure. Sometimes killing “darlings” includes the chapters you left in because you miss hearing your grandpa’s voice rather than that they serve the novel. But then again, some loved that. It’s the insouciant attempt that matters, as you say.
We’ll see by the end of my life if it had any value.
In the meanwhile, write on indeed.
🔥 Yes.
Thanks for the inspiration.
You bet, it’s inspiring just to be here on WU, both posting and reading. Thank YOU!
‘Let’s see’ you challenged… so, here goes:
WIP Page one [And so it was, in 1909, on board a sinking ship in the North Sea off the coast of Scotland, that I gasped my first breath bleating softly under a bloodied sheet and promptly fell asleep, exhausted, chilled to the bone, and utterly soulless.]
Page three [At the end of the day, two beautiful souls had joined hearts to save me from being recycled back into the universe’s void of unconsciousness. And I learned a powerful life lesson: human love works miracles when you let go of struggling to live.]
Strong narrative voice there, not afraid to go big. Love it.
This post illuminates what we look to you as sage.
“The missing quality is one that falls somewhere between insouciance and recklessness. It has aspects of courage and authority. It’s easier to say what it’s not. It’s not safe. It’s not careful. Few writers believe themselves to be writing timidly but like I say, I’ve read a lot of manuscripts. Most are quite readable or, looked at another way, unobjectionable. Not that a novel should offend readers, but neither should it make few ripples in readers’ minds.“.
I’ve never heard this defined, but yes, yes, yes. It takes a lot of reckless arrogance to write.
Thank you, Don, as ever.
So nice to see you, Barbara. I hope all’s well and that arrogant words are flowing for you!
Oh holy hell, it’s First Wednesday again, isn’t it? One of the best things about my WU experience is that I can never, ever remember to watch for your posts.
That means that every time, they *explode* into my morning.
“Write with high authority,” “Did not think small.” “Knowing that this is the last day of your life.”
Yeah, I think I’m ready to make some magic now.
Wednesday is a good day for magic. Indeed, a day when we need it the most. Go to it!
You’ve taught me many things through your posts, your online classes. And yes, I keep notes when something lights you up, lights me up…when you tell me GO AHEAD, be fearless. (The kidnapper forcefully cutting child Sarah’s hair to make her look like a boy.) And then once, a few years ago, I was communicating with an agent at a conference. You know how that can go. And when I summarized the storyline, she actually got mad.
“I would never read or print a story like that !” I thanked her, walked away. On some
level, we all have to believe in our work, but this post is freeing and underlines that creativity should never be boxed in (but unboxed) and set free. Thanks Don, back to work.
See Lance’s comment above. Readers don’t get angry when novels leave them indifferent. They get angry when novels get under their skin. Keep it up!
Or sometimes they also get angry when a novel isn’t what they expected or the sort they enjoy. I’ve always found it encouraging that Bell Hammers (above) has one-star reviews from many readers who don’t get it — those who hate the dialect, one even literally said my late grandfather didn’t talk or live that way (I have his syntax on tape, the documents from the SIBL Library in NYC to prove it, etc), those who don’t like the womb to tomb stories, those who don’t like picaresques, or magical realism, or humor with their sadness or sadness with their humor, or tall tales, etc — and therefore put it down.
That too is another kind of anger: the anger of a toddler.
So there are those who get mad, sad, weepy because life doesn’t come with a trigger warning and neither does art, not really, and they read it through. And then there are those who think novels should do something in particular, when yours does something else. And these kinds don’t want peas and carrots to mix or even exist in the same universe. These kinds don’t want to think along with the author, “This too is the human experience.”
At the end of the day, the entire genre of fiction — of compassionate fantasizing — is predicated on psychomachia and the empathetic benefit of walking a mile in your neighbor’s shoes.
Like the man who went to Jesus, we all may well be shocked when we find out exactly who is my neighbor.
And exactly what kinds of shoes we’re being forced to walk in for eight hours of our very brief lives.
Some palates cannot take the bitterness, the saccharine, the savory, the super salty, the sour.
But — in the words of my favorite character from Vanilla Sky:
Sweet ain’t sweet without the bitter, baby.
Don, your list of challenges is hard-hitting and highly motivating. The “Write why the hell this damn mess in your story matters more than anything” got my attention. I’ve actually been asking myself that question for weeks about my WIP (supernatural). I don’t have an answer “why this story matters.” I have discovered that the subject matter is very frightening to me; I’m resisting, blocking, running away from it and other days I’m writing scenes and dialogue because the character keeps coming at me. I have Book 1 in content editing at the moment, but Book 2 WIP dives into a new subject matter (black magick/occult) that I am terrified to explore. Any advice on how to move ahead of the fear of the actual storyline?
Paula, aim straight for the fear. Fear is a form of resistance and whatever you are resisting is exactly what will unlock the story for you, ask me.
One of the major stylistic choices I made when starting my Bronze Age Greece WIP was to write the English prose to have the same feel as Homeric Greek, with a few other prose authors and poets mixed in. (I have, or have had, reading knowledge of at least seven languages. I can do that.)
Homeric style is really very strange. It’s a mash-up of the contemporary language with centuries-old poetic forms, with all sorts of long and elaborate syntactic constructions. So, already this is the polar opposite of Strunk and White. But also, the ancient Greeks did not have the modern sensibility that you should exclude coarse language from high style. (Check out Hipponax. Or Archilocus.)
Our first-person narrator is a poet. So…
“I’m making some soup,” Okuhalos hollered out, a fine figure below. “Come have some.”
I did not want to, being both cranky and deeply uncomfortable, but Okuhalos with persistent encouragement coaxed me down. I swaddled myself in my cloak, slowly poked my way over, and scowled at the bubbling morass.
A frog might have liked it, mistaking it for pond scum. Just awful. And. was already standing there, right next to the soot-stained tripod cauldron, once again molesting its contents with a spoon. He had none of the prior day’s anger; in his brightly-patterned loincloth, he seemed absolutely so pleased with himself. “This time, I think, it might really be done!” That’s what he was telling me. I said nothing.
But then he wanted to know what I thought. And I, scowling, told him that it was certainly soup, all right. The answer was apparently not sufficient, because then Okuhos positioned his face in front of mine and wanted to know whether I, the Lord Deputy Administrator of Phthia, was impugning his hospitality. I told him no, that I was impugning his soup. And he, Okuhalos the son of some fancy person, was impugning his hospitality. Himself. By means of the soup.
“Well fuck,” he said.
Apologies, first line of the third quoted paragraph should read “And Okuhalos was already standing there…”
Bonus round, just for fun:
“Um, Okuhos?” I said. He had patiently waited through all this, large brown eyes watching to see what I would think. “I didn’t– uh. Could you teach me, um. So Geron is a very busy man! I don’t, um.” Clearly this was very hard. “Teach me how to be a guest, and accept gifts and stuff. Not embarrass myself. Like, here. I feel like one of those feral dogs, running in packs in the broken-down buildings at the edge of town.” I wish I hadn’t said that. “And you seem nice.” I remembered that moment when he’d first appeared, sweat-stained in the loincloth. Was this a good choice? Whatever. Those words were out there, lying in plain sight like a half-rotted fish on the shore.
Kudos on style! And I love soup as metaphor for the enterprise of writing!
Utterly delightful! Writing like that is why I read. Thanks for that.
Love it! The WU community is a talent bunch.
Great post! Your first prompt is helping me hone in on my character’s wound and story arc. Thanks.
Welcome!
I met you at a conference in Las Vegas a few years ago. Your workshop (I can still see you standing at the front of the class) inspired me to make my writing more fierce. That’s a good word for it, fierce so that people will react with their guts. You inspired this shift in my writing style, and I’ve been the better for it. Better than that, my writing has become a more substantial part of my thinking! I plot, I kill my darlings, and I tell myself that if my readers don’t laugh, cry, get angry, or feel afraid, then I’m not doing my job. So, thank you, Donald Maass for helping me to free my inner beast!
Hello! Nice to see you again, and I’m glad to hear that the inner beast is loose!
Always, always, worth the read. Thank you.
As is Liz Michalski, too! Thanks for stopping by.
Vex stepped onto the field and motioned for me to join him. Before I could get into position, a flash of too-bright sunlight caught my eye. A vintage golf cart with a chrome frame had come around the corner of the field. The sun had faded the canvas top, leaving blotchy spots, like white clouds against a canary-yellow sky.
“Not now,” Vex muttered. “Sarah, c’mon. Let’s go.”
The cart careered onto the field and stopped directly in front of me. Gregor Vane sat in the driver’s seat with his hands positioned at two and ten. Despite the warm day, he wore his tan trench coat buttoned up to his neck.
“Sarah!” he called out. “Wait! I need your help.”
I stepped off the field.
“You know about climate change, of course” Gregor said. “I have a plan to utilize the wind to slow it down. I’d like you to assist me. We need to go to my lab. Now. Please.” His grip on the steering wheel was so tight his knuckles showed white.
My breath caught. “You’re saying . . . you— we can . . . affect the climate?”
“Exciting, isn’t it? Brilliant, if I can say that myself. Hop in.” He patted the seat. “It’s not far. Just across the island. You must see the scenery. And the view!”
Vex dug his fingers into my elbow and pulled me toward the field. “Don’t listen to him. His plan’s rotten. No one thinks it’s a good idea.”
“That’s not true,” Gregor said. “Lots of people support me.”
“Who?” Vex demanded.
“People who don’t earn their living keeping gas-guzzlers on the road.”
I shook off Vex’s hand. “How do you know your plan still works? A lot changed while you were . . . away.”
“You say that like we were on a Caribbean cruise.” His tone held a note of hurt. “Forty years ago, the Keeling Curve was at three hundred and thirty-five parts per million. Now, it’s at four hundred and eight parts.” His voice rose, then cracked.
I moved toward the cart. Gregor wasn’t wrong about the trajectory of carbon dioxide emissions. Charles Keeling had started his measurements at Mauna Loa in the late 1960s. The famous curve fluctuated with seasons, but the trend line only went up.
No one could miss the effects. I’d watched as repeated storms damaged the iconic Ventura Pier. Lainey missed school when her classroom flooded. My farming clients struggled with less predictable rainfall, hotter heat waves and longer, drier droughts. Unhealthy air had us coughing for weeks when Thomas ignited. It consumed all of the brush and thirteen hundred structures, most of them homes, from Ventura to Santa Barbara. All that was left: scorched earth, blackened debris and white ash.
“You want to get to four thirty?” Gregor demanded. “Four forty? Four fifty? Without my plan, that’s where we’re going.”
“There’ve been talks,” I said. “Treaties. Accords.” But fossil fuels were still cheap and readily available; if we didn’t stop using them, the climate would become unstable. Drought would lead to famine. Disease. Conflict. It was already happening in Syria and Yemen. Would Arizona be far behind? New Mexico? Colorado. Texas. California? Talks had resulted in more words than actions.
“It’s a hoax,” Vex said. “Just ask the guy in New York in a snow storm. He doesn’t care about global warming. It’s a fake problem, made up by Chinese companies to sell more solar panels.”
I gaped at him. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nature will balance it out,” he insisted. “It’s a closed system. It will self-correct. Or, we’ll adapt to it. People will migrate.”
“There’s zero evidence to support that.” Dirt flew up from the ground around his feet as my wind sense activated. Only briefly, but still unbidden.
I knew dozens of intelligent people who still thought the science wasn’t settled, global warming wouldn’t affect humanity for hundreds of years or some sort of miraculous technology would save us. Vex was a car guy. He’d been a gull for the last forty years. Could a bird be aware of changes in its own migration patterns and mating seasons over time? Could Vex—or anyone, really, and a Wind Lord in particular—be that dim about the climate crisis?
“Come with me,” Gregor said. “I’ll show you my data.”
The part that I like best is that last long paragraph. It isn’t the facts of climate change that get to me, but that some people cling to denial–or worse, indifference. If it were my scene to write, I’d play make that note the strongest.
Awesome feedback, as always. I can use this. Thanks, Don. Really appreciate your taking the time for my long post.
This entire post is an example of fearless. Thank you for making the invisible visible. I am now straining at the bit…
That’s my mission, to turn fiction magic into technique, to make practical what looks like art, to illuminate what can’t be explained. In this case, it’s a mindset–one that any writer can adopt. Being too careful does not make fiction that’s timeless.
I appreciate this post! Every time I sit down my current project, I’m reminding myself to write boldly. It won’t work if I don’t get out of my comfort zone and stay out. Tucking this one away for the moments when I’m not sure how to break that wall down for myself!
Fortune features the bold, isn’t that what they say? I owe you an e-mail, let’s speak very soon…
Favors.
Technically Fortune does feature the bold — the magazine, that is! I’ll look forward to that email. Also, speaking of fearless punch-in-the-face writing, I’m in the middle of Kameron Hurley’s Islamic bugpunk trilogy and it’s got that in spades, especially the first (God’s War).
When everything is connected, it’s hard to find a small-enough representative chunk, but…
A critical turning point: Andrew O’Connell, actor, is negotiating being a lead in two films (almost) simultaneously, one in India, with director Elson Storr and his wife, Cecily Shaughnessy; the next, in the Czech Republic, Bianca Doyle’s debut film headed for Cannes.
From the just published middle book in the Pride’s Children trilogy, NETHERWORLD, Cecily first:
…“So what’s the problem?”
“He doesn’t have the gift of bilocation.”
“Oh.” She sat, poured a second glass, gave it to Andrew. “So can’t ye work it out somehow?”
“I would try, but the idiot has gone all noble on me.”
“Well, try anyway.” She smiled at Andrew. She poured herself a glass, sipped, sighed happily. “Don’t be an eejit. Talk.”
What had Grant said? ‘Screw with Bianca, and Hollywood will close around her like a vise.’
Storr appraised his prey. “No? Then let me tell you what I know. You’re attached— don’t interrupt. You’re as attached as she needs for funding—and I’m impressed she’s gotten this far without anything in writing—must be quite a script—and they are going to take her royally and hope like hell she knows what she’s doing. Nine in ten or more fail dismally, in any case, but that tenth…” He shook his head. “She just might do it. Has the chutzpah. If not this time…”
“I’m feeling I’ve gone down Alice’s rabbit hole meself.” Andrew took a good swallow of the champagne. “What are we negotiating?”
“It’s going to cost you.”
“I figured.”
“Did you check that contract?” Storr pointed. “Last page.”
Andrew picked up pen and contract, thought hard. A graveyard wind whistled past his back. “Ye haven’t signed it.”
“If you hadn’t come clean, you’d be on hold.”
Forever. And the next guy would’ve gotten the gig. The more important question: would Bianca have found out? He couldn’t tell from Storr’s steady stare…
A high-stakes, risky, gamble of a negotiation is all the better for risky writing. I’d push this a bit more in that direction. The key isn’t what they’re discussing but how they’re discussing it.
Oh, it is. Just a small sample – wasn’t sure how much space to allow myself. Thanks for commenting!
The negotiation takes 4 scenes in two chapters, about 6K words, and ends with:
The Sword of Damocles had left a line in blood on the back of his neck.
Don, I am desperately wanting to know what the other seven common lacks are…
Thank you for a mind-blowing post. New rule for writing: Exit safe mode.
Ha! I can’t believe it took this long for someone to ask. The other seven? Watch this space.
You hit it out of the park this morning, Don. Thank you. And yes, one has to have the audacity to be a writer. I was just thinking how grateful I am for all those early encouraging rejections because they spurred me to learn the craft, and how grateful I am for even the later rejections because they spurred me to take the plunge into self-publishing. This morning I started something new and exciting even as I prepare to go on a mission trip for the next six weeks. Blessings to you and yours for a wonderful Christmas.
Merry Christmas, be safe and do good on that mission trip. I know you will.
Damn, Don, I hope you had a fire extinguisher nearby to put out the flames after you wrote that post. Double-damn.
I’m glad I haven’t died today yet (there’s still time) to tell you how much I am moved by your words here.
Well then, Tom, move some flame-thrower words onto your screen, why don’t cha? We could use more.
Thank you! That’s what I needed to hear!
I kind’a needed to say it, too. Been reading a few tame manuscripts lately and have been longing for stories unsafe, bold and memorable.
“I’m talking about fearlessness, being recklessly independent of all expectations and at the same time utterly bonded to all of us. A lot of things get in the way of that, not just the intimidating standards of publishing—whatever those are—but authors’ inhibitions and influences.” Thanks for the shot of courage, Don.
You’re welcome, now write!
“Write what’s going to piss me off but you don’t care” – you asked for it ….
So what are the other 7 faults, then? You gonna tell us, or are you gonna tell us we have to buy your overpriced book to find out, huh? Like I care anyway, I bet I’ve seen them all before.
Winking face emoji ;-) so you know I’m joking – yafi-ygi (You asked for it – you got it!)
Seriously, I really like your list of exercises, I’ll have a go at some more of them. And I would be interested in what you’d count as the other seven, or have you posted them recently and I missed it?
(And that wasn’t “write the opposite of what you believe.”)
Overpriced? No way. $16.99 for eight ounces of gold? A bargain. LOL. Seriously, I like your attitude. Get it on the page, then we’ll be having a good time!
Attitude? OK, here goes, this is the beginning of one I prepared earlier
Lee had shut himself into one of the first-floor bathrooms and Alison Green, the House Mother, was talking to him through the door. In the Games Room, Lisa and Paul had started an argument that was about to turn into a fight. Onlookers were taking sides. Welcome to Woodside House on a Sunday afternoon. Halfway up the stairs, I was sitting on the window ledge, reading. I would have gone out, anywhere, or even nowhere, just to get away from them all, but it was cold, windy and raining. Welcome to Blocksborough in November.
Alison opened the fire door at the top of the stairs, and said, “Chris?” I pretended not to hear.
“Chris?!”
“I’m reading,” I said, without looking up.
“Will you do something for me, please Chris?”
I sighed and rolled my eyes. “It’s a good book.”
“Would you go and tell Mr and Mrs Martin, who are in my office, that Lee is going to let me in, and I may be a while?”
“It’s a very good book.” But resistance was clearly useless. I climbed down from the ledge.
“Thank you. And could you stay and talk to them, at least for a few minutes?”
I froze. “But what do I talk about?” I protested.
“Tell them about the book,” she said. The door closed behind her.
.p.s. I just remembered, I think there’s a transatlantic difference in how floors in buildings are numbered, so maybe I should say “one of the boys’ bathrooms” to make it bilingual.
Thank you. Sometimes we do need permission to light and toss the match.
Permission? Says who? Screw it. Light the damn match and start a fire! What are you waiting for?
I’ve struggled with slow starts in previous novels. Half-unconsciously holding back, not wanting to start with a high bid, because what if I can’t follow through in a satisfying way?
The writing of my current WIP has coincided with two really tough years (pandemic aside). It’s reached the proofreading stage and should be out earlyish next year.
The first line of Amiant Soul:
“It was the first chill night in autumn, the night the dying man came in.”
Death comes through the door and a story comes to life. Great opening line!
Great stuff, Donald!
“Snap, sing or singe?” Yes, please.
From Mary Shelley, in Frankenstein: “Beware, for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.”
“It’s not safe. It’s not careful.”
Yes, I know. That’s precisely why I advise writers to “Dare to be bad” (Nina Kiriki Hoffman), “Write into the dark” (Dean Wesley Smith), and “Trust your characters to tell the story that they, not you, are living.” (That would be me.)
This was just what I needed to read today! Thank you so much for this post. I just wrote down all the writing prompts you mentioned and I’m very excited to tackle them and work the answers into my current draft.
Don, thanks for a chilling read! A good set of prompts as I begin a new story. This line of yours especially reached me and made me want to respond with my own paragraph:
Write a passage in which being lost is not a temporary condition but is a state is as final as tombstone.
A warmth spread in Jane’s chest, her heart’s automatic response to her husband’s voice. She was now two Janes: one pregnant and settled into her current life, the other a skeptical witness from the future. Could she have adjusted to this arrogant man in any history and be his subservient wife?
And please do tell us the other common lacks, in future articles!
“Now go burn down this world with your words. To hell with polite. Make us listen to you.”
Thanks for the (needed) kick in the pants!
Thank you, Mr. Maass, your message is what I needed to read. Full of doubt, writing for the last thirty years, I’ve been too fearful to pull the trigger and seek an agent. Why? My stuff is a little (well more than a little off the wall), revolving around people who live on the margins of society. You give me inspiration and hope.
Thanks again,
Leslie J. Getty
Thank you for this post! It’s very timely for me; I’ve been trying to jumpstart my imagination for my writing after a stretch of time where I was unable to write much, and these prompts feel like they’ll help.
This is a concept that seems to be shared between art forms. Certainly the most frequent advice I’ve gotten when acting is to ‘commit, commit, commit.’ I certainly strive to write this way, though anxiety and a tendency to overthing every little thing can make it challenging.
Fearlessly written books (usually fantasy) do seem to be the ones I most often end up recommending to others:
Gideon The Ninth (and the two following books in the Locked Tomb series) – first mentioned to me as lesbian necromancers in space, and it’s that and so much more; such a blend of genres and subgenres, all told in a truly unique character voice which shifts to another equally unique one each time there’s a new book.
Godly Heathens, which I’m reading the ARC for right now; I’m less than a quarter of the way through so far (started it yesterday, and would have loved to read it all in one sitting, but scheduling didn’t allow for that), but already the strong character voice and its connection to the human condition in all its messiness (for all it is following a character who isn’t human) are suggesting a book that’s going to stick with me.
Now that I think about it, I’ve been finding more and more books that hit many of these chords since I started deliberately seeking out books written by and for lgbtq+ people (what can I say, I’ve gotten attached to finding characters that actually feel like they reflect me and those closest to me) – maybe because these authors are already writing outside the conventional boundaries (the fact I’ve run into the same with other stories written by and for other marginalized communities as well strengthens this impression). If it’s inevitable that people will get pissy about the book existing anyway (or even go so far as to try to ban it in some states), why not throw caution to the winds and write what you truly want to?
Gideon the Ninth is represented by my agency, so I’ve read it, but Godly Heathens is new to me. Thanks for plugging it, must read!
Donald Mass, I have read over two dozen books on writing in recent years and Writing 21st Century Fiction is easily the most approachable and most useful of them all. During all that free time in 2020, thanks to the pandemic, I started writing. And a short story idea of mine reached over 100,000 words as of June 2022 (my job has gotten busy again, so wrote when I could). I wrote a book! I had a blast writing it and learned so much in the process. I’m in the self-editing phase now.
I learned that I simply needed to give myself permission to write. I learned that getting what feels like a filled out idea from my head to page reveals every little hole and inconsistency in my idea. I learned that writing is deeply satisfying.
I am not a sycophant, really, honest, but I’ve read your book cover to cover at least twice and referred to different sections many times. I’ve got so many post-it strips in that book, it looks like a rainbow is trying to escape the pages.
So, thank you.
Thank you so much! 100,000 word short story? I think not. The novelist in you clearly is awakened.
You mentioned that “fearlessness” was the eighth missing element; what are 1-7, Don?
What are the chances of a series covering 1-7 of the missing elements?
I imagine immersive POV would be one of your list of eight. Maybe character complexity with dynamic characters and character arcs? What else?
Best wishes,
Val