Does the Box Really Matter?

Posted on May 2, 2024 by knlistman
Reconstructed weather vane in a box for public display until placed on the steeple of the new Garrison Church, Potsdam Germany

I encountered a young writer who claimed that he always thought “outside the box.” Although many might consider inside the box as a small confining area, much of what we learn to do follows standards, laws, and rules. For example, this young man had been driving a car for a while without having his license revoked. So, I assumed that he conformed to what others expected of him while on the road.

His writing was another matter. It was beyond ordinary and sometimes it took a few re-readings to grasp. However, after I had perused enough of it I realized that he repeated the same types of “out of the box” techniques in each written work. Perhaps, his style differed from the vast majority of people. However, there was not a huge variation within his style. The area “outside of the box” tends to be small for some people. When creativity becomes a habit to churn our writing more rapidly, it becomes the same kind of thought processes that one has inside the box.

While listening to this young man describe his imagination, I recalled lessons learned when coaching grade school teams for creative competitions such as Odyssey of the Mind and Destination Imagination. Some children wanted to be conformists and preferred to suggest ideas that were familiar. They wanted to ensure these ideas would actually work. Other children imagined “crazy” concepts and had to sort through all the bizarre ones to find ideas they could actually produce.  

People do not become creative simply by convincing themselves that they are so.

The children created more differing ideas initially when they worked in groups that allowed them to bounce ideas off each other. As a writer you also need to find other writers, amateurs and professionals who will help you critique your work. After that, you can start entering into competitions to see what literary people at large think of your work as a creative writer. Don’t expect much praise at first. People do not become creative simply by convincing themselves that they are so. They allow themselves to work at being creative and still fail without giving up. Only then can they push themselves to be original while producing work of a high quality.

I have read a lot of books that have been “uninspired”—not ordinary in the content matching our everyday life, but ordinary in the story content replicating what is found in many other books. So, some stories are being cranked out without any inspiration and I imagine that this has been done for ages.

Creativity comes from the willingness to be different from other people. One of its identifying markers is preferring to do something other than what people think should be done. It may not be useful to tell people to think outside of the box because they may not naturally conform to other people. If we allow people to consider ideas and produce in their own preferred method, then there may be no need to rage about being creative and thinking outside of the box.

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My POV Journey

Posted on April 18, 2024 by knlistman

Initially, when I was eight years old, I started writing in the third person point of view and all my characters were animals. Did I mention that Black Beauty was one of my favorite books? A few years later, I composed slightly more complex tales in first person POV as told by me. Imagining that I was the main character is a task easy for a bookworm and avid reader to do. My next step? Basing the protagonist on someone that definitely was not me. I began identifying with complex multifaceted characters, even the ones that were not so nice. I am also imperfect and not always pleasant, so I felt sorry for Frankenstein’s monster.

I started reading “depressing” stories by classic authors because I admired the way that they developed characters.

Exhibiting realistic motivations was a kind of tipping point for me to identify with a fictional character.  I disliked reading about people who had it all together and knew the answers to deal with any problem. At the time these characters had no specific epithet. Today, we call them Mary Sue or Marty Stu.  So, I started reading “depressing” stories by classic authors because I admired the way they developed characters. Rukmani, of Nectar in the Sieve, is a woman in India who lives in a farming village and marries young. Yet, she struggles to adapt as industry takes over her world. She is one of my favorite characters, despite have a life and goals that are nothing like mine.

As my reading habits changed, so did my style of writing. I would alternate between realism and fantasy in short stories, and between first person and third person omniscient POV in attempt to imitating novels written in that difficult to master point of view. Finally, I realized it was easier for me to create a third person POV work in which the reader only got to see into the mind of one or two characters. For my first novel that I actually completed I chose a third-person limited POV for my main character as he experiences new locales. He is not at all like me, but a person with rare talents that I don’t possess such as fluency in a foreign languages. He is still clueless in many ways and often, he struggles to decipher what’s going on in other people’s minds.  

Second person POV is the weird one, using the viewpoint of you, the reader. During the downtime of COVID I experimented with it and found that it was the key to a fictional memoir based on the phone dialogue between two people. Then, I began to write stories that were not based in this real world but in alternate universes. World building required creating multiple viewpoints in my third person POV. Alternate worlds may differ from ours, but each character finds their homeland familiar while this same place is strange and terrifying to others. I even returned to my original characters from my childhood and wrote scenes told from the viewpoint of an animal.

So any debate about which POV is best is a waste of time. The same tale may be told using different ones, and still work just as well.

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Too Much Info

Posted on April 5, 2024 by knlistman

Humankind’s love affair with technology is not a new development. At the beginning of the twentieth century, advances in industrial technology were touted as the solutions to problems of crime, poverty, ignorance and the boredom of ordinary daily life. La Tour Eiffel, nicknamed “the Lady of iron,” rose as a celebrated symbol of technology, built mostly offsite and then assembled in the heart of Paris with amazing speed, at least for its time. The Eiffel Tower watched over two world wars. The “great” war, later called World War 1, reached a destructive intensity unknown before that time due to new technology.  World War 2 started as a resource grab to build up industry and overcome the recession following the first one.

In 1970 a book was published by Alvin Toffler called Future Shock that described the stress and disconnectedness that comes when change occurs too rapidly. It was even made into a film for those too overwhelmed with information overload to read. Although I do not agree with the premise that most of the social problems in our society are due to inability to accommodate rapid change, I do find some of the problems that it causes troubling.  For example, because it is much easier to produce new learning material and new software applications—even though the improvement made is  out-weighed by the new learning curve.

During the seventies, I also  recall learning a new ‘language’ based on simple English phrases that would allow me, a relatively unsophisticated high school student, to communicate commands to a computer. It was called BASIC. This language is one of those dinosaurs of the early information age that has not yet gone extinct, although it is relatively unknown today.

Although we have a world of information at our fingertips, we often do not trust what we see, hear or read.

I have lived through the birth of multiple changes and find that most people do not bother to learn any kind of technology in depth, but concentrate on finding the newest, latest app to make their life easier. As we accelerate towards a rate of change in technology that makes much learning obsolete within a shorter period of time, the demands of constant relearning are bound to create difficulties. Although we have the world of information at our fingertips, we do not often trust what we see, hear or read. To tell the truth, research was in many ways easier before the Internet. There were fewer places to look and published works had to pass the review of gatekeepers, such as editors and publishers, which helped to cut down on inaccuracies, at least those that were not wide-spread accepted ones.

What is the price to be paid for the luxury of being able to have so much information available anywhere there is a wi-fi signal. So, many replicated articles are churned out that we simply let AI compose new content based on past works. I’ve faced a rapid review of words, images and videos that blur together until I’ve realized that I need to take a break from this flood of information. At least that is what the apps on my phone and computer tell me.

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Journeying away from the Hero’s Journey

Posted on March 21, 2024 by knlistman

Want a plot that’s been used successfully thousands of times? Research Campbell’s monomyth or simply read Christopher Vogler’s book on the hero’s journey. The hero’s journey is an idea manufactured as a result of popular literature from Greco-Roman times. However, it does not even include the depth of writing that actually existed within those two cultures. Still some authors have this idea that the hero’s journey as based on Greek myths (and defined by Joseph Campbell) is the only plot worth using. It is becoming the one most palatable to the public. I frequently detect a simplified version of the Greco-Roman literature influencing our culture. How does this affect our society? People assume that this type of literature is used in the rest of the world, but it is not.

I begin to wonder what kind of background some teachers of literature have. I recall a student being downgraded on an assignment when analyzing a story by an Asian author because she could not find the hero’s journey in it. There was none. The main character fled China and came back to find the children she had left behind. Only, these children were now adults and strangers to her. She gained no knowledge and achieved no triumph through her arduous trip back to China. Rather there was a sense of disappointment and doubt about whether she should have taken the journey at all. Still, it was not a tragedy when she realized that her homeland was not worth returning to, and the strange place where her “adventure” took her was now her home.

Popular stories follow the first half of the monomyth and rarely deal with the second part in which the hero screws up his life.

Most of the time popular stories follow the first half of the monomyth in which the hero goes through ordeals and manages to come back victorious from his journey. They rarely deal with the second part where the hero screws up his life. Read what happens to Jason after he brought back a bride who helped him obtain the Golden fleece, and then decided that one wife wasn’t enough. Perseus faced a similar problem after he killed the monstrous Minotaur and rescued a beautiful woman, who he later abandoned. The heroes of monomyths often make a mess of the second part of their life.

The bare bones of the hero’s journey won’t suffice for the entire story either. It is only a guide. When a story has been told thousands of times what makes it interesting is adding personal details. Each author must ask “What things are important to me that I want to emphasize? What events have occurred in my life that match parts of the story? When I get done reading a good novel I feel like I’ve met some of the characters because the author actually has. And, if it turns out that the hero’s journey morphed into something else, so much the better.

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Writing for Therapy

Posted on March 7, 2024 by knlistman

The idea of writing as a therapy is not new. Being able to bare these struggles of the soul on a page could make a person feel better—or worse. My desire to write creates more stress than relief, so I shouldn’t consider it as therapy. When I have ideas in my head that refuse to appear on a page without a fight, tensions definitely increase. When I think about writing I may suffer the delusion that I can produce a work that will touch other’s lives, or at least provide enjoyment. But, when I ask others if they want to read my work, they don’t seem eager to do so.

As a child I retreated to my parent’s bedroom, concealed myself in an overstuffed chair, and plugged my ears, so I wouldn’t hear noise from the outside world when reading. Unfortunately writing requires the same kind of environment for me. When my oldest was a toddler, he played in the room as I typed poetry on the keyboard. At that time most computers were blocky CPUs called towers and these sat on the floor with the connected screen and keyboard on the desk. He quickly learned that pushing a certain button would turn off the screen. I quickly moved the tower on top of the desk because computers back then would sometimes fail if not shut down properly over and over again.

I did not write about my life as a method to deal with the stress, but because incidents provided a more exciting plot

As my children matured, I obtained a real desktop computer and placed my writing desk, so that I could not hear TV or music from the family room. No one messed with my computer, but life became busy enough that most of the little writing I did occurred after bedtime. However, my children did offer inspiration for writing—a phone call from camp to tell me my child had fainted and was in the hospital—led to my first award winning short story. I did not write about my life as a method to deal with the stress, but because this incident provided an exciting plot.

Recently while watching several coming of age movies with my children, who are now adults, we discussed current movies of this type that often have characters wandering through their life and never learning anything as they grow older. I prefer to have at least one of my characters realizing something of value by the time I finish a piece of writing. So, essentially my writing does not provide therapy for me. It is work that gives me a sense of purpose. 

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A Matter of Ego

Posted on February 22, 2024 by knlistman

No one really writes a novel without considering the plot beforehand. Nor do they outline the events so tightly that they know each step the protagonist will take and never vary from this initial plan. So why do we argue about the best method? It is a matter of ego. Authors claiming to write what flows out of their mind without much premeditation often claim to be purists–the truly creative writers. While those who plan their compositions respond to anyone bemoaning the fact they kept rewriting their book with a nonchalant, “Why don’t you try outlining?” 

A person who writes without an outline may keep on composing more and more pages until they have penned passages worth keeping. This writer still has a plan before starting the story, even though writing oneself into a hole may result in ditching a book and starting over again. People with this kind of writing temperament will review their work without mercy if they are wise and cull needless words. It takes perception to put a novel under the knife like a surgeon removing a tumor in an attempt to save the patient. 

Like many writers who rely on outlines (and I fall into that camp) I ruminate about what will occur in the book. I don’t grow weary of writing out the details of a scene that I composed as a detailed list after rehearsing it in my head and I don’t get bored writing this way. Rather, most of the manuscript is never as compelling as I imagined it in my mind. As I determine the number of acts and sketch out the major plot points, I always give into the temptation to start writing scenes. So, I have come up with a compromise of completing each “act” as a fully developed manuscript before I move on to the next one.

Most of the manuscript is never as compelling as I imagined it in my mind.

My initial style is dry and repetitive. I later edit my work to make the language more luscious. That is much the way that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote his stories. When stuck, I will go back and reread to recall my characters’ pasts. Sometimes what I have written earlier surprises me. However, there is a point of diminishing returns. I keep rewording phrases until I imagine they flow. But, when I start changing the characters’ names, eye color, and clothing style, I must acknowledge that I’m not helping my novel any more.

I am comfortable developing the plot first and imagining a conflict that will take an entire book to overcome. It helps to delve into a setting familiar to me, so I don’t spend endless hours researching details. I have found out there really is no list of common culinary practices for southern Britain after the Romans pulled out, nor drawings showing how people dressed, nor a record of how business was conducted without a  currency. At that point I get to create the rules of society for myself. In the end the creator of a detailed outline can be just as creative as the author who wings the entire story.

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The Definition of a Classic

Posted on February 8, 2024 by knlistman

First, you must understand that there is no one definition of a classic work. There is the assumption that the work is well-known. But, in which periods has it gained fame? If it is a current written work, will this fame outlast the life of the author? If so will it be a few years, decades, or centuries?

I first encountered the term “classic” in reference to art and understood that this term referred to the art style from a particular period, the one with the growth of Greek city-states beginning about 500 B.C. and ending 323 B.C., at the death of Alexander the Great. There are other cultures with other classic periods or rapid growth in artistic expression. Although, Alexander the Great’s empire spread Greek culture and art, Alexander was actually a Macedonian. Military empires often do not come up with their own “culture,” but adopt one from a conquered region because having a similar language and culture makes it much easier to rule a huge empire. When the Romans took over, they were too busy building roads and outposts for their huge empire, so they adopted many aspects of the Greek culture.

Fast forward several hundred years to the Renaissance. Europeans rediscovered this “classic” style spread by the Roman empire, including the literature of that earlier time. So what makes classic literature a classic? Largely it’s acceptance by academia. Harold Bloom of Yale University is known for his book about books, The Western Canon: The Books and Schools of the Ages. This discussion of classic books is obviously biased towards English literature. Bloom credits William Shakespeare’s plays and poetry with giving rise to the style of writing that continued to inspire the great works of European literature.

Shakespeare did not write for other highly educated people but was an actor, writer and producer of popular entertainment.

Most students do not realize that Shakespeare was not an “academic.” He did not write for other highly educated people. This renaissance playwright was an actor, writer and producer of popular entertainment. Common people paid a small amount to go stand for hours and watch his plays just like modern people crowd into movie theaters (at least prior to Covid-19). Many people also do not realize that Shakespeare’s plays contain quite a bit of suggestive language. One perceptive student said to me, “If you don’t understand a particular phrase in a Shakespearean play, it is probably R-rated.”

However, the fact that his work has lasted so long is an indication of its general appeal and quality. It’s also an indication of how much the actors wanted to take part in his popular plays. Shakespeare remained famous when other playwrights faded from history because these actors paid to get his work published. What also contributed to Shakespeare’s work becoming “classics” was his popularity as an author within a growing political power. It helped that Shakespeare was writing at the dawn of  the British empire and wrote historical plays parroting the monarchy’s view.

During the growth of an empire, certain people have the luxury of producing art for a living wage. To become well know as an author at the point at which a country starts influencing the rest of the world is indeed fortunate. It seems as if the power of a nation is as important to a work to becoming a classic as the artistic worth of the work. However, that doesn’t means those classics are the best works that exist, just the most well-known.

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Why Don’t They Like My Writing?

Posted on January 26, 2024 by knlistman

Beta reviewers or the local literary critique group may not be fond of what an author has written. However, they often don’t know how to explain what they dislike. The problem could be based on style. Perhaps, the language sounds strange due to unfamiliar regionalisms, or the author has a vocabulary above that of the reviewer, or uses trite phrases ad nauseam.

The level of originality could result in critical comments because original works are not supposed to conform. Some people reading new literature become uneasy if the story bends their expectations of tropes for that genre. So, reviewers may enforce unnecessary standards for “creative” work because this quality is not based on a single component. The more that a writer pushes the envelope, the more that pinpointing what should earn the title creative versus being called ludicrous becomes a challenge.

Other people’s minds work just like that spelling and grammar checker, reading not for content but for conformity to usage that they believe to be correct. They may not accept alternate spellings such as colour or centre, even when the author is British. These reviewers may complain when words are not found in their spelling and grammar checker. However, the artificial intelligence supporting these is no where near perfect.

The most insidious problem with accepting a review of one’s work is based on personal beliefs. The piece may espouse a philosophy that the reviewer disdains. However, chances are this person will never tell the author their true feelings out of a misguided sense of politeness.

When a person is unable to describe what aspects need revision, they often resort to common over-worn expressions.

When a person assigned to assessing your work is unable or unwilling to describe what aspects need revision, they often resort to common over worn expressions, such as “move it up to another level,” “grab my attention,” or “put more into it.” These vagaries don’t address the problems at all. Rather than making the effort to show the author what is wrong with the manuscript, the critique group members advise the author to “show don’t tell,” breaking the very advice they have given.

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Climbing over the Block

Posted on January 18, 2024 by knlistman

What is writer’s block?

For me it is not a dearth of ideas, but a multitude of mediocre ones. If I push through this initial uninspired feeling and write, eventually a creative thought or two should appear. Sometimes I stretch to express a concept higher than my current ability. While writing, I grind my teeth in frustration, wondering if I should give up. Other times I keep typing until I feel a flow of unique words coming out. A day later I review these pages and find that I have said almost nothing. But, not completely nothing. There are still a few paragraphs worth keeping.

 What causes writer’s block?

For me it is exhaustion. When my brain fails to remember words, I stop searching through my mind. Maybe after some rest I can come back to writing. Brainstorming brings up ideas from past experiences. They arise inside of me as I stare into the darkness, deep in thought, or when I dream while sleeping. These thoughts, and even dreams, are influenced by what I’ve read, what I’ve watched, and even more by what has occurred in my life. When I wake up from an interesting dream, I record the scene on my phone, and consider why these images appeared. Were they based on something that I desire or fear? They may become the conflict for a new plot.

How do I deal with writer’s block?

I stop thinking about what is pressuring me and let my mind wander.

I look through old photos or notes I’ve made about plots. Often, I change my location, and go walking, especially at a park, or in a different section of the town. I stop thinking about what is pressuring me and let my mind wander. An hour-long walk is good for me. As I see new things I morph them into elements of my story. If the outside is wet and freezing, which is typical in Oklahoman winters, I try a local museum or a library. I favor the children’s section as an answer to shove aside a block in my writing may come through a beautiful illustration. If not, the children’s books are still fun to look at.

The key for me to prevent writer’s block is to write on a regular basis. I don’t have to always be working on a new novel. I often try my hand at a poem or essays first. When I play with the idea for a new poem, story or play, I don’t have the full concept in mind. I must elaborate and create details that I had not thought of beforehand. Sometimes writer’s block may strike, but it’s never permanent.

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Selling Familiar Names

Posted on January 5, 2024 by knlistman

I looked up at the librarian with a pleading glance, trying to get her attention. I had failed, again, in my attempt to check out books at a self-serve kiosk. My difficulty was holding my card at precisely the correct angle for the scanner to read it. I could type the number in, but the touch keyboard on the screen was not working either. Everything the library had done to automate the checkout experience was now putting me in the mood to commit a misdemeanor—walking out with two unchecked out books under my coat.

Instead of glancing my way, she turned to a co-worker and confided, “Patterson and Cussler are definitely the biggest repeat offenders.” Worse offenders than me? I wondered how many library books they had stolen. However, as the conversation continued I realized this duo was James Patterson and Clive Cussler, two popular authors in the thriller genre. Immediately, I stopped fiddling with my card. I wanted to hear more, but she offered nothing in the rest of her conversation to enlighten me. What was their offense that kept happening? Perhaps, I should have been blunt and asked. But, this event happened shortly after the peak of Covid-19. We were all wearing masks. So, I kept my 6-foot distance and my silence. At one point I gave up and laid my card down, but in doing so I evidently performed whatever magic feat was required to get the scanner to recognize it.

Later at home, rather than diving into one of my books, I googled the similarity between James Patterson, Clive Cussler, and the world of librarians. Evidently both of these authors openly admit that they hired others to write many of their books. James Patterson sketches out plots, which he hands over to ghost writers to be completed. Then, he reviews them and revises the text to maintain some modicum of a similar style.

After Clive Cussler rose to fame he started writing series with other authors. People wonder how much Cussler was actually writing. He even managed to complete five novels after he died. Now, that’s a real ghost writer. Although according to the grapevine his son Dirk is just continuing to write books under his father’s name as he did when Clive was alive.

Books by Patterson and Cussler may be subject to secretive editing by unknown library clients.

But, I found another curious connection. Books by these two may be subject to secretive editing by unknown library clients. A Reddit/Librarians article described techniques to catch the person who kept checking out Patterson books to correct awkward grammar and repeated words with white out. Perhaps it was a copycat offender that my local librarian had mentioned. Rarely, do I look at Reddit for information due to the numerous rants. However, the article both informed and amused me.

Is this kind of guerilla feedback a way for average people to get back at famous authors who seem to sell works under their own names no matter who writes them?

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