Test Your Talent for Writing Fiction

To build a career as a novelist you’ll need at least four pillars: life experience, craft, talent, and luck. The first two supports must be acquired; the final mainstay, luck, is beyond your control; while the third pillar, talent, is something you’re born with or not.

No amount of real life adventures or writer’s workshops can earn you more talent. By definition, talent means gift, and every aspiring writer must face the scary question: Do I have the knack—am I gifted?

One way to answer that question is to see how closely your personal muse matches a collection of traits that most successful novelists possess. As an obvious example, just as painters and photographers are engrossed by light in all of its moods, natural storytellers are fascinated by language in all of its voices. A person who is not easily enthralled by the power and grandeur of words probably lacks a true gift for writing.

What follows is a quick test for gauging your writing aptitude. Okay, it’s utterly unscientific—but a high score shows you’ve got a lot in common with the best storytellers.

The D.I.P.S.T.I.C.K. Quiz

(Do I Possess Sufficient Talent Independent of Craft or Knowledge?)

How to score: On a scale of 1 to 5, mark whether you strongly agree (5), or strongly disagree (1), with each statement as it relates to your own character traits.

1.      YOU MAKE UP STORIES ABOUT PERFECT STRANGERS. That silver-haired executive-type in the theater seat in front of you ditched his wife half a year ago for the trophy blonde now clinging to his arm. His new sex life is hotter in some ways, but lying awake tonight he’ll remember his first wife and ache for all he traded away.

2.      YOU OFTEN PLAY THE IMAGINATION GAME, “WHAT IF? What if you had the secret power to heal people by stripping off your clothes in churches? Would you be willing to use it?

3.      YOUR CURIOSITY HAS BIG MUSCLES FROM CONSTANT EXERCISE. Curiosity could get you killed, as it did the cat, but perhaps you’ll die as a bestselling novelist. A jetliner passes above—Who are the travelers? Where are they going? What are they doing right now?—that’s the way your mind works.

4.      YOU’RE NOSY ABOUT THE WRITING PROCESS. If you receive a letter with some words crossed out, you’ve got to snoop and see what it said before revision.

5.      YOU’RE NOSY ABOUT BOOKS. You’ve got to see what that tough-looking teen-age girl in the leather jacket and spiky hair is reading.

6.      YOU STUDY PHOTOS OF CROWDS, FACE BY FACE. A crowd in Grand Central Station surrounds a busker playing cello. Inserting yourself behind each set of eyes, you try to imagine the experience from the viewpoint of the old man, the little girl, the custodian—every person in the scene.

7.      YOU SPY INSIDE OTHER PEOPLE’S MINDS. You can’t keep yourself from wondering about the psyche of others; not only the horror of a murder victim, but what the hell was going on in the killer’s head.

8.      YOU’VE GOT A “WEAK EGO BOUNDARY.” This term, coined by Freud, describes people who have a hard time telling where they end and another person—or the whole planet—begins. At its worse, this kind of fuzzy self-border makes you loony. At its best, it gives you the intuitions and sympathies of a damn fine novelist.

9.      YOU HAVE AN ARTIST’S EYE FOR DETAILS. Most will notice that the shed roof is rusty; but you see that the orange rust on the steel roof branches as it runs to the porch eaves like a river fanning into a delta.

10.  HEARING = BELIEVING. Listening to a radio drama or a story read aloud can move you as much as watching a dramatic movie; often it sways you more. 

11.  YOU WRITE FOR THE EAR. You’ve got to like the sound of the words, not just their meaning, so you often read your writing aloud to yourself.

12.  THE DICTIONARY IS YOUR READING COMPANION. You never let an unfamiliar word pass by and remain a stranger. Word origins are especially revelatory. (You do have a good etymological dictionary, don’t you?)

13.  YOU’RE A COMPULSIVE READER. Of billboards, cereal boxes, T-shirts—whatever. You tailgate so that you can read the bumper sticker up ahead. (It says, “Don’t tailgate me, or I’ll flick a booger on your windshield.”)

14.  SO MANY BOOKS, SO LITTLE TIME. Since childhood, you’ve devoured books of all kinds. Walking into a superb library or bookstore is like entering a temple of earthly delights. For you, life without reading would be like procreation without pleasure: entirely possible, but what deprivation! 

15.  YOU CAN’T BEAR TO SPEED-READ. Try as you might to read faster, you automatically slow down with a good book—like a gourmet hovering over steaming Peking duck—to savor the rhythm, the nuance, the mouth-feel of the words. The more brilliant and satisfying the writing, the slower you read.

16.  YOU ENJOY WORD GAMES. Crossword puzzles, anagrams, Scrabble™, puns, acronyms, palindromes—you name it.

17.  YOU ACE VERBAL TESTS. On the verbal portion of the Scholastic Aptitude Test, you scored in the high 600s or better (a perfect score is 800). If you took the Graduate Record Exam, your reading comprehension/verbal skills score was in the top 20 percentile or higher.

18.  YOU WRITE WITH YOUR WHOLE BODY. Books on the craft of fiction advise you to include aromas, textures, flavors and sounds in each of your scenes—not just what the eyes perceive. If this has to be learned, it is mere technique. For a sensualist it comes naturally, and is, therefore, a gift.

19.  A GOOD STORY KIDNAPS YOU INTO ITS WORLD. According to genetics researchers, of all inheritable personality traits one of the strongest is called “absorption,” the ability to become lost in a book, a film, a creative project. This trait is thought to be about 75 percent based on your genes, not your upbringing. So, thank mom and dad if you can easily abandon yourself to fiction—reading it, or writing it.

20.  YOU EXTEND OTHER’S STORIES BEYOND THE FINAL SCENE. Fictional characters linger in your imagination and show you their further adventures. What does Scarlett O’Hara do after Rhett Butler delivers what the American Film Institute voted the top movie line of all time: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn”?

21.  YOUR FICTIONAL CHARACTERS TAKE ON A LIFE OF THEIR OWN. You make up story people, plop them in the middle of an intriguing conflict, and they quickly become so real to you that you get the feeling you’re simply a reporter, observing and describing what they say and do and what happens as a result.

22.  YOU’VE GOT TERRIFIC PERIPHERAL VISION. You aren’t just interested in the football game down on the field. What about the teen-ager selling popcorn? That grandmother over there who’s sipping from a hip-pocket flask? You hear a cat mewing somewhere under the bleachers. You risk boring your readers into a coma if you include too many details, but it helps your characters come alive when you notice surprising little things in your fictional world.

23.  YOU SHRINK FROM CLICHES LIKE A SLUG SHRINKS FROM SALT. “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.” That’s wonderfully vivid language, or at least it must have been when it was first used back in Chaucer’s day. Now it’s weaker than three-time tea.

24.  GETTING THE WORDS RIGHT IS SATISFACTION ITSELF. Maybe you’re not as obsessive as Ernest Hemmingway, who rewrote the last chapter of A Farewell to Arms 119 times. But in your own writing you strive for something very close to perfection.

25.  PEOPLE OFTEN TELL YOU, “YOU OUGHTA WRITE A NOVEL.” Hear this enough and it means there’s something special in the way you sling words together. At the least, it means you’ve got the storyteller’s knack. At best, it means you not only tell stories well, but you’ve got your own voice. The crucial advice: write the same way you talk.

26.  YOU’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO WRITE FICTION. Maybe it’s because you are a novelist; it’s your fate to write fiction, and in your heart you know it.

INTERPRETING THE F.Q. TEST RESULTS:

Add the score and give yourself bonus points for being brave enough to take this silly test.

·        101 to 130 points: Spectacular. You may be the next Nora Roberts. A worldwide readership awaits you; topnotch literary agents cry, “Me! Pick me!”

·        86 to 100 points: Excellent. You’ve definitely got what it takes. Begin that novel now. Never give up until you see your byline in the bookstores.

·        51 to 85 points: Good. You’ve got some pizazz. But read everything you can on the craft of fiction to bolster your talent.

·        25 to 50 points: Average. What you need here is a life so large it would read like pulp fiction. For example, it would help to be Col. Jeannie Flynn Leavitt, the first female commander of an Air Force combat wing, with thousands of male fighter pilots under her leadership. Just be sure to hire a talented ghostwriter.

USAF Col. Jeannie Flynn Leavitt

Lost in Translation

In 1997 a Japanese publisher paid me a nice advance for the Japanese language rights to my debut novel about a NEANDERTHAL girl ("Ember from the Sun"). Here is the ridiculous cover. 

And the Japanese title? "25 Thousand Mornings." That's only a bit more than 68 years! The novel's heroine belongs to a human subspecies from 25 thousand YEARS ago. 

Story Power

When I was six, I read the story of Thumbelina in Andrew Lang’s Blue Fairy Book. When I got to the part where she finds her beloved bird frozen dead in the snow, I burst out crying. Then, in the middle of my heartache I had an epiphany: “A story did this to me!” In that moment I decided to read books the rest of my life.

Characterization

As a fiction writer, no matter what story you are telling you are writing biography: an intimate and detailed exposition of your characters' lives and personalities. Your challenge is to portray each of the main characters in your story as a unique “real” person, rounded with distinctive details.

You’ve likely heard the advice, “Show, don’t tell.” In terms of characterization this means that merely describing a character’s disposition (f.g., “James was a lonely widower, unsure of himself when meeting new people, especially women”) is not a compelling way for your readers to discover that character. Rather, let your characters reveal themselves through their thoughts, words and actions. In this organic way, readers will feel that they get to know your fictional characters in the same way they learn the personalities of real people in their lives.

To enable your characters to divulge themselves you have to keep them active. Present all the important events on stage where your readers can experience them firsthand, and not just hear about absent scenes through the characters’ memories. (Well-written dialogue qualifies as dynamic action, but internal monologue quickly gets boring.). Fuel each of your main characters with concrete problems they must struggle to solve (or concrete goals they fight to obtain), rather than vague, abstract goals such as “searching for happiness.” Set each person (protagonist and antagonist) on a definite path of pursuit of what he or she desires. Their actions will show who they are, while driving the story forward and leading to its increasing complications, conflicts and tensions.

One of the most effective ways to reveal a character is to describe the setting through his or her senses and emotions, rather than neutrally, through objective narration. This technique shows the external and internal environments at the same time, giving the whole situation of the scene.

Below is a list I created for myself to help muse about my characters before writing the first page of a new story. I print out a copy for developing each main character, allowing room to jot down notes. I hope the list will help you to arrive at that euphoric moment when your characters come alive for you on the page. At that point, your fingers will race over the keys because the people inhabiting your imagination will begin to dictate their own story.

·        NAME. Does the character’s first and last name (or nickname) reflect his or her personality?

·        MOTIVES. What does this character badly want? How do events (each scene, as well as the whole story) directly relate to this character’s specific hopes and fears? What person(s) or forces does this character oppose?

·        SUSPENSE FACTOR. Is there a clear-cut, highly-charged, dramatic question (“Will she, or won’t she?”) that applies to this character’s goal(s)?

·        SURPRISES/OBSTACLES. What complication would pose the biggest threat or challenge to this particular character?

·        REPUTATION. Is this person known to have a short fuse? Known as a man of his word? Known as a pushover? A winner, a loser, etc.?

·        HABITS. Positive and negative habits. Any quirks or eccentricities?

·        ATTITUDES/LIFE VIEW. What disposition plays a role in this character’s past or present life? Is religion influential? Philosophy? Personal slogans? Family sayings?

·        FLAWS. Greed, pride, jealousy, anger, shame, etc.

·        TALENTS/KNOWLEDGE/SKILLS. Education, degrees, titles. Natural gifts. Special training, expertise. Military experience? Hobbies, sports. Which skill set plays a direct role in the story?

·        PAST/BACKSTORY. Place of birth. Childhood. Crucial life-shaping experience? Most painful event in life? Most wonderful event? Proud of what? Ashamed of what?

·        RELATIONSHIPS. Parents. Family members. Friends (best friend/sidekick?). Memberships. Pets—importance of pets. Is there a kinship or a prior relationship with the love interest or adversary?

·        PROMISES. Oaths, commitments to uphold or break?

·        SPEECH/DICTION. What is the sound quality of this character’s voice (reedy, sonorous, smoky, etc.)? Does she speak with street slang? An Oxford accent? Fast or slow talker? Chatterbox, terse? Oft-used expressions?

·        TASTES in food, clothing, music, literature, arts, etc. High-brow? Low-brow? Mixed tastes? Natural? Pretentious?

·        PHYSICAL APPEARANCE. Height, weight, eye color, hair color, race, body type, distinguishing features. Posture. How the character walks, sits, talks, eats, laughs. Tics? Mannerisms and typical gestures. How does character feel about her appearance?

·        STATUS OBJECTS: Everyday objects that reveal a range of things about a character’s level of income and education, materiality, attitude, and philosophy. (Does he wear a plastic sports watch, or a Rolex Oyster? Does she drive a Jaguar or a Jeep?)

·        HOME/NEIGHBORHOOD. Trailer, cabin, apartment, manor, etc. What is overall impression of the home? (Cluttered? Clean? Well-planned?) Is this home, sweet home, or would the character prefer to live elsewhere?

·        PREFERENCES. Enjoys shopping? For what? Favorite music, movies, books. Comfort food/favorite food? Eats burgers or alfalfa sprouts?

·        JOB/PROFESSION. Money history and attitudes (prudent, cautious, generous?). Debts?

·        EMOTIONAL TRAITS. How does the character react to an emergency? How does the character handle praise, criticism? Any emotional wounds?

·        HOW DOES THE CHARACTER CHANGE? What lessons have been learned by the story’s end?

Fine-Tuning Your Prose, PART I

Writing is rewriting. Reshaping early drafts to create a compelling tale that hurtles along may require major surgery. However, this month’s column is about the finer craft of microsurgery:  strengthening and accelerating your prose, word by word, and sentence by sentence.

To enliven your prose and eliminate drag, consider the following tips.

1.      Concentrate on Nouns and Verbs

A common mistake of novice writers is to doll-up drab prose by painting on colorful adjectives and adverbs. But overuse of adjectives and adverbs makes the writing flabby, and often leads to flowery or “purple” passages that are the sign of an amateur. The real key to intensifying your prose is to focus on nouns and verbs.

Nouns and verbs are the power words of language, the words that tell the story. That’s because our direct experience (before we interpret it) is simply of people, things and places (= nouns) interacting (= verbs). Nouns and verbs provide the clarity of detail and the drama of action. Consider newspaper headlines; generally, they consist only of nouns and verbs, yet they tell the essential facts: Python Attacks Baby; Mom Strangles Snake.

Vivid writing is concrete and specific. Readers can picture precise nouns easier than generic nouns. “A bug smashed against the windshield” is less specific (and less vivid) than “A dragonfly smashed against the windshield.”

This rule even applies to similes and metaphors, which are richer when you select specific nouns. “She eats like a bird” is not as easy to picture as “She eats like a sparrow.” (Or does she eat like a vulture?)

Of course these rules of thumb are not absolutes, but a matter of each writer’s personal art. Here are three versions of the same metaphor. Which do you prefer?

“Deep in her brain, lives a reptile.”

“Deep in her brain, lives a crocodile.”

“In the basement of her brain, lives a crocodile.”

Perhaps you don’t like any of them. (That’s why the DELETE key is a writer’s best friend.) Nevertheless, the third version, with specific nouns, is the easiest to visualize.

2.      Turbocharge Verbs and Toss Out Adverbs

Weak verbs need the crutch of adverbs; strong verbs stride on their own.Stephen King wrote, “The road to hell is paved with adverbs,” and Gabriel Garcia Marquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude) was so opposed to adverbs that he managed to write an entire novel, Amor, without using them. Compare these two sentences (the second uses a stronger verb and no adverb):

·               She set down the phone angrily.

·               She slammed down the phone.

Now imagine a whole novel filled with adverbs propping up lazy verbs and you’ll understand how adverbs blunt the edge of your writing.

Adverbs aren’t needed in attributions; they provide an explanation that treats the reader as a dummy: “‘You’re the mango of my eye,’ he said, lovingly.” (This kind of flab is made fun of in a type of joke called a Tom Swifty: “I’ll have mustard on mine,” Tom said frankly.”)

By scrimping on adverbs, you eliminate “echo”—in which the adverb repeats the meaning already given by the verb. (The alarm blared loudly. The flames burned hotly. Her teeth clenched tightly.)

3.      Convert From Passive to Active Sentence Construction

When you use the “passive voice” the target of the action in your sentence gets promoted to the prominent position, where the doer belongs. For example, “Her house was burned down by the soldiers” is less vivid than “The soldiers burned down her house.” The first sentence is passive construction; the second, active. Stay on the alert for the prepositions “by” or “through”—which mark the passive voice.

4.      Convert Negative to Positive Statements.

Check to see if facts you have stated negatively (“the lines were not straight”) can be made more vivid by stating them positively (“the lines squiggled”).

5.      Replace Abstract Adjectives with Concrete Descriptions

 As with generic nouns, abstract adjectives (“beautiful,” “ugly,” “good,” “bad,” “young,” “old,” “small,” “big”) offer an imprecise image.

Ask yourself, “How ‘big’ is ‘big’”? If you mention “a big whale,” your reader can only vaguely picture its size. But if you write, “a whale the size of a school bus,” you’ve provided a concrete image.

Also, be wary of intensifier words, such as “very” and “quite,” which are used to bolster weak adjectives (“quite sad” does not convey the richness of “morose.”)

Reality check: No amount of fine-tuning individual words and sentences will revive a lifeless story. On the other hand, a first-rate story often can make up for second-rate prose (as seen in not a few blockbusters) because readers respond first and foremost to CHARACTERS and PLOT, the subjects of my two earlier posts. 

Fine-Tuning Your Prose, PART II

Perfect prose won’t resuscitate flat characters stuck in a dull story. But when you invent a fascinating tale about sympathetic people and their compelling struggle to win love, you’ll want to tell it like a pro. So let’s take one last look at some nitpicky prose details that experienced writers keep in mind.

            Place words you wish to emphasize at the start or end of each sentence or phrase. Read the next two sentences out loud. “Throw your sainthood away.” “Throw away your sainthood.” The second sentence places the more important word at the end. Hear the subtle difference? Following this rule both clarifies and intensifies the drama your words convey.

Don’t overuse or misuse attribution. A simple she said or he said suffices to keep readers on track as to who is speaking each line of dialogue—and that is the sole purpose of attribution. When attribution is not needed to follow the conversation, leave it out. And by all means, resist the urge to use attributions to explain the scene. Agents and editors roll their eyes at this kind of writing:

“I like it when you touch me like that,” she whispered throatily.

“That so?” he asked innocently.

“Come closer,” she purred.

“Guess I know what I’m doing,” he chuckled.

Skip the travelogue. If you show your characters moving from one setting/scene to another (on sidewalks, stairs, elevators, subways, taxis, and so forth), make sure the trip tells something important about the character or plot. If not, leave out “getting there.” Think of cuts between movie scenes: first we see two lovers chatting in a romantic restaurant; next we find them in bed. If it doesn’t matter to the story how they got from bistro to bedroom, the director does not waste a scene showing those irrelevant details.

Omit information that doesn’t add to the mood, character or plot. You’ve probably heard the rule, “Show, don’t tell.” But it’s not that simple. You must decide when to show, when to tell, and when to ignore. The two examples below are not “right” or “wrong,” but the second uses tighter prose, which drives a story forward in a faster pace.

·        The kitchen phone rang. Lara padded across the Mexican tile floor in her bare feet and snatched it from its wall cradle on the fourth ring. “Hello,” she said.

“Hello,” said a male voice with a nasal tone. She didn’t recognize it.

·        The kitchen phone rang. Some guy with a nasal voice Lara didn’t recognize.

Don’t overdo first impressions. Give character description to the reader in small doses. Mention only a few things about a character initially and move on with the action; you can insert more features along the way. “A lanky, red-haired kid with a firestorm of zits” is plenty of information for the first look. The character will go out of focus if you toss in too many descriptions at once (…and cobalt blue eyes, large-knuckled hands, with one shoulder lower than the other.)

Keep to a minimum as and -ing constructions. They make the depicted actions seem simultaneous, and the first move appears somehow less important than the second. In the examples below, the third reads best.

·        As she slipped out her dagger, she spun to face the soldier.  

·        Slipping out her dagger, she spun to face the soldier.

·        She slipped out her dagger and spun to face the soldier.

Purge stale language. It’s fine when your characters speak in occasional clichés, because we all talk like that. But aside from writing realistic dialogue, don’t grab the following phrases off the cliché shelf: an emotional rollercoaster, little did she know, better than ever, as fate would have it, needless to say, well in advance, in over her head, for some curious reason, a number of, as everybody knows, things got out of hand, it came as no surprise, it was beyond her, the time flew. Obviously, the list continues. Set your cliché alarm to buzz a warning.   

            Be wary of “very.” Modifiers (very, so, just, still, quite, somewhat, rather) muddy your prose. If the adjective needs the crutch of a modifier, replace it with a better descriptive word (“very weak” does not sound as feeble as “puny”).   

            Feeling intimidated by so many rules to bear in mind? Let me suggest a strategy many writers employ. When you first set your story to writing, switch off The Editor and let your wild heart roam. Only after you’ve captured words on the page—at the end of a day, or scene, or chapter—put your editor’s mind to task, analyzing and improving story structure and polishing your prose. And remember what Pablo Picasso said: “Learn the rules like a professional, so you can break them like an artist.”

Classic Story Structure

No untrained musician grabs a sax and makes it wail like “the Trane” (John Coltrane). Saxophonists, novelists—all artists—first need to learn the rudiments; only then can they riff.

Among the rudiments of storytelling is classic story structure—and I do mean “classic.” Aristotle first explained these plot elements in The Poetics (4^th century B.C.E.), the earliest known work of literary theory. All the world’s literary masterpieces, as well as contemporary romances and thrillers, mysteries and fantasies, can be broken down to the same building blocks that Aristotle pointed out millennia ago.

Before you try experimenting with tricky story structures (stories that begin at the end and then reconstruct the beginning; stories where the narrator is deluded, or is a liar, or has no long-term memory, etc.) you would do well to learn the basic dramatic structure that has worked so well since ancient times.

You may worry that if you build a story using a time-worn formula your romantic tale will turn out to be one big cliché. Yet given the many far-ranging variables in character, motivation, setting, events—and the author’s unique voice—it is rare for well-written tales to end up as clones (though fans of romance and other genre literature will expect to encounter familiar themes, such as the redemptive power of love).

Here then, in minimalist form, is the classic story structure used by Aristophanes and Shakespeare and Nora Roberts.

·        Something dramatic happens to someone, creating a serious problem or provoking a deep desire for something she wants very badly.

·        The drama takes place within a specific, concrete setting (the setting should not be arbitrary, but an integral element of the story).

·        She fights back or pursues her goal, driven by a strong need created by her character and her past. Forces or persons try to stop her, but she keeps pressing forward because something critical to her heart is at stake.

·        Things get more complicated and she plunges ever deeper into difficulties and danger. These obstacles arise logically from her efforts to gain her goal.

·        Her troubles escalate, everything grows worse.

·        Troubles become monumental, and the protagonist is finally forced by the circumstances to discover a truth about herself or the world. This important lesson enables her to break through to make a critical decision or a personal change.

·        At last, she gains her goal and satisfies her need.  

Here is a slightly different look at this same classic story structure:

·        A person (The Protagonist)

·        In a place (The Setting)

·        Has a problem. (The Conflict/Antagonist. Look for specific characters and troubles tailored to hurt and challenge this particular character. Remember that an internal conflict often carries a story farther than external troubles.)

·        The person takes her best shot at solving the problem. (The Action)

·        Things get worse.(The Complications, full of surprises, twists, setbacks)

·        Troubles hit rock bottom. (The Pit—which usually awakens The Insight and then The Choice.)

·        The protagonist confronts her opposition (internal and/or external) in a showdown. (The Climax).

·        The story resolves—and in a romance, it typically resolves joyfully. (The End, with perhaps a brief denouement or epilogue).

Learn well this ancient, archetypal structure, which virtually all successful stories follow. Then improvise your heart out.