Showing posts with label Jack Bickman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jack Bickman. Show all posts

Saturday, February 27, 2021

Remembering a Mentor

I was talking with my sons about the value of mentors in your professional development. I mentioned that it was something that I hadn't done and regretted it. Then I remembered that wasn't quite true. I did have a mentor as a writer and he had been a significant influence in giving me the skills and knowledge that helped me eventually get published.

Around 1987, I got serious about writing a novel. I quickly discovered that I didn't know what I was doing and sought to educate myself. By then I had moved to Fresno, California, and signed up for an adult education class on writing. It was taught by a woman who was a copy editor with the local newspaper. While she knew the technical ins-and-outs about writing, she established herself as a gate-keeper and claimed that if we didn't do things her way, that she'd make sure none of us would ever get published. The best thing I can say about the experience is that I now know what a terrible critique group is like. 

Then when I moved to Colorado, I joined Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and discovered what it was like to be among for-real published authors eager to share their wisdom and help the rest of us along. My first RMFW critique group was comprised of wannabes and in spite of our enthusiasm, it was the blind leading the blind. After receiving a rejection letter in which the agent recommended that I work on my synopsis, I signed up for an RMFW workshop on writing a synopsis. During the class, this man sitting behind me asked about my work-in-progress. He then invited me to join his newly formed critique group. That man was Jameson Cole.

Turns out that he had just won the Colorado Book Award for his novel, A Killing in Quail County. The fact that he had been published by St. Martin's Press and won an award gave him serious street cred. I was one of six-to-seven writers who met in his home just outside Morrison. We soon learned that this was no coffee klatch. Jim was strict with his rules about critiquing. For homework, he assigned two books that he'd quote from like Scripture, Dwight Swain's Techniques of the Selling Writer, and Jack Bickham's Scene & Structure. The critiques were heavy on mechanics and craft for commercial fiction, and we didn't indulge in lofty literary prose. The sessions were bouts of writing boot camp, but unlike my experience in California, the critiques were educational and directive. 

However, not all was well. Convinced that he possessed the keys to the publishing world, Jim labored on a second book that went nowhere. He started on a third and those efforts sputtered. The group fell into a funk as none of us, despite our vastly improved works, seemed to be doing little more than collecting rejection letters. Jim accepted a work promotion and moved away. With that, our forlorn band of scribes scattered into the wilderness.

After a long lonely year of not writing, we renewed contact and decided to restart the critique group, minus Jim. It was odd meeting at first, and we felt his stern hand on our shoulders. Then within six months, three of us got publishing offers, which eventually became contracts with Dutton for Jeff Shelby, Ace for Jeanne Stein, and HarperCollins for me. The group has since evolved and moves about Denver like a writing phantom. Its latest incarnation is as a tiki drinking club. Those of us still in the group are first-rate writers, though getting published remains as daunting and uncertain as ever.

Which brings me back to Jim as my mentor. Soon after that conversation with my sons, I received word that Jim had passed away earlier this month. So yes indeed, I did have a mentor, and one to whom I will be forever indebted to. Thank you, Jameson Cole.

Friday, May 11, 2018

The Price of Tea in China

Certified International Indigold 36 Oz. Teapot In Blue
When I was a child and people began veering off from the main point of a story they were telling, someone would bring them up short with the phrase "That has nothing to do with the price of tea in China."

It took me a number of years to figure that one out. And I might add that people don't tell stories much anymore. Great storytellers were once prized. They were good for an evenings entertainment. Good storytellers always built to a suspenseful climax. My father and my Uncle Clarence were two of the best. Cousin Frankie came close. In fact, on some occasions, he could top anyone. 

A number of these stories have stayed with me forever. When Frankie became a lawyer he defended a man who insisted his murdered victim was going to turn himself into a snake and bite him. (True, this one) Frankie went to the reservation and asked a medicine man if by any chance his client honestly believed that. "No," the shaman replied solemnly. "Everyone knows it take three days to turn yourself into a snake." 

My father's recitation of the "Biggest Liar in Kincaid" was one of the funniest stories I've ever heard and like most, it was grounded in truth. Sort of. These stories relied on a keen and benign awareness of human nature. 

But woe to the would be storyteller who lacked timing and pacing. Woe be to the person slapped down with "that has nothing to do with the price of tea in China."

The phrase means a segment is absolutely pointless. Not only does it not add to the story, it's aggravating as hell. 

Exhausting passages that have nothing to do with the prince of tea in China are one of the most common mistakes made by beginning novelists. They are usually inserted to beef up an author's credentials, but have more to do with the author's ego, not the story. It's so tempting to show off one's mastery of the history of a period. Especially when the story is shaped by setting and the environment of the everyday world. 

All historical details should be integrated in such a way that they advance the plot. For my historical novel, Come Spring, I read a whole book about fitting horse collars properly. I really, really wanted to show off my knowledge of horse collars, but knew it would bore readers stiff. I ended up with a scene where my hero, Daniel, padded the horse collar with a piece of precious calico, infuriating his wife, Aura Lee, who had planned to use the fabric in a quilt. 

There's extra tension when descriptive details are so crucial to a scene that the elements stick with readers forever. The account of the Count of Monte Cristo's stay in the dungeon would not be the same without the slimy walls, the moldy food, the crushing deprivation. 

Integration into plot is the best way, but if a writer must use narrative passages, I like Jack Bickham's book, Scene and Structure. Bickham offers an excellent explanation about sequels to a scene and how they set the stage for action to come. Of particular interest is the emphasis on a character's reaction--often brooding--to tension generated and his decision to do something.

Sequels are also a very convenient place to slip in critical observations while the mumbling hero is talking to himself: passing beggars, stumbling over the sick, etc. It's a chance to slip in political opinions. All sorts of stuff. 

I could add many examples of passages that have nothing to do with the price of tea in China, but I'm sure every reader could point to books where they abandoned them half way through for this every reason