Scott William Carter

Games Writers Play #16: Dictionary Diving

May 4, 2010April 23, 2010Scott William Carter

Your trusty dictionary isn’t just a great resource for spelling and word definitions. It can be a tool for helping you generate new story ideas. I call this technique “Dictionary Diving.”

Here’s how it works: Get a good, thick dictionary, one of the better ones, and then close your eyes, flip through the pages, stop randomly, and choose the closest noun to your finger. Write it down. Do it a second time. Now take those two words and turn it into the first sentence of a new story. Make it provocative, the kind of sentence that raises questions and makes the reader want to know more. Then write one page to see where the story takes you.

Now, if the story doesn’t speak for you, fine, toss it aside. It was just a page. You can always do it a second time. Here’s my two words.

Ghetto
Scavenger

And just for fun, here’s my first sentence:

The ash cloud moved into the ghetto over night, and all the scavengers hid in the abandoned cars with the windows rolled up so their eyes wouldn’t sting.

-+-

Simon and Schuster Author Interview

April 29, 2010April 30, 2010Scott William Carter

Here’s something neat. Simon and Schuster, the publisher of my first novel, has started a new online marketing effort for their authors — a sort of “author portal.” Everyone who participated answered the same questions, I believe. If you’d like to see mine — which includes my answers to such things as, “If you had a super power, what would it be?” — you can check it out here. I’m my normal snarky self.

You can even preview the first 50 pages of the book, if you want to sample The Last Great Getaway of the Water Balloon Boys before deciding if you want to buy it.

“A Problem with Polly” Published in Cat Tales II

April 28, 2010April 28, 2010Scott William Carter

Some stories take longer to get into print than others. I sold “The Problem with Polly” to Award-winning editor George Scithers — who sadly recently passed away — for his Cat Tales series three years ago.

It’s now made its way into print, in the book Cat Tales II: Fantastic Feline Fiction, which you can buy from Amazon and other places. The story is about a man who has a problem with a cat named Polly. Actually, more than one cat . . . Well, you’ll have to read the story to know what I mean.

And hey, my name even made the cover. Neat, huh?

Games Writers Play #15: Heinlein’s Rules

April 27, 2010April 27, 2010Scott William Carter

Here’s some powerful rules, originally created by noted science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, which have helped lots of writers get out of their own way. The longer you’ve been doing this — and by this I mean writing aimed at professional publication — the more you realize that though writers like to complain about the brutal reality of publishing, and about those nasty gatekeepers preventing their masterpieces from reaching readers, the truth is that the biggest impediment to success for most writers is actually . . . themselves.

“Oh, I didn’t finish that story. It wasn’t any good.”

“Mail it? Why mail it? They wouldn’t want this piece. It’s not right for their magazine.”

“Yeah, I’m almost finished. I just have to do a couple more rewrites and then it’ll be perfect.”

How often have you heard yourself, or another writer you know, saying something like what’s above? Well, Robert A. Heinlein had too, which is why he laid out some guidelines for achieving success. Here they are:

1. You must write.
2. You must finish what you write.
3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
4. You must put the work on the market.
5. You must keep the work on the market until it’s sold. *

Very simple rules, but trust me, very tough to follow. Each them addresses a common pitfall — not writing, not finishing, not mailing, and giving up too easily. The 3rd rule has caused by far more outcry and disagreement than the others. Rewrite? How can I not rewrite? Isn’t that what our English teachers told us was the secret to success? Well look, each writer has to decide for themselves how to apply these rules, but you might want to give them a shot before ruling them out. If you haven’t achieved the kind of success you want as a writer, what do you have to lose?

* Hat tip, of course, to Robert A. Heinlein. Originally appeared in the 1947 essaying “On the Writing of Speculative Fiction.”

-+-