The Dreaded 'What If's'

At some point in your life (hopefully sooner than later), some wise person likely sat you down and told you not to entertain the 'What if's.' They're a lousy bunch of mental guests, always coming before the party is ready, and overstaying their welcome. They track mud in at the door (even when it's not raining), eat all the biggest cookies (and leave crumbs all over your new sherpa blanket), and loudly overpower everyone else's stories with tales of their own exploits (you ME, you ME, yo-ME, y-ME, ME, ME). They're not worth inviting to any get-together, small or large, because even after they leave you're stuck cleaning up the wreckage until the next time they come around. In life, if you're smart, you'll keep out the 'What if's."

In story, if you're smart, you'll invite them in.

Story loves to appeal to the imagination; good story will reach out to the reader (or viewer, or listener) and trigger the faint nudges, both the uneasy and the delighted whispers. A story that triggers the imagination is a story that pulls you in and carries you along, sparking your curiosity, and making you think and plan—story—along with it. A story that leaves nothing up to the imagination is like reading board meeting minutes: too long, too many details, and too boring. It doesn't leave any room for free space in the mind, for it to wander at will. Inviting imagination into your story is like inviting the 'What if's.' But surprisingly, in story form, they're quite docile; like the friend who always brings good wine to your dinner party, the colleague who tells you when there's spinach in your teeth before you make a presentation to the VP, and the driver in the front of a long line of cars who stops at the crosswalk to let you cross when you're carrying 5 large Bloomingdales bags. You want 'What if's' in your story.

How do you invite them?

#) Don't over-explain. One of the joys of writing story is that many times, people can relate to situations that you're describing—that means they're acting it out in their heads. If you describe every detail, they'll get tired of trying to stick to your over-demanding script, and they won't enjoy immersing themselves in the story. Bring nuance into your story, but don't describe every single blink and attitude. Fill in the big lines, but leave the little spaces blank, for the imagination to play with.

#) Watch. One of the best ways to learn to write good nuance is to observe social interaction (this absolutely is not an excuse to be creepy). Watch people talk to each other. Watch them greet. Watch them say goodbye. Watch them fight, make up, make decisions, make shallow conversation, make other people cry, make other people laugh, make gossip more interesting, make it boring, and make friends. Watch all of it, see what they do and how they do it, and practice describing it, with sparse language, but still a clear point.

#) Practice. As always, the only way that you'll get better at something is if you do it all the time. Not once a week, not every third day, but every day. For more than just a minute or two. It's a commonly accepted theory that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something.

You'd better get started.

Why You Should Share Secrets

Starting a story at the back end is a fad in novels right now. Some authors like it because they can keep all their cards hidden until the last chapter, where they flash them in a shower of color and go out in a blaze of glory. Writing a story from the back assumes a lot of your reader. It assumes that you are a good enough writer that your reader won't mind being kept in the dark. It assumes that you have a plan, and that you're not just stringing your reader along until you come up with something. It assumes you won't hold their ignorance over the heads of your readers. It assumes that you can create enough suspense in the first ten pages of your novel to draw them back, even though you're carefully keeping them from intentional connection.

Writing a story from the back makes a reader feel ignorant. It's a dangerous game. People who read on their own time aren't obligated to keep picking your book up—it's even less likely that they will if it feels belittling.

Plan carefully before you write a story that leaves your reader in the dark. If you do, be sure to give them little secrets to string them along and make them feel like part of the process.

They'll appreciate you more—and tell other people about you.

How to Be a Better Creative

"I'm working on ________, a project for _______, and it's giving me some trouble." "Oh! I know how to do that. Let me help you."

Two short sentences that automatically better the entire creative process. Be the person who helps, be the person who doesn't mind asking. Both make us better at what we do.

How to Be a Better Storyteller

A bad storyteller could tell a crowd the most exciting news piece of the year (the breaking of a 108 'curse,' for instance), and put his audience to sleep. A good storyteller could talk about a trip to buy a package of napkins, and hold his audience's rapt attention. It isn't the story that makes the story good, worth reading, interesting; it's the storyteller. When he starts to tell a story, he resumes the responsibility to guide, to entertain, to make the audience feel like they didn't waste their time.

In light of that responsibility, how do you become a better storyteller?

#) Practice. It's the number one advice for getting better at everything. You don't get better unless you try. Trying takes time. Practice telling your story—develop your craft. Try different words different places, use bold expressions, make dramatic story-telling moves that you're scared of. Tell your story in the mirror. Tell it to your mom (and then someone who loves you a little less, for more critical feedback), tell it in the dark, tell it to the flock of birds at the pond. The more you do it, the better you'll be.

#) Watch/read/listen to other people. It's hard to develop a craft well in complete solitude. The lucky thing about developing your art is that sharing is allowed. If someone else does something that you admire, that's completely brilliant, try it. Tweak it, change it, make it yours, but don't be afraid to grow by imitation. Other people come up with amazing strategies. Using them isn't wrong—it's like adding a tool to your tool-chest.

#) Say what matters. In this busy, flustered, over-worked and under-rested society, people only want to listen to things that matter to them. If they don't see any reason to listen to what you're saying, they won't listen. Think about what people want to hear, think about what matters to them. They want to hear virtue, kindness, human triumph through herculean struggle. They want to hear stories that make them cry, or roar with laughter, stories that end with a warm feeling all over, or the bright resolve to be a change in the world, to make a difference.

#) Pay attention to your audience. If they're not paying attention, or you're not getting any feedback, if 7 of the 12 people are sleeping, maybe it's time to reconsider how you're telling your story, and change things up.

Being a storyteller is a privilege; being a good storyteller is a gift. Appreciate the privilege and the gift, and do your best to be better. The world could use more of those people (us).

A Case for the Comics

I don't know exactly when I started to read, or, more importantly, when I started to love reading. I do have a theory.

As far back as the very beginning of when I can remember—when I was small and round with curly blonde hair and chubby legs and baby teeth—there were two things at the end of the driveway every morning: a gallon of milk in a chipped, paint-peeling wooden box, and The Gazette, the local Colorado Springs Newspaper (later on, the Wall Street Journal as well, but that's not pertinent here). And somewhere, buried in the rustling gray paper, nestled away in grandiose meekness, the comics. Weekdays there was a single page, full on the front, and half on the back. We would race to get the paper, pull it open, find the comics, and read them as we slowly walked back up our gravel drive.

The comics were the most important part of the morning (besides, of course, breakfast). Some were stand-alone strips, others encapsulated a story that went on and on and on and on. And on Sunday, blessed Sunday, there were three pages of comics, in full, brilliant, dazzling color. They were practically luminescent—at least that was how they looked to us. The only appropriate way to read the Sunday comics was stretched out on the floor, elbows denting the carpet, carpet imprinting the elbows, all the glorious pictures and words stretching out flat on the ground.

Now, still curly blonde hair, but no baby teeth, I suspect it all began with the comics. The comics bred a love of story, a love of humor and wit, a fascination with the tangible emotions that can be crafted by the written word. Comics fed my imagination, showing me that words and pictures work together, and that small sentences do fit in the larger story. They showed me the pictures I should expect from words, and helped me create words to fit the pictures. The books that I read now aren't picture books or comic books (except sometimes, for fun) but it's okay, because I can still see the story in my mind.

People brush off the comics, like they're not important, and certainly not literature. But they are. A smaller, more creative, less complex (and occasionally more) literature. The ability to craft a whole idea in three or four 2.5 x 2.5 inch squares is an exercise in articulation, in creativity, in both excellent wit and editing.

Now I'm an adult (or at least pretending to be one), and I love to read. The comics get partial credit.

Make it Short

A long piece of writing is not automatically good, and a short piece isn't inevitably bad. It's about the preparation and the content. Instead of spending hours writing a lot, think careful about what you're writing. Practice writing less, better. See Seth Godin's blog for today.

Why We Need Writing

Yesterday was fall (the season is currently fall, but yesterday was especially fall-ey). It was brisk and overcast, and the leaves looked like a screensaver on a loop—they just kept falling. The wind smelled like the forecasted rain, as we drove across a half dozen Chicago neighborhoods during rush hour. We pulled up to a red light in our big fifteen-seater van full of college students. Because we sit higher than everyone else, even in the middle lane there was a clear view of the Boost Mobile store on the corner, and the blow-up, one of those tall stick men that waves his arms back and forth and flops both ways.  While we were sitting at the light, a big guy (lots of ice cream kind of big, not lots of weight lifting) wearing a black shirt came out of the store. The shirt had printed on it the words "man of the hour." He slowly bent over and picked up the electrical cord at a joint between the black cord of the blow up guy and the orange extension cord. In his hand he had a piece of duct tape. It was about a foot long, and he was trying to put on the joint, probably to keep the joint dry in the coming rain. The wind was blowing it around and he kept trying to straighten it with his already full hand.He frowned and chewed his bottom lip.

Then the light turned green, and I couldn't watch the end of the story.

This is why we need writing. Writing is like the Instagram of the literate world. Writing is how you record the stories that you see all around you every day. The beautiful seconds, things both poignant and gentle, the moments that bring tears to your eyes and you're not sure why.

A picture says a thousand words. But a thousand words can tell a story that brings delight to your heart, or puts a knot in your throat, or fills you with resolve to do bigger and better things.

And we need those emotions. We need writing.

How to Automatically Be a Better Writer

Writing is like singing. Or winking. Or driving. Hypothetically, everyone is born with the ability to do it—but only some people are good at it. However, like all those other things, there are tricks to get better. Here are five of them: #) Read. Nothing gets you in the mood to write more effectively than reading other writers who wrote great things. Read voraciously—read everything. Read ads, read books (classics, not classics, fiction, non-fiction), read the back of cereal boxes. All the text you see was written by someone; some of it is good, some of it is awful. Learn to see the difference, so you can do better when it's your turn.

#) Write constantly. Nobody ever got better at anything without practicing. Writing is like a muscle. If you're not exercising it, it'll be flabby and weak, and all the kids at the playground will laugh when you fall off the monkey bars on the second one (Morbid. Maybe not true. But what if it is...).

#) Let other people read your writing. It's scary. It's daunting. It's opening yourself up to criticism, and worse: what if they don't like it? But if they don't like it for a good reason, then you can make it better. And once the scary part is over, you'll be a better writer. And indebted forever.

#) Write more. So maybe this is a dead horse I'm beating. But maybe, just maybe, it's the most critical aspect of getting better. It takes babies weeks to learn how to walk. They're not experts on the first try. It likely takes longer than that to be an excellent writer—but you never know until you start.

#) Follow the rules. The old adage, "Rules are made to be broken," is not true for learning how to write. Excellence comes from mastery. Mastery comes from practice within the guidelines. Once you're an expert, you can bend and tweak and twist the rules, because you know how they work and what they're there for. Until then, learn them. Practice them. Obey them.

Do these things and you'll become a better writer, maybe without even realizing it.

What other people have said.

.PSA.

Married this gentleman. Rented a cute corner apartment, got a new car (to me, at least), and adopted a different last name.

For parallelism, also changed my blog domain to annelieserider.wordpress.com.

Why Your Writing is Special

Nothing tempts an editor like an invitation: "Would you mind looking this over, and giving your input?" It's like handing a kid a lollipop, or giving a reader a book. Conversely, nothing discourages an editor like disregarding his edits, or asserting that you knew better already. In a lot of jobs, we grant professional expertise. We don't tell the guy who's operating it how to move his crane (unless we want it to crash into our apartment complex), we don't lecture the chef of the four-star restaurant about his spice choice, and we don't stand up and tell the defendant how he could be doing better. In most instances, training and education brings the professional authority.

Writing and editing are different. Everyone (hopefully) learned to read and write at a young age. Almost everyone wants to write a book, the same amount of people want to edit something that will become famous, and everyone has opinions about what word goes best where. Being a professional writer or editor could seem like being a professional grocery bagger; not too different from the next guy in line.

What's a writer to do? In a market that's burgeoning and expanding like an irritated puffer fish, trying to succeed as a writer is like trying to wax an angry elephant. Not impossible—but very difficult, time consuming, and frankly, painful. Everyone is doing the same thing, and trying to make their work stand out; but so often, it doesn't. In a market that's full to the overflowing, it's hard to feel different.

But take heart. There is something different about you: You're the writer.

And you are the only you. You know what your life has been, and you can write about it in a way no one else can. You think in a way that can be refreshing to other people, because they haven't heard it before. This alone doesn't make you famous—there's also practice, natural aptitude, talent, writers block (lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of writers block), and hours and hours of frustration, trying, and hard work.

But don't lose hope. After all this is mastered, or perhaps just practiced, your writing still has something special. It has you.