©2011 Hampton Bush (Visit Hampton Bush’s Home Page)

Quick-Easy Outlining

This article is an excerpt from my book Quest for the Golden Quill of Storytelling. It came about as a result of the constant battle between writers who outline and writers who say, “outlining destroys my creativity and my sense of discovery.” I have tried to put this argument to rest by showing how this type of quick outline and a discovery draft are virtually one and the same.

*****

Want to stir up a heated discussion in a group of writers? Just mention “outlining.” Some say, “Outlining destroys creativity. I write a discovery draft first.” Others say, “It’s stupid to tackle a big book without knowing where you’re going.”

Well, what neither side seems to understand is that both sides are right. Personally, I think it’s terribly wasteful to write and write and write and then throw half of it away. So, I’ve developed an outlining technique that is sort of a hybrid, the best of both worlds

When I write a novel, I like to make sure the story has at least 6 or 7 big surprises in it, things the reader doesn’t anticipate. These surprises may not be life changing events for the central character, but they are surprises.

I also want to have at least 3 turning point scenes in a story. Turning points, if you’re not familiar with the terminology, are scenes that cause the story to take a drastic turn in direction. In the sample outline that I’ll show you next, the last scene is the first turning point where my hero changes his goal and his direction in a major way.

I find that a 75-100,000-word novel requires at least 80 scenes to fill it up. By setting up my “surprises” as small targets and my “turning point scenes” as major story targets, it becomes much easier to “invent” all the fill-in scenes needed to inevitably lead the reader to those targets. It’s kind of like looking at a map of a complex city. You have a starting point and a destination, but what is the best route to take to get there? The surprises and the turning point scenes are the little destinations needed to get you to the finish line.

My new novel roughly follows the Hero’s Journey as outlined in Vogler’s book, Writer’s Journey. The structure is: Ordinary world, Call to Adventure, Refusal of Call, Meeting the Mentor, Crossing the First Threshold, Tests, Allies and Enemies, Approach to the Innermost Cave, the Supreme Ordeal, Reward, the Road Back, etc., 12 stages in all.

If you’re not familiar with this structure, I suggest you look up Vogler’s Writer’s Journey on the internet. Or buy a copy the book. It’s worth it. Most thrillers, such as Dan Brown’s books, and most films, such as Star Wars, are created around the hero’s journey.

Easy Outline Is Discovery Draft

Here’s a fact of life. A discovery draft IS in truth a detailed outline. But, it’s also a first draft of the book. Most discovery drafts need to be heavily edited, which means that as much as  30-40% of the work or more have to be tossed into the trash can. To me, that has always seemed to be a huge waste of time and effort.

But what if the discovery draft was shorter, and faster to write? What if you can “see” the whole of the book in a way that let’s you slice and dice without throwing away huge chunks of your creative work. That’s what my outlining/discovery draft method permits.

So let’s go for it and see my style of story outline at work. As you will see, it really is a miniature discovery draft, but immensely easier to repair.

This outline starts with my hero’s “Ordinary World” as a reporter. After 5 scenes he reaches his “Call to Adventure.” Rather than “Refusing the Call,” he accepts it.

This Call to Adventure in Scene 6 represents the target of all the earlier scenes, which are designed to get the hero to that point. Scene 6 is a major turning point scene. Hopefully, if you’re an outline hater, once you see how this works, you won’t be anymore.

Sample Outline

Prologue:

Hired assassin, John Whatis, following orders from his client, kidnaps Dorothy Whoosis in preparation to “chopping” her to pieces and making her disappear . When he breaks into her house, the woman is waiting for him. The woman is acting strangely, spewing multiple languages at him, apparently without any control. She says she is “broken,” short-circuited. “I knew they’d send someone to kill me,” she says. “I wanted to call the police or to run, but I don’t seem to be able to.” She cooperates with him. Dorgan is spooked by her response.

—1—

Ex-marine combat correspondent David Lee Hunter, now on the rewrite desk at the Washington Daily Something (need name), is called to meet his ex-marine buddy and best friend, homicide detective JW Johnson, at the Jefferson Memorial. JW, a big, powerfully built black man, is acting “weird.” He’s upset with DC and something serious is worrying him, but he won’t tell David what it is. He pulls out a 4×5 color photo of a headless, legless, armless torso of a woman’s nude body, and shows it to David. The cops haven’t been able to identify the body, and now the case has been taken away from JW.

“They say it’s national security,” he says, “but I think that’s bullshit, a big cover up for someone in high places. He places the photo in a manila envelope which has several other pages in it, seals it and hands it to David. “Look, buddy, I’m trusting you with this. Keep it safe. Open it only if something happens to me. Otherwise keep your hands off. If you write about this, I’ll lose my job. Can do?”

David, who has never seen JW so frightened, agrees. JW grins and says, “Hey, man, this story may be your ticket off the rewrite desk, to becoming a real investigative reporter.

—2—

Back at the paper, David has decided it’s time to confront his boss, the paper’s owner. David has been on the rewrite desk 3 months, ever since he was hired away from a weekly newspaper in South Carolina. David was promised a field job, and he wants it now. David tells the General what he saw, but no details. He asked his boss to the story secret. He says he wants to follow the murder story. His boss laughs and says, “Son, murder in this country is no more important than gossip designed to give the great unwashed public a vicarious thrill. I didn’t create this newspaper to pander to the gossip needs of the public. I formed it to shake up the corrupt politicians who run this place. But I understand your impatience to get in the field. So, tell you what. I had already decided to assign you to cover the Department of Education, so tonight you get your chance. I want you to cover the PADOE News Conference.”

(PADOE is an acronym for People Against the Department of Education.) David is dismayed. “Education!” he says. He can’t think of anything more boring. His boss launches into a lecture about the importance of education to the nation’s security. He ends by saying, “Take it or leave it, son,” he says. “It might be exciting. Those people are a bunch of conspiracy nuts, I hear.” David reluctantly agrees.

—3—

First surprise. David is expecting a boring conference.

David attends the PADAE conference with a staff photographer. His boss was right. They are a bunch of conspiracy nuts, who believe America is being dumbed down deliberately in order to make the population more controllable. Midway through the various rants, a man pulls a weapon and opens fire, slaughtering three of the PADAE people. He turns the weapon to kill others, but David uses his black belt Marine martial arts training to take the man down. The man struggles and shoots himself. As he is dying, he whispers to David, “They made me do it.”

He dies. All of this, except for the man’s whispered words, has been picked up on TV and broadcast over local TV stations, including David’s actions.

—4—

The cops arrive, including JW, who heard the call and came along. They take control and JW questions David. David tells him exactly what happened, but not what the killer whispered to him.

A TV reporter asks David what the man said. David grins and says, “Read the Washington Something tomorrow, and you’ll know.”

—5—

Later at his apartment David is struggling to write the story for transmission to the paper’s offices, which are now closed. He wants it to be a good story, to impress his boss, to gain a full-time position as a field reporter. He is sipping a whiskey as he works. There is a knock at the door. Surprised, he answers to find two men holding out FBI badges. They say they saw what he did on TV. Their boss wants to talk to him. David, a patriot, nods and goes with them.

—6—

First major turning point target scene

The agents take him not to the FBI office, but to a large mansion in Virginia. They are shown in. The agents leave him with a man who calls himself an Assistant Director of the FBI. The man has looked up David’s service record, which is impressive. He says what he is about to tell David is top secret. He requests David to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

The agents come in and witness the signing, then leave. The man tells David a story about an organization, (need name). The organization has obtained new brainwashing technology that allows them to quickly “turn” anyone over to their way of thinking. He doesn’t know what the technology is or what is their goal, but he knows it’s inimical to the best interests of the U.S. He wants David to use his position to track these people down, to become a thorn in their sides, to write about them, to try to stir them up, in hopes they will make a move or a mistake.

“In other words, you want me to be the bait. You want them to come after me.” David says. “That might not be healthy.”

“I saw how you handled yourself on TV tonight,” the man says. “Will you do it?”

“Hell, yes,” David answers.

End of sample Outline.

As you can see, this little discovery draft/outline gives you the flavor and pace of the novel, sets up puzzles, some suspense, and lets you get a feel for the characters. It was quick and easy to write and just as quick and easy to change.

The really good thing about the system is that if you find at scene/chapter 21 that you needed to set up some piece of information at scene 12, you zip back and quickly revise scene 12 and move along repairing all the dominoes.

If you are a discovery-drafter and hate outlining, try this mini-discovery system. You might like it. I’ve read that outliners tend to be more prolific than non-outliners.

Stephen King, of course, is a major exception. He says he thinks of an interesting situation, then takes off writing, just like a scientist on an archeological dig. Of course, he also got stuck at times because he didn’t know what to make happen next.

There are two other major turning point scenes in this book, one about halfway through, and one near the end. The “surprises” are scattered throughout to help keep the readers going.

Important Note

Before I got halfway through this outline, I discoered a better premise for the novel, a different slant on the hero, a totally better set of villains, and an exciting concept about the type of paper the hero works for. The main thing is that I didn’t have to write 80,000 words to make those discoveries.

I rewrote the outline, eliminating scenes that didn’t fit, and now feel very satisfied with the flow of the book. All that’s left is to write a final draft from my mini-discovery draft.

One last thing. The 12-part structure I used here is just one of many ways to help structure  a book. There are many other structures available, many of which are discussed in detail in The Quest for the Golden Quill of Storytelling.

Hope this article helps you get your story moving.

Hampton Bush

*****

by Hampton Bush (Visit Hampton Bush’s Home Page)
Copyright 2011

Many beginning writers worry about such things as: should you use “he said” or “said he” or should you put the attribution at the beginning, middle or end of the dialogue. (Attributions, of course, tell the reader who is doing the talking). And, worrying about those mechanics are important, since an improperly placed attribution can wreck the rhythm of speech and annoy the reader.

Just as in most things in writing, the definition of “good” dialogue depends almost totally on the reader’s point of view. A dialogue between two college professors discussing mind and soul might be considered long-winded, stilted, boring— or absolutely enthralling, depending on who reads it.

Still, it can be said that writing good dialogue depends in major measure on having or developing a good ear for the way people talk. It is also helpful to know some of the more important exhortations regarding the subject.

Common Exhortations About Dialogue

Here are a couple of frequently-heard exhortations for authors of stories written mainly for entertainment

• Real Speech—Don’t mimic real speech; instead, simulate real speech. Real speech is repetitive, often trivial and seldom stays on subject.
• Stay on Story—In stories written for entertainment, keep your characters’ dialogue on the subject of the goal presented by the scene. Even short digressions can become annoying to the reader who is interested in the story.

Think of it this way.

Suppose you’re reading a book in which the hero goes to a bank to apply for a loan needed for an operation to save his daughter’s life. You know he is frantic, but before he gets down to business, he discovers a shared interest with the banker about beekeeping. So, in order to tell you all about beekeeping (because  the information is needed later) , the author stops the story while the two compare notes for two pages on a subject unrelated to the goal of the scene. Meanwhile you’re mentally shouting, “What about your kid, you IDIOT!”

So, keep your dialogue related to the goal of the scene you are writing. About the only time unrelated dialogue serves a useful purpose is when it is used by the author to create an obstacle to the hero’s desire to get down to business. For instance, suppose the hero had said to the banker, “I need a loan as soon as possible to save my daughter’s life.”

But instead of getting down to business, suppose the banker says, “Mr. Smith, I understand you’re quite a beekeeper. It just so happens I’ve taken up the hobby myself.”

And then the banker rambles on and on about beekeeping, instead of getting down to business. In that case, his unrelated dialogue serves a purpose—that of delaying achievement of the character’s goal,  thereby increasing “suspense.” Your POV character is afraid to offend the banker because he desperately needs the loan.

Functions of dialogue:

Having a clear understanding of the functions of dialogue can be a tremendous help to writers of any skill level.

I can remember times when I first started writing that I really didn’t know what my characters ought to talk about, only that I knew they were supposed to say something. I usually solved the problem by having them discuss things of interest to me, most of which were irrelevant to the story. I also remember how relieved I was when they split from each other, and I didn’t have to make them talk anymore.

But that was before I knew scenes had to have a POV character with a goal relevant to the overall story plot. Once I learned the basics, I began to realize that dialogue can be just as useful as narration, perhaps even more so. Some of the uses to which dialogue can be put are:

 Dialog can be used to portray a character. Here’s an example:

“Look, I ain’t one to gossip,” the old woman said, brushing stringy gray hair away from her eyes. She rubbed dirty hands on the sides of a cheap print dress. “But I kin tell you one thing. There’s somethin’ funny going on in that house, and it ain’t legal neither, if you ask me.”

“Funny how?”

“Like men in fancy cars knocking on her door all night long.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Listen, sonny, I know, okay?”

“You stay awake and spy on her?”

“Well, somebody’s gotta watch out for the neighborhood, don’t they?”

You learn a lot about that old woman’s character through her speech and mannerisms.  You know she’s nosy, a busybody, thinks the girl she is spying on is a prostitute, that she has taken policing the neighborhood onto her own shoulders.

Dialogue can be used to describe a setting

Used judiciously dialogue can keep the story moving while characterizing and delivering mental pictures to the reader of the setting at the same time.

Example:

“Goodness, Elaine, I must say I’m impressed. With that incredible tan and that dress and gorgeous blond rinse, you look absolutely ravishing. And this house and pool are right out of House Beautiful.”

Josiebell  paused as her gaze absorbed the splendor of her surroundings.
“Jesus, honey, what’d you do, strike gold or something?”

“No, just an oil-rich Texan who fell in love with me.”

Dialogue can be used to perform exposition (tell), too.  

 Watch how dialogue is used to reveal a lot of information needed for the story. Here dialogue is used to give the reader important information about genealogy.

“Genealogist, what’s that?” I asked.

“Ah, yes, of course. Not everyone knows, do they?” Pillsbury paused, gathering his thoughts. “Think of it as studying history by tracing the lineage of a single family.”

He seemed satisfied with his explanation, but I wasn’t. “You study a family’s lineage? You mean like who begat whom and all that?”

“Well, that’s only part of it.” He eyed me as if he doubted whether or not my own origins were even human. “We actually study the circumstances and culture and events that took place at each generation. All historians have to choose just which set of events they will study and write about. Genealogists choose to study history by connecting the dots from generation to generation in one or more families.”

He paused again, then added, “Of course, a real genealogist requires proof, some kind of documentation like a will or a land record before he will accept anyone’s ancestor as legitimate.”

“I see.” Now we were getting somewhere. “Mr. Pillsbury, if I asked to you check on someone’s lineage, you think you could handle it? I’d be willing to pay, of course.”

Dialogue can be used effectively to provide the reader with back story.

Dialogue can be used in lieu of flashback to reveal what happened before current events. This is done by having one character tell another what happened in answer to interrogation.

“You’re probably wondering where I got all my money,” Brownhill said.

“I admit the thought crossed my mind.”

“Some people say I murdered for it, but that’s not true. Truth is I found a diamond-rich spot of ground in South Africa. I refused to tell the consortium it’s location until I had five million dollars neatly tucked away in a Swiss account and was safely out of the country.”

“I see. Not murder, just blackmail.”

“My dear boy, don’t preach middle-class morality to me. I spent twenty years of my life locating hundreds of millions of dollars in diamonds for those people.  In return I received a mere pittance.” He waved a hand at the richness of the library surrounding us. “Now look at me, twenty-six room mansion, servants, a life of leisure, a treasure trove of books and paintings.” He sighed. “Besides, it wasn’t me who committed the murders, it was they. They murdered my two best friends trying to learn the location of the diamonds before they decided to cooperate with me. Five million seems cheap penitence for a pack of murderers, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, maybe.” I scowled. “But, if you’re so happy, why do you want to hire a bodyguard?”

“Ah!” he said philosophically. “They’re after me again, you see.”

Purpose of attribution”

What is the real purpose of attribution (the he saids and she saids) in dialogue? It really has only one function in a story: to let your reader know who is speaking at any given moment.

In real life, if a camera was aimed at two speakers, you wouldn’t need anyone standing by whispering like a golf announcer to the audience, “Jane said. Bill said.” You could see for yourself who was speaking.

In the same way, all you really need to keep your reader on track is to let them know who said what. Ideally, you might want to write dialogue without any he/she saids, but the chances of your reader getting lost and not knowing who said what is great. But if you can adopt about attribution a teenager’s feelings about pimples (the fewer the better), you will be off to a good start.

Look at this snippet of dialogue. It has attribution at the beginning to establish the speakers and none after that. Note also the central character has a goal for this scene.

“What do you want here?” Jane said.

“I want to see my son,” I said.

“He’s not yours. I told you that when he was born. He belongs to John.”

“That’s a lie. I know he’s mine.”

“You can’t know that.”

“The hell I can’t. He’s a clone of my father. Look at his nose.”

“If you don’t get out of here, I’ll call the police.”

“Go ahead, call. I’m not leaving ‘til I see him.”

“You think I won’t?”

“No, I think I don’t care. It’ll make a juicy story for tomorrow’s gossip column, won’t it? Real father of governor’s son creates big stink at mansion. You want that?”

“You bastard!”

“I want to see my son. Now!”

Using beats in lieu of attribution

 Okay, what’s a beat? It’s a theatrical term used to describe a bit of business (puffing cigarette, pulling ear, turns back on audience, you name it) actors interpose between their words to get just the right timing in their dialogue.

Watch an old Gregory Peck movie. One of his favorite beats was to look toward the sky thoughtfully for a second or so before responding to another actor’s dialogue. It made him look wise and thoughtful and handsome and helped create perfect timing in his dialogue. Beats in written fiction do much more than create rhythm in dialogue, though. Among other things beats can perform the following:

• Substitute for such attributions as he said, she said;
• Characterize
• Describe persons, places and things;
• Show important action;
• Break up long speeches into bite-size bits.

To illustrate, let’s rewrite the above dialogue and insert a few key beats (bits of business) designed to characterize, describe and increase the reader’s understanding of what’s happening and where.

Frankly, in my opinion the beats slow the dialogue and pull quite a bit of its teeth, but this is just for illustration.  The scene, of course, would need quite a bit of expansion before it could be used in a book. Note that there is one less he said in this version. Also note that the goal of the POV character is quite clear. 

Jane entered the foyer and stopped at the foot of a wide, gray-and-maroon-carpeted stairway. Dressed in a clinging light-blue dress, she was just as sexy and even more beautiful than I remembered. She also seemed totally at home in an environment guys like me could only dream about. Her blue eyes focused on me for a second, puzzled, then hardened as recognition dawned. Brows I once had kissed passionately came together in a worried frown.

“What do you want here?” she said.

A soft scuffling noise caused her to steal a quick glance up the stairway. I looked up just in time to see a small, frightened face jerk back out of sight at the top of the landing.

“I want to see my son.”

“He’s not yours. I told you that when he was born. He belongs to John.”

“That’s a lie. I know he’s mine.”

“You can’t know that.” She glanced up the stairs again.

“The hell I can’t. He’s a clone of my father. Look at his nose.”

A highly dignified, fifty-ish butler, carrying a silver platter with four engraved-silver cups on it, appeared in the parlor door behind Jane. Apparently the man had heard the distress in his mistress’ voice. He gave me a dirty look, then cleared his throat to let Jane know he was there.

Hearing him, Jane squared her shoulders and glared at me. “If you don’t get out of here, I’ll call the police.”

One look at the silverware had told me it probably cost more than I could earn in a year, but what the hell, I had come to see my son.  “Go ahead, call. I’m not leaving ‘til I see him.”

“You think I won’t?”

“No, I think I don’t care. It’ll make a juicy story for tomorrow’s gossip column, won’t it? Real father of governor’s son creates big stink at mansion. You want that?”

“You bastard!”

“I want to see my son. Now!

Stop modifying attributions 

Stop doing what? Okay, before telling you to stop doing it, let’s first take a look at what you’re supposed to stop doing. Let’s look at the above dialogue one more time, this time modified by an author worried that his really stupid readers won’t get it without his help. Here goes:

“I want to see my son,” I demanded angrily.

“He’s not yours,” Jane answered defensively. “I told you that when he was born. He belongs to John.”

“That’s a lie,” I accused. “I know he’s mine.”

“You can’t know that,” she said worriedly, glancing up the stairs again.

“The hell I can’t!” I snapped too loudly. “He’s a clone of my father. Look at his nose.”

Okay, that’s about all I can stand of that. What you see is a writer’s effort to influence the way his reader will read and feel the dialogue. Here the writer wants to make sure the reader knows “I want to see my son,” is a demand, that Jane is defensive, that “That’s a lie.” is an accusation. But isn’t that obvious from the dialogue itself? If someone says, “I want to see my son,” surely the reader will fill in the emotion without  the help of lame additives like “I demanded angrily.”

If you take a close look at the modified dialogue here, you’ll see that most of the culprits are ly adverbs, words the beginning writer might think adds strength to the dialogue. I call that micro-managing the reader’s mind, which usually is not a great idea, if you want to be better than a hack.

On the other hand, here is a great idea. First, get rid of all the attributions you can live without, then viciously eliminate any modifiers that interpret the meaning of the words for your reader. If the dialogue itself isn’t sarcastic, adding “he said sarcastically” won’t make it so. If it is sarcastic, then you don’t need “he said sarcastically.” Just make sure the words you have your players speak convey the emotion you want the reader to feel, and you won’t go far wrong.

This information and much more is forthcoming in my book Quest for the Golden Quill of Storytelling.

Hope you find this helpful.

Hampton Bush

*****

Let me tell you about the Golden Quill of Storytelling. It is a magical, double-ended stylus said to possess the power to transform an ordinary wannabe writer into that most godlike of all beings—a master storyteller.

How is this possible? Well, I’m not certain, but according to legend, one end of the stylus grants the possessor the wisdom to recognize and create a good story while the other end bestows all the skills needed to masterfully write a story, once created.

In this world of modern technology, why is such ancient wisdom so important? Listen to the words of Donald Maas, successful literary agent. Chapter 13 in his book The Career Novelist opens as follows:

“It is one of the eternal frustrations of publishing: exquisite stylists languish on the shelves while popular novelists like Harold Robbins, Sidney Sheldon, Jackie Collins, and Robert James Waller (The Bridges of Madison County) skyrocket to the top of the best-seller lists.”

Why?

He tells why a few paragraphs later, declaring: ”

What most people want from a novel is not fine writing, but a good story.”

Someone once said that a good story can sell mediocre writing, but even great writing can’t sell a bad story. And, if that’s the case, it seems logical first to learn to create good stories, then learn the skills needed to write them well. Someone else once said that bad writing can be edited into good, but a bad story will never have the chance to be edited at all.

Do I believe in the Golden Quill? Well, I must, because I have spent many years of my life in a quest to find it, encountering along the way far too many counterfeit quills, mere pretenders, possessing much glitter, but little power.

Still, I know the Golden Quill exists, because almost daily I read the works of master storytellers who own and use it. I also know it exists, because I think I’ve finally found it. In fact, I now hold it in my hand and, even as I write, feel myself being transformed.

Have I really discovered the Golden Quill? Well, you’ll just have to read on and decide for yourself.

Genesis of a Quest

Years ago I wrote a mystery novel and nervously submitted it for critique to three friends who were successful novelists and members of the Southern California Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America.

A couple of weeks later all three responded from the same song book, “Chuck, your copy’s good. Dialogue is clever, even amusing. Descriptions are vivid, action exciting, characters credible, but—well, frankly, Guy, your plot is kinda thin.”

“Huh?” I said. “Plot? What are you talking about? I thought—”

“We mean story,” they sang. “Yours is kinda weak. Get a better story and you’ll do fine.”

Smarting, I replied, “Oh, yeah, sure. Thanks. Uh, I really appreciate your help.”

I stumbled away, scratching my head. What the blazes were they talking about anyhow? Story? Better check this out.

Optimistically I went to the dictionary to look up the word story. Among other unsatisfying definitions I found the following: “Story—the plot or succession of incidents of a novel, poem, drama, etc.” The dictionary rubbed salt into my wounds by giving an example of using the word story in a sentence. It said: The characterizations were good, but the story was weak.”

Yeah, thanks!

Obviously this was going to be harder than I thought. Still, somewhere there had to be a clear set of specifications or at least a simple recipe for a good story! All I had to do was find it and when I did I’d have it made. After all, I was already a pretty decent writer (my friends had said so), and I had enough self-confidence to believe, within reason that, if I could define a thing, I could do that thing.

Thus began my quest for the Golden Quill of Storytelling.

Exciting Discovery

“Eureka!” I cried one dark night some years later.

I was reading a book on the art of composition copyrighted in 1934 (the twentieth such I had read during my search). The passage that had flipped my switches said something like: a story is a narrative in which events are recounted in some sort of temporal sequence. (Not so special. Kind of like the dictionary definition, in fact.) But then came the eye opener. Two sentences later it said: the basic principle of all good storytelling is suspense.

“The basic principle!” I breathed. “Suspense! Of course! Now I’ve got it. A story is just telling what happened, but a good story keeps ‘em in suspense! Yeah!”

Excited beyond measure, believing I at last had found the Golden Quill, I grabbed a dictionary and looked up the word suspense. What I found was: Suspense is a condition or state of uncertainty or excitement induced by being forced to await a decision or an outcome, usually accompanied by a degree of apprehension or anxiety.

“Hee, hee!” I laughed fiendishly. Now all I had to do was learn all the tricks for creating suspense and I could become a truly diabolical, master storyteller. Look out publishing world! Here I come! Yeah!

Pretender to the Quill

It really was a dark and rainy night, unusual for Southern California. Another of my professional author friends had just looked up from reading the first 150 pages of my latest novel. The book was a scifi thriller in which I had used every trick for creating suspense I had discovered during more than a year of research. I held my breath as my friend took a sip of chablis and blinked at me.

“Well, don’t just sit there!” I growled. “What do you think?”

“Well, ah—” Another sip of wine. “Ah, interesting, Chuck. Remarkable, actually. It’s a real page-turner, but—”

“What? What?”

“Well, uh, what’s it about, Chuck?”

“Huh?” Dumbfounded.

“I mean, there seems to be something missing. This is great copy and you really grabbed me and kept me reading, but I still don’t know what it’s about. What’s the story?”

“Are you crazy?” I shouted. “How can it be a page-turner and you don’t know what it’s about? That’s—well, that’s crazy! What about all the suspense I put in it? Huh? What about that?”

“Yeah, well, it’s got suspense, all right. No question about it. But it doesn’t seem to have any focus. Couldn’t figure out what it’s about.”

I glared at him, struck dumb. Shrugging, my friend calmly rose, placed the manuscript on his chair and gulped the last of his wine. As I followed him to the front door, he muttered in an embarrassed tone, “Chuck, I’m sure you’ve heard the old saying no one ever waits in suspense for the suspense to begin?”

“Yeah, so what? I got lots of suspense here. Said so yourself.”

“Well, just suspense isn’t enough, either, Bud. My suggestion? Get yourself a story. Then you’ll do fine.”

Devastated, I watched him climb in his car and pull away. Bitterly I realized I hadn’t found the Golden Quill after all, merely a pretender. With a resigned shrug, I turned back inside to begin the quest all over again.

Note from Hampton Bush: The preceding is from an Opening chapter in Quest for the Golden Quill of Storytelling. And yes, I did finally find that Golden Quill. You can read all about it when the book is finally published in January.

Writing and researching about writing is great fun, so. . .

Go write something!

Hampton Bush

 

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Hero Asynchronitis

©2011 Hampton Bush

The following article is an except from a chapter in Quest for the Golden Quill of Storytelling. It is the result of much research, and covers a somewhat heavy topic, but should prove useful to writers struggling to sell their work.

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All generations have heroes and all heroes are similar. The problem for a writer is to understand how the heroes of one generation differ from those of another.

—Quote from the The Golden Quill of Storytelling

Write a million words and you, too, can succeed. After all, all it takes to win is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration! Right?

Maybe. . .and maybe not. The sad truth is that too many inspired writers pound out their million words, yet somehow continue to fail no matter how skilled they become at their chosen craft. Why?

The answer is they may be suffering from a serious malady I have dubbed heroic synchronitis—a devastating, yet seldom diagnosed disease that is particularly destructive to would-be story writers. Unfortunately, heroic synchronitis is an insidious disease that always strikes without warning and too often remains unnoticed in your system for the rest of your life, silently destroying your ability to succeed.

What is heroic synchronitis? The short answer is that it’s writing about heroes who are “out of sync” with the current editorial generation . The long answer is much more complicated and is what this article is about. At the moment, however, it might be helpful to find out whether or not you’re afflicted by it before trying to explain the cure.

Diagnosing Heroic Synchronitis

Determining whether or not you’re suffering from heroic synchronitis is easy. Just ask yourself the following questions and be sure to answer them as honestly as possible.

Question: As a writer do you sometimes feel you are frozen in time while the tastes of the reading and viewing public keep changing with mind-numbing speed?

Question: Are you afraid the book you started two, five or ten years ago is no longer relevant and that you may be wasting your time working on it?

Question: Do your heroes seem to care about the “wrong” kinds of things or have attitudes that are different from those in contemporary books and stories?

Question: Does your rationale for continuing to work on “the book” sound like, “Well, as a minimum it’s a good exercise that’ll help me do a better job on my next one?”

Question: Are you having trouble figuring out how or where the things you want to write fit in the seemingly helter-skelter mishmash of work currently being published?

Question: Do you secretly fear you’ll never be able to succeed because the publishing world no longer seems to care about the things you do?

Question: If you’re a younger writer, do you feel “turned off” by the stuff you see being published right now?

Question: If you’re a younger writer, do you sometimes wonder whether or not the publishing world will ever care about the kinds of things you want to write about?

Self-diagnosis: If you answered “yes” to one or more of those questions, there’s a 99.9% certainty you’re suffering from heroic synchronitis.

And what’s the prognosis for this terrible sounding disease?

Well, the bad news is that the disease has serious consequences for writers who are not willing to understand its causes and then make the intellectual and psychological adjustments necessary to cure it. The long-term consequences of the illness are that you probably will finish out your writing life with little or no success.

The good news is that, if you are willing to recognize the illness for what it is and to learn enough to take the cure, you can go on to achieve whatever success your talent deserves. The really good news is that, as serious as heroic synchronitis is, it can be cured with a little bit of learning and a big dose of that perspiration stuff.

The purpose of this article is to explain the disease and its causes and then offer a do-it-yourself cure. So onward. . .

Heroic Synchronitis

Okay. Let’s ask the question again. What the heck is heroic synchronitis anyhow? Basically it’s this: the affliction of writing stories filled with heroes, attitudes and problems that are not of the generation currently in charge of making the editorial buying decisions.

“Huh?”

All right, let’s try it from another angle.

Did you know that at any given time in history there are at least four distinct generations alive and interacting? Further, did you know that at any given moment in history one of those four generations will hold most of the power in publishing, politics and business and that it will give its attitudes, values and problems “first crack” at being published? Or how about this? Did you know that the generation “in charge” changes every twenty years or so?

You didn’t know those things and hadn’t really thought about them before? Well, that probably explains why you’re suffering from heroic synchronitis.

Generic Case Study:

Here’s a generic case of heroic synchronitis. Let’s say you were born some time between 1925 and 1942 and you’ve been working for years learning to write (news, sports, technical, advertising, short stories, whatever). Let’s further stipulate you’ve really perfected the techniques of fiction: good story, good character, interwoven description, excellent dialog, great action and pace, and yet you can’t even give away your work.

Let’s go a step further. Let’s say you show your work to your friends, and they read and love it. When it comes back from the editor either unread or with some nasty comment, they cluck-cluck right along with you and say they don’t understand it.

“Your hero would be a perfect role for John Wayne or maybe Gregory Peck,” they say. “People these days just don’t know a good story when they see one. Poor dear!” they say.

You turn away from your friends bewildered, discouraged, ready to cry. After all, you studied the magazine before you wrote the story. You made your hero the right age and had him driving the right kind of car and even wearing the right kinds of clothes, so why didn’t the story sell? Why? “It’s not fair!” you mutter.

Assuming that you’re accomplished enough as a writer to sell, the simple answer probably is that despite “dressing” your hero in modern clothing, he/she may not have been a modern hero at all. Most likely she was your kind of hero, not the kind the editors wanted to see, and they saw right through your deception.

Possibly your hero had the attitudes, morals, manners and speech patterns of your generation, not those of the generation in power, or their readers. The fact is that clothes and cars and other externals do play a role in shaping a character and a sale, but there are things far more important and far more subtle you need to understand if you really want to cure yourself of heroic synchronitis.

Question: can a sixty-year-old or an eighteen-year-old writer sell stories to a forty-five-year-old editor? Again the answer is “yes,” if the writer learns to replace “market research” with “generational research.”

“Theory of Generations” For Writers

Quite frequently we all hear such references as “our” generation, “their” generation, the “older” or the “younger generation,” but what exactly is a “generation?”

According to authors William Straus and Neil Howe in their 1991 trade pocketbook, Generations, The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069 (a William Morrow Quill book, ISBN 0-688-11912-3) a generation is a peer group born during a given period (roughly 20 years) of time whose collective personality is shaped through sharing similar upbringing and major and minor social experiences (war, spiritual awakening).

Each generation has parents from the two preceding generations. The oldest in a generation have parents from two generations back. The youngest have parents from the oldest members of the preceding generation. However, a generation, regardless of its parentage shares similar values and attitudes, because its members share similar upbringing and social events as they grow up together.

The Strauss and Howe book is a somewhat controversial approach to viewing (through a generational filter) the history of the U.S., but controversial or not, the work contains a concept of great importance to writers—that each generation has a discernible and distinct personality that is different from that of preceding and succeeding generations.

In fact, during their research, the authors made the amazing discovery that four distinct types of generational personalities have followed one another in perfect sequence over and over again for the past fifteen generations. These generational personality types have been named by the authors to be: civic, adaptive, idealist, reactive (definitions later).

Four Life Phases

To clarify matters, the authors note that, regardless of the generation type to which they belong, all human beings go through four life phases: childhood (0-21 years); rising adulthood (22-43 years); midlife (44-65 years); elderhood (66-87 years). Each generation passes through each of the four life phases intact and with each movement the oldest generation disappears and is replaced by the next younger generation, which, in turn, is replaced. The youngest generation moves up from childhood and is replaced by a new “child” generation. (Common sense, eh?)

A common mistake made by many writers and historians, say Strauss and Howe, is to assume that the personalities of people in each of these life phases are the same from generation to generation. For instance, it is frequently assumed that a 13-year-old in one generation is much like a 13-year-old in another generation. In other words, many writers assume that attitudes are a result of age group (life phase), rather than other factors. Not so, say Strauss and Howe.

To find a generation of 13-year-olds similar to the current one, you will have to move back in time four generations or forward four (repeating pattern). This means that thirteen year olds in the years 1981 to 2003 (called by authors the Millennial generation) are much more likely to be similar to 13 year olds growing up in the years 1901 to 1924 than to those of Generation Xers born between 1962 and 1981.

How do the authors explain this phenomenon? It is because both the Millennial and the 1901-1924 generation belong to the repeating generational personality type they call “Civic.” Civics, they say, regardless of the eras in which they are born, have more in common with each other than with the other three generational types, no matter how close the generations are in time. (One practical proof of the truth of their assertion is that living generations do battle about virtually everything—politics, moral values, music, clothes, you name it. If generational attitudes didn’t differ, there would be no battle.)

An important consequence of this idea (for writers) is that each generation will have its own heroes who reflect its goals and values. And though all heroes tend to be similar in many ways, they also differ in many ways from generation to generation. A hero admired by your parents or grandparents may seem silly and naive to you, just as your heroes may seem old-fashioned and foolish to your children. Your problem as a writer seeking to sell, therefore, is to understand the kinds of heroes currently in demand by the editors in charge in your target market and how they may differ from your own.

Hero Shapers

What causes the heroes of one generation to be different from those of another, and why would certain patterns repeat themselves over and over again?

Strauss and Howe report that the four recurring generational personality types are formed through a combination of influences, mainly style of upbringing and major social events that occur during childhood (wars, economic turmoil, spiritual awakenings).

Style of upbringing seems to be the primary influencer. Each generation, because of its own personality and because of the major social events it faces as rising (child bearing) adults, has its own style of child rearing, which, in turn, influences the personalities and child-rearing style of the next generation of parents.

Civic generations tend to overprotect their children because they themselves have faced economic crises in their childhood and are facing external social crises, such as Civil War, and World War II (the current white-haired WWII G.I.s are Civics). This produces a conforming (adaptive) generation (currently called the Silent generation) that grows up in relatively good economic times and facing no social event requiring heroics.

In turn, lacking heroic challenges, this Silent generation turns toward studying the processes of “how” things work and, reacting against their own “smothered” upbringing, tend to indulge their own children, creating a spoiled, inward turning, idealistic and rebellious generation (current Baby Boomers).

This self-centered, idealistic generation tends to neglect the upbringing of its own children (Generation X), who, in turn, tend to swing again in the opposite direction and “dote” on their own children (the current ‘baby on board” Millennial generation). This is the final swing that leads to the cycle repeating, because the Millennials are being raised in much the same way (with love and attention) the earlier civic generations were.

Other Influences

Other patterns also significantly influence the formation of a generational personality, according to the authors. One main pattern is the repetition of two types of social events, what Strauss and Howe call “secular crises” and “spiritual awakenings”. The Glorious Revolution, the American Revolution, the Civil War and World War II are examples of secular crises. Alternating invariably with “secular crises” are “spiritual awakenings,” examples of which are: the Puritan Awakening (1621-1640), the Great Awakening (1734-1743), the Transcendental Awakening (1822-1837), the Missionary Awakening (1886-1903) and the Boomer Awakening (1967-1980).

An odd fact is that major secular events do not follow each other, nor are there ever two awakenings in sequence. So far in our history the pattern has remained an alternating one. Also, a close look at these alternating crises shows that none of the four generational personality types ever escapes being influenced by a social crisis.

Adaptive (Silent) generations are always in childhood (0-21 years) during a secular crisis. Reactive generations (Gen Xers) are always in childhood during an awakening. Civics (G.I.s) are always in rising adulthood during a secular crisis and get the opportunity to be cannon fodder and do heroic deeds. Idealists (Boomers) are always in late childhood and rising adulthood during (and are the principal catalysts for) a spiritual awakening.

Heroic Personalities

At any given moment in history, members of five different generations can be alive and interacting. As this is written, the five still going in the U.S. are (using the Strauss and Howe labels) the G.I. (Civic: 1901-1924), the Silent (Adaptive: 1925-1942), the Boomer (Idealist: 1943-1960), Generation X (Reactive: 1961-1981) and the Millennial generation: (a new Civic: 1982-2003). The next generation, as you can guess, will be another Silent Generation.

The following material, taken from the Strauss and Howe book, presents the personality types and shaping events of the four adult generations still alive and buying books and magazines. Any modern, realisitc hero you write about will be taken from one of these generations. (The Millennials are historically too young to profile.) For that reason it is useful to profile these four generations.

Civic (G.I.) Generation (1901-1924)

Parents: Missionary and Lost Generation

Personality: “Can-do” typified the attitude of this heroic generation. This attitude was developed by having survived the great depression and by defeating their enemies in World War II. World War II was run by elders and members of the previous generations who taught this generation to fight and act as teams and who sent the young of this generation into battle with great fanfare and received them home with much celebration as conquering heroes who had saved the world.

The G.I. generation was the first to name its members “senior citizens” and the first to create a retirement community (Sun City, Arizona). On the whole the G.I. generation was (and is) a civic-minded, group-oriented bunch of doers, not too much interested in “the vision thing.” Its members were the very first Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. This generation also produced an unprecedented seven presidents with George Bush, who had trouble with “the vision thing,” being the last.

Shaping and Major Events: Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts were founded; the first transatlantic flight occurred (Lindbergh); Roosevelt got 85% of the vote from the under 30 crowd; Benny Goodman and Glen Miller; the great depression; attack on Pearl Harbor followed by a draft of all men from 20-44; World War II; Hiroshima; VE and VJ-Day; the G.I. Bill, McCarthy hearings; Kennedy assassination; Apollo 11 moon landing; LBJ’s great society; Watergate scandal; Ronald Reagan; defeat of the Soviet Union (Berlin Wall comes down); Reagan-Bush push the spread of democracy in Eastern Europe.

Achievements: After World War II, the G.I. generation retained its conquering spirit and set about building and settling suburbia, launching the space program, building the interstate highway system we all use today, winning more Nobel Prizes than any other generation, becoming the first astronauts with the “right stuff” and creating Disneyland. Others of its legacies include: the landing on the moon, the death of the communist threat from the Soviet Union (along with a gigantic federal deficit), Vietnam, Watergate and suburban sprawl.

Believing in teamwork and its own ability to solve problems, it begat a highly conforming generation (the Silents) and created the huge social programs and Vietnam War rise in spending during the 1960s. Strauss and Howe declare that in spite of being the generation of “Rosie the Riveter” of World War II, the G.I. generation truly believed “Father Knows Best.”

One telling anecdote has it that when asked by a youngster how his generation felt about growing up without TV, spaceships and computers, Ronald Reagan quipped something like, “Well, I don’t know. It’s true we didn’t have those things. We just grew up and invented them.”

Rewards: Not only did this generation contribute grandly to the world in which it lived, it has certainly reaped more rewards for its efforts than any previous generation. This generation has received more money and attention from its fellow taxpayers than any other— “gaining benefits from the first child labor laws, the New Deal, the G.I. Bill, mortgage deductions, Social Security and Medicare,” report the authors.

Famous Members: Walt Disney, Charles Lindbergh, John Steinbeck, Bob Hope, Robert Oppenheimer, John Wayne, John Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Katharine Hepburn, Sidney Poitier, William Westmoreland, Lee Iacocca, Billy Graham, Katharine Graham, Judy Garland, Walter Cronkite.

Silent (Adaptive) Generation (1924-1942)

Parents: Lost and G.I. generations

Personality: If the G.I. and Boomer generations are the bread, (the Generation Gap was between them) the Silent generation is the shapeless hamburger meat that filled that gap (only 49,000,000 of them, less than the previous generation and less than Boomers). Suffering from exquisitely bad timing, the Silent generation was too young to be heroic in World War II and too old to take part in the liberated sexual abandonment of the 1960s and 1970s. Like good boys and girls this generation married early (men averaged 23, women 20) and became highly conforming professionals who initially, say Strauss and Howe, “saw their mission as refining and humanizing the world built by their elders.”

This generation was raised to be good corporate gray-flannel suiters. As a generation it has concentrated on “arbitration” (between Boomers and G.I.s) and enabling the wishes first of their fathers and then the wishes of their children. The Silents took orders first from the G.I.s and then later were so unsure of their own beliefs they caved in to the demands (orders) of the radical Boomers.

Strauss and Howe report that only 2% of the Silent generation wanted to be self-employed, while the rest saw heaven as a secure job in a big corporation and a nice house and car in the suburbs. As rising adults (22-43 years old) the Silents were a generation who dressed right, wore the right haircuts, learned to have good manners and do and say the right things at the right times.

Having sat in awe at the feet of their elders as children during a time of great crisis, the Silents carried along into rising adulthood their habit of obedience and reverence for their elders. Having no great challenges of their own to face (therefore not much chance to become heroes or learn to be decision makers), they concentrated less on “doing” and more on finding out “how” things worked (the processes), and became heavily committed to implementing bureaucratic “systems” in all phases of life from government to business.

As it grew into its midlife phase, this generation began rebelling against its earlier conformity and began to partake of the sexual revolution. One outcome of this was the invention of no-fault divorce (once it got into power in the state legislatures) and the beginning of rising divorce rates that peaked at two out of three marriages ending in divorce. In its own generation, the divorces usually came after many years of marriage, often when they reached their mid-forties, leaving devastation in the families. This generation, say Strauss and Howe, fits the “artist” archetype in temperament and action.

More than almost any other generation, the Silents, who began in childhood poverty, (early Silents who experienced the great depression) have enjoyed a steady rise to late-life affluence and have always taken economic prosperity for granted. At present the Silent generation has one foot in and one foot out of retirement. By the year 2010 the last of the Silent “bosses” will either be dead or retired, leaving little behind them, except confusion (created by its indecisiveness) to be sorted out by others.

Shaping and Major Events: the great depression for older members; Snow White set box-office records; attack on Pearl Harbor; World War II; Hiroshima; VE and VJ-Day; the appearance of TVs in the home; McCarthy anti-communist hearings; Korean War; the Cold War; Russia beats U.S. into orbit (Sputnik); rock and roll becomes popular; founding of the Peace Corps; Kennedy assassinations; publication of The Feminine Mystique; Armstrong lands on moon; the great society debate; Watergate scandal; Vietnam; the Boomer rebellion; stagflation of the Carter administration; energy crisis; Iran hostage crisis; defeat of the Soviet Union; Boomer Clinton defeats his own party’s Silent candidates and wins the Presidency.

Achievements: Caught in the battles between the G.I. (builders) and Boomer (destroyers) generations, the Silents never really got their own culture off the ground. This generation’s principal contributions have been in boosting what Strauss and Howe label the “helping professions (teaching, medicine, ministry, government).” It also provided the principal leaders in the civil rights and feminist movements (Martin Luther King, Gloria Steinem and others). It can take credit for embracing the nation’s cultural diversity, the rising encroachment into private lives by government bureaucracy (process trying to solve problems), the skyrocketing number of lawsuits and the devastating rise in broken families.

Having spent its generational energies on “process” the highest-achieving Silents have become advisers instead of leaders, the most successful of whom have been Bill Moyers, John Ehrlichman, James Baker and John Sununu. Though they have tried for the Presidency on several occasions (Walter Mondale, Gary Hart, Michael Dukakis, Jack Kemp), they have never made it, having been skipped over when Boomer Bill Clinton was elected. If they continue to fail, they will become the first generation in history never to produce a president.

Rewards: None really, except security. The Silents are the wealthiest, most financially stable generation in history, say Strauss and Howe.

Famous Members: William F. Buckley, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gore Vidal, T. Boon Pickens, Sandra Day O’Connor, Elvis Presley, James A. Baker, Colin Powell, Phil Donahue, Woody Allen, Marilyn Monroe, Barbara Streisand, Hugh Hefner, Bill Cosby, Geraldine Ferraro, Ted Koppel, Gloria Steinem, Jesse Jackson, Ralph Nader, Clint Eastwood, Walter Mondale, the Chicago Seven.

Boom (Idealist) Generation (1943-1960)

Parents: G.I. and Silent Generations

Personality: The Boomer generation got its name because of its size—it produced a bumper crop of babies (baby boom). And, born to a world where market-size has clout, this generation has definitely reaped the benefits of size, both in the attention it has received and in its ability to help mold the culture of our times.

During Boomer childhood, predictions were that the generation was on the fringe of a golden age, that it would build beautiful, smog-free cities, lift up the underdeveloped world and put an end, once and for all, to poverty and war. As they grew, the country was “child-obsessed” with Dr. Spock and his theories running rampant. Every twitch and spasm of their growing pains were covered in detail in the media through the sixties and the seventies.

Boomers were idealistic, loud, inward-turning, know-it-alls out to tear down the materialistic world built by the G.I.s, but with nothing concrete to put in its place. Their rebellion carried them into drugs, communes, casual sex, flowered VWs and a lifestyle where idealistic symbolism was more important than substance. According to one writer, to be seen and heard protesting was more important to Boomers than to be seen actually doing something about a problem.

Now that they have reached midlife the Boomers have tended to take this symbolism into politics (and publishing) where saying or appearing to do the right thing still seems more important than obtaining a desired outcome. Boomer politicians frequently can be heard declaring, “We care!” while ignoring or brushing aside as irrelevant the actual outcomes of the policies they have instituted.

In high school the Boomers kicked off such statistical patterns as increasing drug abuse, elevating crime rates, increases in drunk driving and plummeting SAT scores. In rising adulthood the Boomers rebelled against virtually every value in sight, noisily questioning and debating such subjects as Vietnam, the military, guns, sex, race, religion and drugs. Where the Silent generation had earlier created many of the prototype protest organizations (Students for a Democratic Society, for example), extremist Boomers radicalized most of their causes. A popular book in the seventies was called The Organizer’s Handbook, a do-it-yourself manual on bringing the establishment to its knees. The Vietnam War served as the focal point of the Boomer rebellion, but because they belonged to a generation of idealists, they would have found something else if Vietnam hadn’t been there.

In midlife, Boomers have continued to be “self-centered” enough to get themselves labeled the “me” generation. They have remained wealthy enough to become “yuppies” and have carried the self-improvement craze to extremes. Advertisers love them.

Shaping and Major Events: Dr. Spock; 1 million TV sets; the Salk polio vaccine; Brown vs Board of Education; Sputnik; U.S. promotes science education in schools; the Berkeley “free speech movement”; summer of love; race riots; student strikes; moon landing; Woodstock festival; Kent State and Jackson State massacres; Earth Day; McGovern tries for youth vote and fails; Woodward and Bernstein help topple Nixon; beginning of Reagan era; Al Gore runs for President; Dan Quayle is elected Vice President.

Achievements: The main achievement of this generation has been the destruction (with the weak-spined complicity of the Silents) of the “values” legacy of the G.I. generation, which was the Boomer’s loudly declared goal (Burn, Baby. Burn!) as college students and rising adults. This destruction has been followed by an ongoing and agonizing struggle to find substitute values. During their rise, the Boomers gained a stranglehold on the popular culture that is only now beginning to diminish. (Some of the Gen Xers and the new-Civic Millennials are turning to alternative music stations. Swing bands are once again appearing on the scene.)

As Boomers exercise both political and financial power in their midlife they still seem to be searching for values, report Strauss and Howe. This time, however, it is they who are trying to impose their values on the younger generations. The generation that once vociferously disobeyed the law by embracing drugs, long hair and other accoutrements of the hippie culture, is now consistently using the force of government to “get its way”. Through their leaders, Boomers are advocating children’s uniforms in school, trying to control the size of cars and are trying to ban smoking if not drugs. For this reason their political enemies accuse them of being hypocrites and a generation who replaces destroyed values with government mandates.

Rewards: Too early to tell.

Famous Members: Oliver North, Janis Joplin, Joe Namath, Angela Davis, Steve Martin, David Stockman, Donald Trump, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Lee Atwater, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Newt Gingrich, Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, David Letterman, Spike Lee, Al Gore, Jane Pauley, William Bennett, Bill Bradley, Garry Trudeau, Bob Woodward, John McEnroe.

Generation X (Reactive) (1961-1981)

Parents: Silents and Boomers

Personality: Generation X has reaped the harvest of misery planted by the Silents and the Boomers. One out of three members of this generation never got born, either due to birth control or abortion. This generation has been forced to live with the divorce epidemic started by the Silents and carried on by the Boomers. A huge number of Gen Xers were raised as latchkey kids while juggling an incredibly complex family structure. In spite of being left alone with TV as babysitter, however, this generation finally ended the free-fall in SAT scores, all the while being attacked for being worse students than the Boomers. Because they were left alone, they have developed excellent adult interaction skills and the ability to “negotiate” for what they want. They are less college educated than the Boomer generation.

Though they have never been faced with the draft or a battlefield war, as children and young adults Gen Xers have had to learn to exist on a sexual landscape booby-trapped with near-and-real pornographic films, AIDS, herpes and try-before-you-buy courtship rituals. Having witnessed the miseries inherent in the hasty marriages of their parents, they tend to be cautious in their dating and marriage habits, often marrying much later in their lives than earlier generations. “They are not afraid of risk (they embrace it, in fact),” report Strauss and Howe. They are faced with disappearing corporate loyalties, downsizing, fewer plum jobs and frequent job changes in a climate of high taxes and high interest rates.

Unlike the Silents, who knew a non-ending rise in economic health, and the Boomers who were indulged and had an easy financial time, the Gen Xers are the salmons of our time, having to struggle hard upstream for any financial gain they make. As a consequence, they have tended to stay at home longer (one survey showed 3 out of 4 were still at home between ages 18 and 24).

While Steven Segal battling “evil” oil companies to save the environment might typify the hero of the Boomers, the heroes of Gen Xers are generally hard-charging individualistic competitors out to become wealthy or “numero uno” by beating a system that is stacked against them. The non-conforming Tom Cruise character in Top Gun out to overcome his father’s stained record by becoming the best of the best is a nearly perfect prototype Gen X hero. But the Tom Cruise character was no accident. Strauss and Howe report that when choosing government service, Gen Xers prefer military service to the civilian bureaucracy, which is a sharp turnaround from the Boomers. According to Strauss and Howe, Gen X college students cheered at a special 1979 University of Georgia showing of the movie Patton.

Because of the decline in their living standards (from that of the previous two generations) Gen Xers have developed as both cynical and pragmatic with a fragmented culture the authors say ranges “from grunge to hip-hop.” This generation, perhaps because it works so hard for its dollars, yet pays the highest percentage in taxes in history, tends to prefer the Republican Party’s “smaller, less intrusive, lower taxing government” rhetoric to the Democrat Party’s “we care, government can fix anything if you’ll only keep paying the taxes” rhetoric. This generation tends to believe more in flying saucers than it does in its ability to collect on social security taxes when it retires.

Spot a young man or woman with the muscled physique of a Greek god or goddess and there’s a good chance you’re looking at a Gen Xer. For this generation there are no “idealistic” goals, only a non-ending forage for the materials of survival. Status for Gen Xers comes from money, the right clothes, the right car, beepers and cellular phones. For boys, to avoid being considered a nerd or a wimp, “being cut” (a lean physique) is almost a must. For girls getting a $5,000 “boob job” paid for by credit card is an “in” thing to do. Multiple earrings, navel rings and other “oddities” are common in this generation.

This generation, which, according to Strauss and Howe, fits the “nomad” archetype, is the most “bashed” generation in history—and yet it is the generation that will have the practical decision-making know-how to guide the country through its next secular crisis when it occurs.

Achievements: too early to tell

Rewards: too early to tell

Shaping and Major Events (so far): U.S. government approves public sale of birth-control pills; the Baby Boom comes to an end; bad child films become popular (Rosemary’s Baby); Roe v Wade abortion case; Iran hostage crisis; long gas lines; youth vote supports Reagan; military enlistment’s rise; A Nation At Risk (report on educational status) attacks students; the Grenada invasion; school children watch the Challenger explode on TV; surge in gang killings; Berlin Wall is dismantled; rock lyrics are censored; U.S. troops go to Persian Gulf.

Famous Names (so far): Tom Cruise, Michael J. Fox, Brooke Shields, Eddie Murphy, Michael Jordan, Tracy Chapman, Madonna, Quentin Tarantino, Deion Sanders, Alanis Morissette, Jodie Foster, Winona Ryder, Wynton Marsalis, Jon Bon Jovi, Bret Easton Ellis, Moon Unit Zappa, Tiger Woods.

Generational Constellations

One important concept for writers is that of “the generational constellation.” As I mentioned earlier, at any given moment in history there are at least four (currently five due to increasing longevity) generations alive and interacting. Strauss and Howe call this mix of living generations a “constellation”. And, because there are four distinct generational personality types, there can be four different types of constellation, depending on which generation is in midlife and in charge at any given time. (Remember that the generations always occur in the same sequence.)

Currently, the constellation is made up of fading-away G.I.s, Silents (ages 56-73) now in elderhood, Boomers (ages 38-55) in midlife and in charge (mostly), Generation Xers (ages 17-37) in rising adulthood and the Millennials (ages 0-16) in childhood.

The Cure for Heroic Synchronitis

How can having all this information help cure you of heroic synchronitis? There’s no magic involved, but just by becoming aware that heroes differ from generation to generation you gain several major benefits.

1. You can do more intelligent story market research.

2. You can create heroes who are “in sync” with the demands of your markets.

3. You can create more realistic characters.

4. You can improve your ability to create realistic “conflict.”

For a complete discussion of this somewhat weighty topic, be sure to have a look at Quest for the Golden Quill of Storytelling when it is published in January 2012

Copyright 2011 Charles Hampton Bush

Genesis of a Quest

Years ago I wrote a mystery novel and nervously submitted it for critique to three friends who were successful novelists and members of the Southern California Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America. A couple of weeks later all three responded from the same song book, “Chuck, your copy’s good. Dialogue is clever, even amusing. Descriptions are vivid, action exciting, characters credible, but—well, frankly, Guy, your plot is kinda thin.”

“Huh?” I said. “Plot? What are you talking about? I thought—”

“We mean story,” they sang. “Yours is kinda weak. Get a better story and you’ll do fine.”

Smarting, I replied, “Oh, yeah, sure. Thanks. Uh, I really appreciate your help.”

I stumbled away, scratching my head. What the blazes were they talking about anyhow? Story? Better check this out.

Optimistically I went to the dictionary to look up the word story. Among other unsatisfying definitions I found the following: “Story – the plot or succession of incidents of a novel, poem, drama, etc.” The dictionary rubbed salt into my wounds by giving an example of using the word story in a sentence. It said: The characterizations were good, but the story was weak.” Yeah, thanks!

Obviously this was going to be harder than I thought. Still, somewhere there had to be a clear set of specifications or at least a simple recipe for a good story! All I had to do was find it and when I did I’d have it made. After all, I was already a pretty decent writer (my friends had said so) and I had enough self-confidence to believe, within reason that, if I could define a thing, I could do that thing.

Thus began my quest for the Golden Quill of Storytelling.

Exciting Discovery

“Eureka!” I cried one dark night some years later.

I was reading a book on the art of composition copyrighted in 1934 (the twentieth such I had read during my search). The passage that had flipped my switches said something like: a story is a narrative in which events are recounted in some sort of temporal sequence. (Not so special. Kind of like the dictionary definition, in fact.) But then came the eye opener. Two sentences later it said: the basic principle of all good storytelling is suspense.

“The basic principle!” I breathed. “Suspense! Of course! Now I’ve got it. A story is just telling what happened, but a good story keeps ‘em in suspense! Yeah!”

Excited beyond measure, believing I at last had found the Golden Quill, I grabbed a dictionary and looked up the word suspense. What I found was: Suspense is a condition or state of uncertainty or excitement induced by being forced to await a decision or an outcome, usually accompanied by a degree of apprehension or anxiety.

“Hee, hee!” I laughed fiendishly. Now all I had to do was learn all the tricks for creating suspense and I could become a truly diabolical, master storyteller. Look out publishing world! Here I come! Yeah!

Pretender to the Quill

It really was a dark and rainy night, unusual for Southern California. Another of my professional author friends had just looked up from reading the first 150 pages of my latest novel. The book was a scifi thriller in which I had used every trick for creating suspense I had discovered during more than a year of research. I held my breath as my friend took a sip of savignon blanc and blinked at me.

“Well, don’t just sit there!” I growled. “What do you think?”

“Well, ah—” Another sip of wine. “Ah, interesting, Chuck. Remarkable, actually. It’s a real page-turner, but—”

“What? What?”

“Well, uh, what’s it about, Chuck?”

“Huh?” Dumbfounded.

“I mean, there seems to be something missing. This is great copy and you really grabbed me and kept me reading, but I still don’t know what it’s about. What’s the story?”

“Are you crazy?” I shouted. “How can it be a page-turner and you don’t know what it’s about? That’s—well, that’s crazy! What about all the suspense I put in it? Huh? What about that?”

“Yeah, well, it’s got suspense, all right. No question about it. But it doesn’t seem to have any focus. Couldn’t figure out what it’s about.”

I glared at him, struck dumb. Shrugging tiredly, my friend calmly rose, placed the manuscript on his chair, gulped the last of his wine. As I followed him to the front door he muttered in an embarrassed tone, “Chuck, I’m sure you’ve heard the old saying no one ever waits in suspense for the suspense to begin?”

“Yeah, so what? I got lots of suspense here. Said so yourself.”

“Well, just suspense isn’t enough, either, Bud. My suggestion? Get yourself a story. Then you’ll do fine.”

Devastated, I watched him climb in his car and pull away. Bitterly I realized I hadn’t found the Golden Quill after all, merely a pretender. With a resigned shrug, I turned back inside to begin the quest all over again.

But, I’m a persistent cuss, and I finally did find that darn illusive Golden Quill of Storytelling. And, finding it, after decades of research, led to the writing and imminent publication of the book.

Yeah!

 

*****

The following article is based on a presentation I made somewhere, but I can’t remember where it was.

Brainstorming for Writers

Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a best friend to sit with and brainstorm your tough writing questions whenever you get stuck?

How great would it be to sit with someone who totally understands your problems, someone who will patiently allow you to explain what you’re trying to do? Who won’t keep looking at the clock, as though they’re bored to death?

I tried using my wife for this purpose, but she kept jumping up, saying, “‘Scuse me, be right back. Gotta check this or that. Each time she left she was gone a little longer than the time before.” So, I gave up on her.

I then called several of my friends to see if they would like to help me brainstorm a solution to the problem.

Most of them said something like, “Uh, how long will this take?”

I said, “I dunno. Couple of hours, maybe.”

They said things like, “Uh, well, I gotta go shopping.” Or “How ’bout Saturday afternoon two weeks from now. I—”

“But—but, I need help right now!”

“Sorry, gotta run. Later!”

So, I gave up on friends, too. Hell, they all think I’m a little nuts, anyhow, wanting to write novels.

John Steinbeck’s Solution

And then one day I ran across a paperback of John Steinbeck’s posthumously published book Journal of a Novel, aka The East of Eden Letters. They were written to his friend and editor, Pascovici on the left-hand pages of the notebook in which he wrote East of Eden.

The letters were written in the period between January, 29- October 31, 1951.They were his way, he said, of “getting my mental arm in shape to pitch a good game.”

What struck me about the letters, which were in my opinion, more a diary of his thoughts, was that he used them as a sounding board to talk about the things he wanted to do in the novel and the problems, the blocks he was having. I read the book cover-to-cover and came away more confident in my own prowess as a writer.

To myself I said, “All I have to do is get a great editor like Pascovici, and then I, too, can write an East of Eden.” Then suddenly reality set in. I didn’t have an editor, great, mediocre, or even lousy. I only had myself.

Suddenly I had a flash of brilliance. I’ll write letters to myself to warm up my mental arm, to plagiarize Steinbeck’s characterization. Following is my very first journal entry. As you read it, you’ll quickly realize that I was inexperienced at novel writing and at journalizing, but not at writing.

Another major problem I may be having in this chapter is that of UNITY. I keep trying to have Tunney’s base approached from the POV of a roving enemy scout. Is this really necessary to the story? Or do I only have to have Tunney learn: that Philip may be friendly with the enemy, that Jessica is leaving town and Cable Mathis is following Philip.

Will I use the problem of the scout later or is it just window dressing to avoid moving on with the story.  If I throw it in, what will I really do with it?  Maybe it’s just an irrelevant red herring. Bet it is.  In that case, I should just dump it altogether and get on with the story. Forget the bs.

 Well, I didn’t do much writing today. Or yesterday for that matter or Monday, the day before.  On Monday I went to LA City Library and Xeroxed a bunch of pages from Jane’s. Got just about all I need to cover the technical side of Tunney’s communication operation. The gist of the research is: there are comm packages to suit darn near any requirement, so I can invent whatever I want and it will be plausible.

 Got weapons: pistols, machine guns, sniper rifles, scopes. Got communication equipment: head sets, underarm harnesses, voice activated, leg harnesses, helmets, etc. Got security equipment: to keep out listeners, etc, create magnetic field around unit.  Got bug detection equipment, etc.

So, now I just have to make some decisions: do I want to use ear stuff in California?  Probably not.  Hand units are okay.

What do I want to use in Arkansas?  Probably Tunney would insist on covert surveillance communications harnesses, due to the possibility of surprise attack; also, since the previous teams disappeared without a trace, he will want all members voice activated, so all they have to do is speak to give input; plus this leaves them hands free.

Sounding Board Problem Solved

The examples given above were my first, quite naive efforts at writing a journal, but they taught me a couple of things.

1. Talking to myself about my problems, in lieu of someone else, works. I figured it was like programming my subconscious with the problem. Quite often I found that my subconscious popped out the solution before I got the problem programmed in. That’s great.
2. Writing down my writing problem helped me see clearly what the real problem was, and showed me other problems I had.

The result is that I have solved almost all my writing problems including things like the craft of dialogue, the craft of description, the craft of story, the difference between character and characterization, etc.

All of those things are now in my soon-to-be-published book, Quest for the Golden Quill of Storytelling.

So, happy journalizing to you!

Go write something!

Hampton Bush

 

 

The following is another presentation I made at an AOL writers group meeting. They all found it interesting and useful, and so might you. So here goes!

©2011 Hampton Bush

Let me say up front, I’m nearly finished writing Quest for the Golden Quill of Storytelling, a book on writing fiction, and more specifically, on the art and craft of  storytelling. One of the first questions asked and answered in the book is:

Do you understand your own artistic motive for writing, the motive that drives you back time and again to your computer or typewriter to keep trying?

If you are like most writers, and like me before I did all the research to make the book possible, you haven’t the foggiest notion about your artistic motive. You just know that you want to write, you want to be rich and you want to be famous.

What set me on a quest to understand the concept of artistic motive was a Robert Louis Steven essay entitled A Humble Remonstrance. In that essay Stevenson wrote the following: [brackets and emphasis mine]:

“Let him [the writer] choose a motive,whether of character or passion; carefully construct his plot so that every incident is an illustration of the motive, and every property employed shall bear to it a near relation of congruity or contrast.”

What caught my attention was that Stevenson said a writer should choose his motive for writing. When I first read those words I sort of blew by them, but after a bit of thought I went back for another look. Stevenson was too smart a writer to lightly toss off such a comment. So, I went digging, trying to understand. Here’s what I discovered.

In the above passage Stevenson hinted at two writer’s motives (character and passion), meaning, as I understand it, that a writer should decide whether his purpose in writing is to portray a character or a passion (setting or mood or emotion).

I have a dusty 1934 copy of the Art of Composition by Frederic Thomas Blanchard, Professor of English at the University of California at Los Angeles. I’ve never read a better book on the art of composition anywhere. I skimmed through the book and  found listed a somewhat expanded set of writer’s motives. These were:

Present a character:

The writer may be moved primarily to write about an interesting character. I know a lot of writers for whom character is the center of all they do. So, I figure that when they write, the thrust of their creative energy is to show an interesting character or set of characters. Some start with an interesting character and let that character dictate what happens next. For these writers, theme, plot and setting are secondary to them.

Prove a theme:

The writer may wish to dramatize a moral teaching or theme. In this case character, setting and plot play secondary roles to attempts to illustrate the theme. Character, setting and plot (if there is one) are all chosen to bear solely on the theme being proven. Consider Somerset Maughm’s Rain, a famous theme story about human weakness.

Portray a setting:

The writer may be totally in love with a locale (South Sea Islands, the Bronx, the desert) and her principle motive for writing may be to evoke in the reader the mood, the smells, the sounds, the tastes, the passion and the people of the setting. Characters, theme, plot all take a back seat to the goal of evoking in the reader the desired response to the setting.

Entertain via plotted story:

In a plotted story, the writer’s primary motive is to entertain the audience by writing an interesting, suspense-filled story. In a plotted story the reader’s primary interest is in learning the outcome of the problem presented. (Will the hero succeed in destroying the approaching comet and save the world from destruction?)

If the problem facing the hero seems weak or unimportant, the reader will quit. Though plotted stories can contain large doses of character, setting and theme,
these items play second fiddle to the hero’s efforts to solve the problem presented in the story.

So, what’s your artistic motive?

Based on my observations over many years, I believe most writers begin their writing lives with certain built-in dominant artistic motivations. I also believe that many of us suffer because we don’t understand that motivation.

In my own case, my earliest writings were confused efforts to evoke a sense of place and mood (emotion), which probably means I was principally motivated to write stories about places (settings.) I was enthralled by the sound of foghorns in the night and echoing footsteps on cobblestones in the fog ala Sherlock Holmes stories. In those early efforts I could just see and feel and smell and hear those dark, moody places about which I wrote.

However, I was a very confused young writer. I also had a strong desire to win fame and fortune. The result was simply a writing mish-mash with lousy stories (or none at all) and too much mood and sense of place, resulting in far too many years of misery and frustration as I batted my head against the wall, trying to make what I wanted to do sound like all those best sellers out there.

Eventually I learned that most of the big sellers write suspense-filled, plotted stories and, thus, I began an agonizing shift toward learning to tell a suspense-filled story. It is this effort to learn that is at the heart of Quest for the Goldenquill of Storytelling.

If you are a writer in agony about writing, it may be because you are confused about your own writing motive.  Perhaps you need first to get in touch with your own personal artistic motive  (character, setting, theme, plot) and work toward perfecting your kind of story.

In any case, that is the sage advice offered by Stevenson. Decide on your motive, then carefully construct your story to fit that motive. This motive is what moves the writer to write and the reader to read.

Although most of my research to date has been aimed at learning how to write plotted stories, there is much in the Quest for the Golden Quill of Storytelling book that will be found useful to those who would write character, theme or setting stories.Certainly Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea has a strong plot and very strong characters.

In the early days as I was writing my novel Brothers of the Light, someone critiqued the opening said, “Chuck, you have way too much setting in the book.”

That, of course, made me laugh. I love dark and rainy nights, and wind rustling the sycamores silhouetted against clouds scudding across the moon. I didn’t tell the critter what I thought, but you can guess I’m sure. I still love my setting and mood, but I try to work it into the action so it won’t slow down the story.

One thing I discovered is that arguments about which is the most important— character, or setting, or theme, or plot—are all pretty foolish. Why?

Because, frankly Scarlet, it’s a matter of the type of book you like to read or write. One size does not fit all.

Well, that’s enough, I think.

Let’s all go write something!

Hampton Bush

*****

©2011 Hampton Bush (Visit Hampton Bush’s Home Page)

This article is from a presentation I gave at an online writer’s seminar a few years ago. I have reread it, and it is still good, so read on!

©2011 Hampton Bush

They say “write about what you know.” Unfortunately, if you’re like me and don’t know much, you have to find a way to know what you need to know. The method I used is “research.”

For years I found research to a be daunting task, certainly not for the lazy like me or the homebound. But now most needed research is rather easy. The hard part is knowing how to ask in order to get the right answers. I’ll give you several case studies a bit later to demonstrate what I do. There are several tools I now use to do my research, so I’ll just jump right in.

Tools of Research

There are several principal research tools that I use. They are:

• The internet
• The telephone
• Books on special subjects (like modern-day quick-draw gun fighting techniques) that I buy and download or have shipped to me from Amazon or get from the bookstore.

You might use the local library, though in my opinion, they’re not always the best these days. My own local library is aimed at kids, so there’s not much there for me. Still, if you’re close to a giant library, like the Los Angeles Library or some other similar one, they can be fantastic research tools, but, I warn you, you’d better learn how to ask the right questions or become an expert in library science.

If you frequently research great books for information quotations, you might try http://www.gutenberg.org/ to find almost any book you need. Project Gutenberg has the goal of making all the world’s books available free to anyone with a computer.

The Internet

Let’s talk about the internet as a research tool for a moment. Most people know about Google, but there are other search tools also. Ever heard of www.ask.com ? Or www.dogpile.com ? Or AltaVista at http://www.altavista.com/ ? Or www.search.com ? How about www.metacrawler.com ? Or www.scoofers.com ?

In the past, when I didn’t find what I needed on one, I checked the others. Now, however, there are search engines that search all those search engines for you with one entry. The best of these are Metacrawler, Startpage.com and Ixquick.com. Both of these also offer total privacy for your searches and do not keep any record of what you do. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I like that aspect alot.

The Library of Congress at http://www.loc.gov/homepage/lchp.html is great, especially for historical data.

There are other internet research sites available. Like Owl at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/internet/tools/research.html.

Owl is a subject gateway that serves as a jumping-off place to find almost anything you need to know. I strongly recommend you check it out.

What is a subject gateway? It’s just what the name implies. Pick a subject and there will be a link to take you out to specific research locations.

Or the Librarians Index at http://lii.org/

Try them, you’ll love them.

There really are too many search capabilities to name them all here, so I suggest you run a MetaCrawler.com search on the subject of Internet Research. You’ll be amazed at what pops up.

The bottom line for me is that I seldom have to leave home to find anything I need, which is why I consider the internet the most gigantic library ever conceived. . .all at my fingertips.

Now let me explain by offering some examples of things I’ve researched.

 Lock  picking:

In my current book’s prologue, I have a killer breaking into an old home, so I needed to find out how to pick a lock. Since I’d led a rather simple life, and knew nothing about lock picking, I did a Metacrawler search, and almost instantly I found not just the lock picking tools, but how to make them and how to use them. It’s only a line or two in my novel, but it is authentic, which is important to me.

Jefferson Memorial

Since the book is set in Washington D.C., I decided that the first scene would take place at the Jefferson Memorial. Only one problem. I had no idea where or how the memorial was laid out or what kind of foliage was around it or where the parking is located. I had no idea how the National Park Service Rangers dressed. So what was I to do? Too expensive to hop a plane to DC just to solve that three-novel-page problem. My solution turned out to be simple.

I used Google Earth to get a 3D view of the Jefferson Memorial. With GoogleEarth, a free software, I can go in for a close up; I can fly over; I even can go inside the memorial. I can change directions  and look at the memorial from any angle. GoogleEarth showed me the location of the trees. I even decided where my characters would be standing for their meeting and measured how far from the memorial they were.

Google Earth, free software available from Google, solved a lot, but not all. With Google Earth I flew in directly over the Jefferson Memorial, descended, looked toward the White House, went inside the memorial, looked at Jefferson’s statue, totally checked out the place.

I even saw the trees and landscaping, I didn’t know what kinds of trees were surrounding the monument, and I had no idea how the rangers in charge there were dressed that time of year. So, I used the phone and called the Jefferson memorial. A ranger answered.

“What kind of trees are those around the memorial?” I asked.

“Cherry trees,” he said.

“What kind of Cherry trees?”

“I don’t know, sorry,” he said.

Undaunted, I did a Google search for Jefferson Memorial trees. That led me to a free pdf document which showed the history of the trees at the Jefferson Memorial and had a map showing where the different types of Cherry trees were located. That was perfect, because I wanted my two characters to meet out of sight under the trees.

I ran another search for those individual types of trees to see when they lost their leaves. The trees were quite different. My meeting was to take place under a Sargent Cherry tree. Sargents are hardy and keep their leaves until mid-November. So now I knew there would be red and orange leaves on those trees. Perfect

I  still didn’t know about the ranger uniform. So I ran a search for ranger hats. I decided I wanted a cute female ranger, so that led me to a 30-page history of women’s park ranger uniforms.

It had all the photos of the various uniform stages throughout history since 1912. I kept saying “Damn it, what do they wear today?” My patience was rewarded. I finally found color photos on the last page of what the gals wear today. To verify, I called the Jefferson Memorial Ranger again, and asked about the clothes. I gave him a description of what I had found, and he laughed. “Yep, that’s it,” he said.

I had one last thing to learn. What is the weather like in DC in early November. I ran an Ask.com search and found a site with “seasonal weather” right at the top. Here’s what I learned.

Average High: 58 ºF
Average Morning Relative Humidity: 76.0%
Average Low: 40 ºF
Average Afternoon Relative Humidity: 53.0%
Mean Temperature: 49 ºF
Typical Sky Cover: Overcast
Average Dew Point: 36 ºF
Average Precipitation 3 in
Average Wind speed: 9.18 mph
Average Snowfall: 0.98 in
Average Wind Direction: S

Now I could accurately write in plausible weather as needed. I happen to like moody weather, so I picked November. The time of year is irrelevant to the story, but not to me, the writer.

One last thought. Google Earth allows me to fly low through the streets of DC, so when I combine Google Earth with my Microsoft Streets and Trips map software, I’m able to navigate easily through the streets as if I know  where the hell I’m going.

One last sample.

In my last book, I had the bad guy wanting to use a helicopter to hover over a mansion in the Ozark mountains. He was going to build a bomb himself using C4 explosive and drop it on the mansion.

Only two big problems.

One, I didn’t know crap about building a bomb out of C4 or even what C4  looked like. But once again, the internet coughed up what I needed. I got pictures, dimensions and weight for the C4 sticks. They’re wrapped in oily plastic skins.

I learned how to make an impact fuse. I got everything I needed for the bomb building and later the bomb-dropping scene.

Next I didn’t know how low his helicopter could fly and escape safely, once the bomb was dropped. I needed to know how fast a Bell JetRanger helicopter could accelerate and get away before the bomb blew up.

So, I looked up Bell Helicopter on yellowpages.com. I called them, and I told them what I needed. They put me in touch with a designer pilot. I gave him the problem.

He was great. He calculated how fast the suitcase bomb would fall, which gave him the amount of time available to get away. He then explained the acceleration of a Jetranger and told me that my characters had to drop the bomb from a minimum of 500 feet up in order to have time to get away. He included how the pilot should dive away at first in order to gain speed quickly, all the details I needed.

The result was that scene was not only accurate, it was credible.

Be Pleasant

What I have learned over the years is, if you’re pleasant and not too pushy, people are very helpful. The rangers thought it was fun to help a novelist who was interested in them.  So, the thing is, don’t be bashful, but know what you’re going to ask ahead of time, and don’t be lazy. Do as much homework as you can before you make the calls. Then just say, “I’m a writer, working on a novel, and I need your help.”

What’s the worse thing that can happen to you when you call? They say, “Sorry, I don’t have time right now.” I’ve never been turned down, though.

My son works at a huge prop house that services the movie industry. He told me about one of their guys researching bomb making on the internet for a movie. They wanted a prop that looked accurate.

The guy spent several days doing the research. Then suddenly there came a knock on his door and two FBI agents were there. They took him to their office and questioned him for two days before they let him go. So, it’s probably a good idea to have your excuses handy if that happens to you. <VBG>

My female romance character in the new book is a self-employed expert internet and other-type researcher, so I needed to know all this stuff, which is why I was able to make this presentation. She has to be credible, too.

Desktop Search

I have a 7000-volume library of classic e-books on my computer. They came from Project Gutenberg, which is a world-wide effort to convert out-of-copyright great books into searchable text, pdf and other files. The books are all scanned into text using optical character recognition, proofread meticulously and made available free of charge to download at the site, which is how I got my vast library.

Nowadays, you can set Microsoft Windows to index all the files on your computer, and then use it’s search function to instantly find anything by typing in a few words. I use that, and another desktop and internet search  software, called Copernic Desktop Search, to search the three terabytes of data on my computer, and to search the internet, as well. Copernic automatically searches 10 web search engines at a time, so you get great results.

Info Pack Rat

Because of this indexing  and instant search capability, I have become an info pack rat. Whenever I see something on the internet I might need for future reference, I save it on my computer, and it is indexed automatically. As a result, I now have a huge reserve of odds and ends of data now available  on my computer.

Even so, I still do a lot of research on the internet, but watch it. It’s addictive!

Happy researching!

Hampton Bush

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