Dennis Foley

It's way too quiet

Thu, 14 Jul 2022 12:51:18 -0700

Though I have had to stop teaching due to my health, I'm happy to help anyone who might be struggling with their writing. So feel free to jump on this blog and let me know how I can help. And, if you would rather not make your message public on the blog, just email me directly dennis@dennisfoley.com

Some advice on being a Freelancer

Fri, 06 Aug 2021 13:02:19 -0700

Thanks to Laurie Sallow for suggesting this site.

https://www.websiteplanet.com/blog/ultimate-guide-to-being-a-freelancer/

An Essential Skill - Becoming a Finisher

Thu, 31 Dec 2020 06:46:38 -0800

I was once asked, "What's the most important advice you can give to a new writer?" I was immediately overwhelmed with a mental list of options, all competing for the "most important" category. Advice to writers is an unending list of options. But "most important" was a struggle for me. I fumbled around and replied with some advice about having blind-dumb faith in your ability to write something someone would want to read.

But this question kept rattling around in my head. As luck would have it, I ran into an old friend and colleague – Jack Sowards, writer of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn and Star Trek: The Next Generation, to name only a couple of his credits. I asked Jack, "If you could only give a new writer one piece of advice, what would it be?" Without even a pause, he answered: "Become a finisher."

He went on to expand on his recommendation. He said the temptation to abandon a difficult project for something that comes to mind and appears to show more promise is a writer's trap we all experience. He also said that the most important lesson he learned was taking a terrible idea, sticking with it, and turning it into something worthy of someone's time is one of the best confidence builders a writer can experience. "Once you take a dog and turn it into a winning manuscript, you know that you can forever fix/finish anything you will ever write."

Nothing matters if you are not a consistent finisher. No other skill, talent, or secret technique will be a substitute for finishing. If you don't finish, no one will read it.

Brainstorming

Sun, 13 Dec 2020 08:54:14 -0800

Too many of us somewhere in our upbringing developed a nasty habit of judging/dismissing thoughts the very instant we get them. You see this every time you have a thought, and even before you fully recognize it, your reaction is: "Oh, that's stupid!" And you reject it even before you consider it fully.

Not doing the above, you will discover that you generate more options, making you more productive, more creative. This is a wonderful surprise for all writers.

Not too long after you begin writing fiction, you start to discover that you need to generate lots of ideas and the incredible demand for you to make decisions, thousands of them. You don't need to worry. This is because the brain seems to get more efficient the more you ask of it. That is unless you continue with this habit of judging ideas on the way to or before jotting them down. It doesn't encourage free thinking. It filters our thoughts by accepting only perfect and brilliant ideas. And our priority seems to be how quickly we can come up with an acceptable idea or decision rather than the best possible one. This is a habit we developed in school and in business to look for the first round peg that fits the hole we need to fill.

We are too often motivated by speed. We dismiss everything to pursue easy/fast ideas instead of the better ones that would take a bit more time to identify. And we don't push ourselves to step over incomplete, out of order, sometimes stereotypical ones, just to come up with good ideas fast. In fiction, fast is not important. Good is. But good comes from considering many options, ideas, and notions.

We insist on operating on a completely unwarranted assumption that how fast we come up with an answer/decision is essential, maybe in the business world but not the novelist's world. For the fiction writer, we shoot for the best choice, not how quickly we do so. Most of you are already seeing how hard a habit this is to break.

Trust these bits and...Read More

On Line Editing

Wed, 02 Dec 2020 07:52:11 -0800

When it gets down to the sentence level, try the following:

See how many words you can remove without causing confusion or losing the meaning of the sentence
Take a crack at rearranging the order of the words to relieve the monotony of your common pattern (subject, verb, object)
Seek out adverbs that can be removed by using stronger verbs
Look for adjectives that can also be removed by using stronger nouns
Don't obey any rules about beginning a sentence with coordinating conjunction (and, but, yet, so, or, nor and for)
Ask yourself if the sentence you wrote contains two independent clauses can be two separate sentences?
Ask yourself: Do I really need this sentence? If the answer is no, cut it.
Nothing makes a novel better than cutting.

Yes, you will get lost

Sat, 21 Nov 2020 07:49:29 -0800

It will happen to all of you. While writing, you will lose your way, lose your confidence, lose sight of what your story is about, and panic.

If you are using an outline, this is far less likely to happen because you have a plan and know where you are going next.

You can get back on track if you remind yourself that you are writing a novel made up of a main plot and a few to several subplots. And that your story has one focus – the central character, your protagonist.

The central character in each plot will be in a situation of your design (a place, a time, a world) where he will have a driving objective (a goal, want, need, desire).

That goal will move your character to action – in pursuit of that goal. Things happen to him because of what he is pursuing. Don't let him sit idle and have random bad luck happen to him. Put him in motion and keep him in motion.

His actions to pursue his goal will be blocked by a source of conflict – an antagonist.

Your scenes should demonstrate obstacle (conflict) and should raise questions and cause the reader to worry (dramatic tension). Any scene that doesn't do these things needs to be flagged for revision or elimination.

Your character moves forward through the story encountering more and greater obstacles or the same amount of obstacles with less and less in the way of resources to overcome them. Either result in rising story intensity and more worry for your reader — your two primary goals in your story's design.

Eventually, your protagonist will run out of options to attempt to achieve his goal and have one last attempt left. It will appear to him and the reader as a last chance scene. He will either succeed or fail in this scene – the climax – and there will be no further options open to him if he fails.

The climax will answer the dramatic question: Will my character get what he wants/needs/desires, or not?

After this climax occurs, your story will turn to...Read More

Self-doubts

Mon, 16 Nov 2020 15:37:37 -0800

You are going to have doubts. Lots and lots of doubts. This comes with the territory. Writing a novel is such a complex undertaking that you can't help but pause now and then and wonder if you can pull it off, if you can sell it after you've finished it and if you have the depth to write several novels after that.

One of the unavoidable side-effects of studying novel writing is that you suddenly become aware of all the elements of a novel you hadn't really thought about before. Ironically, what happens is that knowledge tends to become a source of anxiety. It may even lead to writing paralysis.

But this is only a passing consequence of studying your craft and will quickly move from a source of concern to a welcomed sense of command of your craft. You will soon recognize your newfound ability to skillfully manipulate the elements and the techniques commonly used by novelists and catapult your writing to new heights.

First, know that every novelist has fears and plenty of self-doubts. You can't spend any time reading the diaries, journals, and biographies of great novelists, living and dead, without reading precisely the same anxieties. And it is worth your time to read some of these stories about writers you admire. They were all plagued by the very same worries that are bothering some of you right now. Reading about how they handled these worries and how they eventually realized they were unfounded should give you some confidence in your chances of writing and publishing several successful novels.

Next, know that the craft of writing is open-ended and terribly forgiving. Open-ended in that gone are the days when you had a date on a calendar when a term paper was due. Each of you will eventually discover the writing speed that is just perfect for you. And until you find this pace, you won't be comfortable. Writing a novel is not a test of speed. And speed is not a test of dedication to your craft. So know that there will be readers out...Read More

Some Recommendations and Cautions when creating Fictional Characters

Mon, 09 Nov 2020 09:36:49 -0800

Keep in mind that your task is to write a fascinating character. Fascinating in fiction is one who is simply one the reader can't take his eyes off of.
Remember, you are writing fiction and not trying to be true to life and not trying to write a transcript of someone you made up to make them look like real living characters. The tendency is to try to make them seem like real people. (Read that: Normal people) But normal people are boring. Fascinating characters are not like real people. They are exaggerated in some aspects of their persona. Pick any facet of your character and stretch it. At the same time, select those everyday aspects of your character and diminish those that seem normal or lifelike.
Set your character's problems in his path and not in his past. His past is over, done, and he survived whatever it was. When you stop to flashback or fill in backstory about your character's past, you stop the story's forward progress to visit something that your character survived. So your reader knows, right away, that whatever is in that backstory, it won't be fatal.
Turn your character toward the problems in his path and not away from them. In real life, we see potholes ahead and try to avoid them. In good fiction, we either let the character see them and try to avoid them and fail. Or we don't let him see them, and we drive him into the potholes in his path.
Recognize that your character has to be neither admirable nor positive nor heroic. With a goal of writing a fascinating character, you can easily engage your reader with a character who lies, cheats, steals, and even murders. Some of the most fascinating characters in literature are not nice guys. Even cannibals make fabulous characters.
If your character comes to you quickly and with ease, it is probably a stereotype or a cliched character. Dig deeper. Make him different.
Flaws make your story and your character more compelling for the reader. In...Read More

See it. Become it.

Tue, 03 Nov 2020 06:08:47 -0800

Those of you who follow my notes, lectures, and courses know I’m a huge advocate for visualizing the scenes you intend to write. But it doesn’t stop there. It will be much harder for you to become a successful writer if you can’t see yourself as one. Visualization is a technique widely used by successful people. So, why not you?

See yourself as a successful writer. See yourself doing book-signings, speaking before groups interested in what you have to say about writing and your books. See yourself being interviewed online, on television, or in print. See yourself opening those royalty checks and happily taking them to the bank. And be sure to see yourself seated comfortably writing with ease and confidence, stress-free, and enjoying the process.

You are more likely to achieve the desired outcome of your efforts if you can see the success. Images move from being simple visions in your mind’s eye to goals in your subconscious that you soon realize are possible to achieve.

Start now. See just one of these visions now. Then add another one later today. Then try to get into the habit of seeing yourself successful in all aspects of being a successful writer.

Watch what happens…

Bite the Bullet

Mon, 02 Nov 2020 05:17:17 -0800

Every now and then, you'll hear aspiring writers say they have to drive to Topeka, have a doctor's appointment or their sister-in-law is coming over, etc. and that's going to be a problem for them to get the writing done they had planned. They are preparing themselves and others for not writing.

Here are the three brutal truths of writing novels:

1. Life happens despite us wanting to write novels.

2. Novels take writing every day to get them finished.

3. Successful novelists write every day, no matter what.

It is a very slippery slope when we allow events in our lives, especially demands on us/our time, to keep us from writing. Soon almost everything is an excuse to keep from writing. We simply have to find the time to write, no matter what. Otherwise, a couple of years go by, we have not made the time, we still aren't finished, and we discover we have lost our enthusiasm and confidence to write our novel.

Nothing grows colder faster than a story not worked on every day. And daily interruptions are the cause as well as the excuse for not writing.

What's the solution? It's not easy. There will be times in your writing life where you simply have to stay up later or get up earlier to get the writing done. This is particularly true during the years before you are a full-time writer when that becomes your only job. Up to that point, you have two jobs. I know, I thought I would die on the freeways of Los Angeles while I was trying to become a full-time writer. My day job was almost all-consuming and meant I had to leave the house between five and six every morning, and I didn't get home until eleven or later at night. This only left me with midnight to four to write. But it had to be done. I could have put it off until there was a better time to write. But when would that be? I still needed to pay bills while I was trying to make the transition to full-time writer.

This...Read More