Scott's Speakeasy

The following are remarks on the subject of writing which I delivered to my son's sixth grade class on February 28, 2014:

INTRODUCTION

Hello everyone, I'm Mr. Matteson. I'm a writer of both fiction and nonfiction. I'm the author of about a dozen short stories and a novel which I'm currently working on publishing.

I'm also a tech writer for a website called TechRepublic.com, where I write articles about computers and the internet. I work with computers by day which gives me plenty of ideas for things to write about at night.

I'm here to talk about the craft of writing, what it means to me and to share some thoughts on the topic which I hope you'll find fun and useful in your writing careers.

WHERE IS WRITING?

You might think of writing as just the printed word; short stories or books. It's more than that. It's electronic as well as printed material. Anyone like video games? TV? Movies? Websites? What are some examples?

All of that stuff was written. Someone thought those up and built an imaginary world. Instruction manuals and political speeches are written. Plans for laying roads and constructing bridges are written. Even menus in restaurants are written. You don't just say "cheeseburger" unless it's a place with no imagination. A real restaurant menu says "savory quarter pound beef patty on a grilled onion roll topped with spicy mustard and tangy dill pickles." The audience has to see the picture you've painted with the right words. That's what good writing is about; making people see images with words.

Without writing we’d have nothing but the spoken word for communication – that’s the way it was thousands of years ago. Writing is civilization.

WRITING > WRITING

Writing is more than just writing. If I’m telling you about a trip to California I took I can’t just ramble through it with odd bits and pieces; I have to build out my work so it has value.

Anyone like Minecraft? It's a cool game because you can build stuff. Well, writing is like building, too. When you write you get into a process and flow and you see the work constructed in front of you. You're putting up the foundation, then creating the walls, and adding a roof - this is where your characters or your arguments live.

Finally you paint by doing the fact checking and emphasis on your theme, moral, or the ultimate point you're trying to make - the “WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME THIS” component.

You can't have building without an idea. You can't execute an idea without planning. You can't create something without the raw materials. You can't release it without checking your work.

Ideas, planning, building, quality checks and then the finished result are part of a big circle.

MY BACKGROUND

My parents were both avid readers and I always liked stories. I wrote my first short story on a piece of old wallpaper when I was 5 years old; something about an RV salvaged from the dump.

I read the CS Lewis Narnia books when I was 7 or 8, where they went into a wardrobe and found a magical land. For me writing stories was like that; someplace where anything could happen.

I read Stephen King in my teens - he's a horror writer, not for everybody, and while some have accused him of having basic plots, he tells a tale like nobody else. That's why he's been published for almost 50 years. He was always a mentor for me because I knew I could go into the store and buy any book he wrote and chances were it would pay off. I think he only wrote 1-2 books out of fifty I didn't like so well, but even those had something to offer. His specialty is characterization and suspense.

I always liked book reports since they gave me the chance to tell something about what I knew. When I was in middle school we used the library for research, namely the card catalog to find where books were. We didn't use computers for research 30 years ago and there was no internet at home.

We certainly had challenges finding information, but we also had certain advantages because there was less of it and easier to be creative. Now there's so much content out there that it can be overwhelming.

I liked the persona of writers; the quiet intellectuals who wear glasses and always have some wise saying at hand - probably came from reading the New Yorker. But more importantly, I felt to be a writer meant to see everything through a narrative lens where you try to figure out how you would tell an experience as a story, make it engaging, and make it relate to the reader - just the way I'm trying to do with you guys.

This is something I do today with Facebook and Twitter where I'll post anecdotes about day-to-day life I find amusing or which might entertain people.

Growing up I wanted to be a novelist but it's a tough field for newcomers and I had heard a lot of horror stories about the difficulties getting a book published. I majored in journalism in college, but then I took a detour and went into computers since I've always loved technology and playing video games.

I still kept writing short stories and giving them to friends to read; one short story in particular I started when I was about 20. I called it "The Siren" and it was a mystery thriller about a guy who meets a girl with a suspicious past. I wrote about 8 pages of it, then I got busy with work and my short story writing got put on hold. I still found ways to engage in writing through email, documentation and presentations I had to give for my job so I kept my writing skills active. I even sold an article to a newspaper for $75; I still have a copy of the check somewhere.

I exchanged emails with my wife when we were dating since we lived in different states, and that's another area where writing paid off. I've kept a journal for over 20 years in which I've written about what's happening in my life, and to be able to go back and review what I was thinking 20 years ago is pretty amazing. I've forgotten so much of those details but since I recorded them I can look back on them all my life.

We don’t have to necessarily be novelists to be writers!

So, about 20 years went by and then in 2012 I had 2 major events in my life.

1) I was fortunate to become a paid tech writer on the side which allowed me to combine my love of writing and technology. I saw a post on TechRepublic.com stating they were looking for Google experts to write columns, and I figured "I can learn to be an expert" and got the position. It's something I do on the side but my primary job as a system administrator also depends on good writing skills as well, both for email and documentation purposes. The beauty of this is my day job gives me ideas for my night job,

and my night job lets me conduct research to help me do better at my day job!

2) A friend of mine found out I like fiction writing and said "Hey, let's swap stories." I gave him a couple of finished ones from my 20's, then I dug out the unfinished one called the Siren and resumed working on it so I could finish it for him. I had left off at a sort of fast-paced escape scene and once I started adding more to the story I felt like "Whoa, I just traveled back in time 20 years." That was pretty compelling.

HOW I WROTE THE SIREN

ORIGINAL STORY

I had two main characters: a guy and a girl he was dating. He was good and she turned out to be bad.

The story got longer and longer, I liked both the characters, and at one point I said "I don't want her to be evil. I want everyone except the protagonist to think she is instead." I came up with a crime she was accused of and had the reader wonder whether she was really to blame for it.

As it developed further there came that moment 2 months later when I said "You know, I'll make it into a book." I had a lot of ideas I wanted to share about heroism and what it means to be a good person, and how we get to know ourselves through the way other people see us.

Like hiking up a trail, I knew how it would end but not sure how I would get there or what would happen along the way. I had lots of fun building out this world in my head for both myself and the reader.

I wrote the finish of the novel way before I wrote the parts leading up to it. Then I kept plowing through the story, filling it in and getting all the twists and turns lined up. Linking up with the climax I had written several months before was an amazing experience.

Writing a mystery is a unique challenge because you have to keep the reader's intrigue but not let them figure it out. Or you can acknowledge they'll see what's coming but make the plot so unique and interesting that they can't put it down.

I was a fan of the TV show “LOST” which put a lot of mysterious elements in the plot, but they went too far and couldn't answer everything. I wanted the reader to come to the end of the story with all their questions answered.

I look at writing a story the same way as having a dinner party. If I invite you to my house for dinner, I'm not going to make you cook. In that same note, I don't believe in ambiguous endings, where you "let the reader decide for themselves what happened." That's a rip-off. If you're reading my work, I'm your host and I'm going to respect you enough to show you everything.

I wrote some real life people into the story - one was there intentionally; my best friend in real life, who is a police officer, is the protagonist's best friend. The other people I wrote in by accident; I didn't even realize it until I heard the characters speak in my head!

It was definitely interesting creating fictional versions of these people. I even told some of them about it.

I constantly took notes as I thought up ideas or saw plot holes I had to fix. For example, in one scene of my book someone tries to rob the protagonist and frame another character for it. This other character is rich and has no reason to steal. I had to explain why the protagonist didn’t know that. This was somewhat distracting in business meetings but great while driving - so long as I used the voice recorder on my phone. That's the same exact way I wrote the outline for this presentation! I weaved it all together to make it real.

RESEARCH

My book is set in 1992, because that was the year I started it, and also since it's a mystery I needed it to be in the past. Nowadays you can just Google everything but back then the mystery depended on my protagonist not being able to easily find things out.

I had to do lots of research on the Los Angeles riots of 1992 and other news, technology, cars, geography, etc. Everything in it except many of the characters and events are completely true.

Any fact I put in, I had to check out. If I included an object like a cell phone I had to make sure that this really existed in 1992.

I went online and talked to people about California law, police procedure. I even talked to people about fashion and clothing stores in Beverly Hills.

I kept a timeline for all 3 main characters to make sure everything added up. I found out I had written a pivotal scene involving a proposed visit to a bank that took place on Memorial Day in 1992; since the banks aren't open on Memorial Day I had to change this.

EDITING

I had some trouble cutting out anything I wrote. This is tough for writers. I felt it was all necessary. My book is still at 640+ pages but I dropped all the dead weight I could. Part of it was I liked my characters too much to take anything out, but this can be a bad way to look at things. George R.R. Martin in his "Game of Thrones" books isn't afraid to kill off characters and take the plot in new and different directions.

I went through and spell-checked, looked for redundant sentences, and made sure the characters behaved consistently.

If I brought up a point or had the character say something it had to advance the story. No blah blah blah!

There’s a phrase in writing fiction called “Kill your darlings.” It doesn’t mean killing off your characters so much as taking a good look at what you need to make a story as good as it can be, then cutting out the rest. If you have to delete passages you worked hard on that just don’t seem to fit, go for it.

HOW I ENGAGE IN TECH WRITING

I come up with ideas and send them to my editor. Say for instance I want to write some tips on how to use Google to search more effectively.

If she agrees then I write an outline. I follow that with the introduction, the body and the conclusion. It's up to me to keep the reader engaged so they don't get bored and drift off, or just skim my article and miss points. I make sure any points I make in my introduction are covered in my conclusion and that the body of material supports both the top and bottom of the document.

Working on a tech article I lay out all the notes and points I want to make, then assemble it. It's like shuffling a deck of messy cards; at the end everything lines up and it looks neat.

I have to take several passes through to make sure that I connected all the details and my introduction and conclusion are compelling. Need to leave the reader with a final image; what we call a takeaway.

I send it off to my editor and it goes up on the site within a day or two.

SIMILARITIES BETWEEN FICTION AND NONFICTION

Both depend on inspiration and building out ideas.

Anyone hear of the phrase "show, don't tell?" Well, this is one of the staples of fiction writing, but I think it applies to nonfiction too. It means show the reader what happened, don’t just narrate to them that it did. If you say a character is loveable that means less than showing them act in a loveable way. If Mrs. Smith is loveable demonstrate her giving cookies to kids, adopting stray kittens, helping Cub Scouts across the street, and so forth.

In both fiction and nonfiction you have to shape your writing to make it fit your goal. Whether you want to tell a story about a haunted house or give someone directions to your house, you have to lead the reader from point A to point B - or however many points you want to make.

Whether fiction or not the question you should always envision your audience asking is "Why are you telling me this? Why is it important to you?" Need to grab the reader with the first sentence - I can't stress how important that first sentence is. That and the final sentence are what your audiences will remember.

Both fiction and nonfiction demand good grammar, coherent style and making sure everything adds up. No irrelevant sentences or ideas. In other words, inject purpose into every word.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN FICTION AND NONFICTION

Plot and conflict are the major elements in fiction - not everything, but it's the center stage.

CONFLICT - Doesn't have to be fighting like in the Hunger Games - it could be about someone who wants something but can't get it just yet. This could be fame, fortune, figuring out what happened to their disappeared father, etc.

You have to set up goals for your characters to bypass or resolve conflict. In my novel my protagonist Mike wanted to find out the truth about his girlfriend Adrienne but I didn't let that happen until the end of the story. George RR Martin is great about working conflict into his stories.

Nobody would read a story about a character whose life was great and just went from day to day eating, watching TV and sleeping. You wouldn’t want to read about my boring commute to work. But what if I wrote about traveling in a snowstorm and finding the highway closed and I HAD to make it into the office to fix a computer my company depended on? That might make a good tale.

Characters are another serious element in fiction. If your characters are made of cardboard nobody is going to want to get to know them. On the flip side, don't overdo it by making them perfect - nobody can relate to them.

Fiction has fewer rules but a greater requirement to make the reader wonder what happens next. You can use plot devices like coincidence or mistaken identity. If you want your protagonist to find a thousand bucks in the forest, you can just wave a magic wand and make it happen. You're the creator.

Let's think about that for a second. You can be in charge of what happens, but you can also give your characters enough personality to let them figure stuff out for themselves. Instead of making them into puppets you can make them into people.

When I was writing my book there were several moments where the characters actually took over the story. I put my protagonist Mike into a conflict with a bar owner while he was hunting for facts, and then Mike's character actually got angry and took the story over from me. It was almost like he was saying to me "Hey, I'm not going to let this guy push me around so here's what I'm going to do." The story took a left turn there.

The focus of nonfiction is relevance and accuracy. Fiction requires facts as well, but since nonfiction is less story-driven your evidence has to be integral. If you're arguing that the school year should be shortened you should show studies indicating that this has improved student productivity elsewhere.

I keep up on computer trends for my tech writing and write articles or tutorials based on these. I have to write what I know is true; my credibility as a writer depends on it.

HOW IDEAS COME TO LIFE

As I said, writing lets you create buildings - or universes. It's interesting when you get a story going and it feels so real. I did so much research on 1992 Los Angeles I started to feel like I really lived there. I got so deep inside my protagonist's head that I started thinking like him.

It still echoes on. For instance, I get fiction ideas just from simple conversations or daydreaming sometimes. I write it all down and keep constant notes, like seeds I can plant which will hopefully spring to life.

HOW TO BE ORIGINAL

Originality in writing can be tough because we're surrounded by so many stories - on TV, movies, the internet and of course books. It all enters our brains and sits in our subconscious.

In fact, coming up with ideas is one of the biggest hurdles in writing but I've found once I have an idea everything flows from there. While writing my book I really wanted the characters to be unique and come up with ideas that hadn't been done to death in other books or movies. I didn't want my protagonist to be a cookie-cutter superhero so I made sure he had some faults and issues like anyone else. He makes some mistakes throughout the novel, especially near the end, so that it's more believable.

I had a good guy turn out to be a bad guy - I knew that had been done before so rather than trying too hard to fool the reader I focused on why the guy went bad - his motivation and the disappointments he suffered. I was less focused on surprising the reader than in convincing them this could happen.

Yet I realized I had inadvertently borrowed some concepts from other venues. It wasn't plagiarism but my mind said 'hey, why don't you have your characters do this?' and I realized I'd seen that in a movie once. So I scrapped some of these and edited others to make the concepts my own, because there are certain elements that are unavoidable, for instance the narrator obviously survives his or her own tale unless you put in a plot twist like they're a ghost and are telling the story at a seance).

The trick to originality is to put your own unique spin on things. I'm working on a sequel to my book which will be an FBI drama, but I don't want to do something about bank robbers or crime lords since that's been done. I'd prefer to focus on something new like financial fraud or computer hacking for instance, which would tie in nicely with my day job.

AUTHENTICITY

Authenticity is more than just having your facts correct.

You have to ask questions of your work: Would this really happen? Is it believable? Are the characters realistic enough or just operating on autopilot?

One of the things that can help you figure it out is writing a quick biography of your characters so you get to know them.

Avoid "it was all a dream" or "this is a virtual reality" type scenarios.

The Greeks had a concept called "Deus Ex Machina" in stories, which is Latin and means "God from the Machine." This is where something would come up at the end of the story to miraculously save the protagonist - it's considered cheating.

You can't put characters in danger over and over again and have them escape unharmed unless you can come up with a specific and believable reason for this.

VOICE/AUDIENCE

Voice is sort of like writing style, except it comes across as how the actual character or narrator sounds. Ernest Hemingway is famous for having a very simple, plain-speaking voice which many writers have tried to copy.

In the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books by Jeff Kinney, the character Greg is his voice - smarmy and self-absorbed, and I don’t relate to him so well since I’m a Dad and I relate to the adults, but it’s authentic.

Your voice might be totally different from your personality.

An American guy named Arthur Golden wrote a book called Memoirs of a Geisha, which was told from the perspective of a Japanese girl.

I tried the same. My protagonist's voice in my book is that of a stubborn 22 year old guy. I also devoted a chapter to telling the story from the protagonist's 22 year old girlfriend Adrienne's POV through her voice.

This was extremely educational because I really tried to show the reader how things looked through a 22 year old girl's view and that helped with the plot too, to make sure things lined up properly. What was funny was I did a Vulcan mind-meld like with Mr. Spock and really tried to see things through her eyes. I felt the chapter was written entirely differently since she was speaking with her voice.

I also wrote a chapter through the bad guy's eyes - what was funny was I had him make some crude comments because it was like being inside his head; I started feeling how he would think about things and act accordingly in the chapter.

Even now after finishing the book I can summon my characters and see how they would look at something. For instance, my protagonist Mike might like “The Simpsons” but I could see his girlfriend Adrienne rolling her eyes at it and thinking it's childish.

Audience means knowing who you're writing for. Is it a class? Is it a group of computer guys? Is it the public? If so, what's your typical audience member? For instance, my book probably appeals to guys 20-45 years old or so. It has car chases and surfing in it, so I doubt too many retired grandmothers might want to read it for instance.

Know your audience so you can shape your writing. As a tech writer my audience is people who know how to use computers. I couldn’t get a fisherman in the South Seas who doesn’t use a PC to read one of my articles since it has no relevance to him.

Also, I can assume I can work with more developed concepts in my articles when speaking to my audience so I don’t have to explain what email is or what a website does; I know my audience is aware of these.

GRAMMAR

Grammar is not always fun but it is part of your toolkit as a writer.

Grammar has to be accurate for your work to be believable. If I’m riding in a car and the floorboard is full of holes, I’m going to be paying more attention to those holes than to where the car is taking me!

Know the use of words that sound alike such as “They're, their and there” and “You’re and your.”

Learn the rules, make them habits.

Typos multiply when you're not looking; chase them down and eliminate them ruthlessly!

Read, re-read again and look for any grammar that needs fixing. I still go through my novel looking for that one sentence I might have mangled.

KNOWING WHEN YOU'RE DONE

It’s easier with nonfiction than fiction, of course.

This is a concept I'm still struggling with. Many times with stories I've written or articles I've gotten published I've thought "Oh, man, I wish I'd included 'X'."

You have to draw a mental line otherwise you might never be done.

Did you tell the tale to your expectations? To those of your audience? In other words, did you do your job?

Did you fulfill your obligations to the topic, or did you go too far and now it’s too rambling and wordy?

I knew my novel was done when all the conflicts were resolved and I showed the reader how and why It all happened.

JK Rowling made a mistake. She wrote the Harry Potter novels and recently said she should have had Harry and Hermione wind up as a couple. She said she wanted to travel back in time and change that.

I disagreed with that concept because I think if you write something and release it with your stamp of approval, going back later and saying "I wish I had done this differently" threatens the existence of the very story. It makes it less real. You're the God of your story and you're questioning yourself, your story becomes less meaningful. This is where authenticity pays off. If the story is authentic, the ending will appear at the right time.

PUBLISHING CONCEPTS

I’m currently working on getting my novel self-published through Amazon, which involves creating an account, uploading it, setting up an author page and then signing an agreement to split any royalties made from book sales.

At the moment I’m less interested in making money than just getting my book out there. In fact, if I don’t make a dime from it I’m still perfectly satisfied because I brought a novel into this world. I’m hoping to build it out and create a series.

Technology gives us a major advantage over when I was a kid. Not only can you publish your own material, but if you want to go the traditional publishing route – where a company buys your novel and then prints it or distributes it as an e-book – you have many more opportunities. My novel exists primarily as an e-book so I have it up on my webpage where friends and family can download it. I don’t have to print it out fifty times and mail out fifty packages to publishing houses.

Not only does technology assist us with publishing, but it produces even more writing opportunities to get your work out there. Blogs are free to set up. Social media lets you promote your work so other people can see it. You can attract fans in other parts of the country or even around the world. Due to my tech writing I’ve been in touch with people in England, South Africa, India and other places I’ve never been.

CONCLUSION

If you like writing, do it every chance you get. Also read all you can, and focus on different authors and perspectives.

You should look not just at the plot but how the story is built. Does it use complex language? Does it jump around in time or ramble?

Note not just the story but how the words flow. I read a book called Madame Bovary with a plot I didn't care about half as much as the writing style which was beautiful and graphic.

Writing skills aren't a finished product - they always keep evolving and developing throughout your life - as long as you feed them. One way to do that is to read what you’ve written out loud so you can hear how it sounds and spot mistakes or run on sentences.

It's like working out in the gym; nobody says "OK, well, I've worked out enough so I'm done for life." You have to maintain those skills and constantly improve them.

For instance, I used to be very wordy. My colleagues would actually roll their eyes when I sent them emails since these were 2-3 pages long. Now I've become committed to saying the most I can with the fewest words to make the message even more powerful.

That's a paradox - saying LESS to say MORE since it becomes more memorable.

Grammar is also something you never stop exploring, since it's one of the construction materials for writing along with inspiration, time and focus.

We can leave a permanent mark on the world through writing; sharing ideas which will hopefully inspire others or get them to look at things in a different light. This is why people write to politicians or newspapers; to exchange ideas and points of view.

As a tech writer I get feedback and questions from people on the topics I write about. It's nice to try to help them out if I can. I've made some friends with people at other businesses by writing about their products. It's been a great way to interact with the world at large. It makes me proud to know my tech articles and book will always be around in some form, and hopefully whatever else I choose to write down the road.

Parting thought:

You don’t have to write for other people to be a writer. You don’t have to get published or become famous, nor even make money from the habit. You can write entirely for yourself and that’s just as meaningful, and you’re still a full member of the club. Be the writer of your own story; not a character in someone else’s.

Thank you for your time!

Scott's Speakeasy

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

A presentation about Windows 8.1

Friday, February 28, 2014

A speech on writing for my son's class