Category Archives: Leigh Galbreath

I don’t think I can count the number of times I’ve heard people say that some aspect of writing couldn’t be taught. My personal favorite is that you can learn all the technique you want, but you’re either born with the ability to tell a good story, or you’re not. That you can’t learn how to tell a good story.

I personally think that the people who espouse these ideas have either spent entirely too much time dealing with writers who aren’t willing to put the work in, or we’re all a little confused on what, if any, difference there is between technique and telling a good story.

Writing is a craft, after all, and no one’s born a master of any craft.

Of course, we will probably never be utterly fantastic at every aspect of the writing craft. Some have fantastic world-building but a slow plot. Others great characters but not enough setting. Stephanie Meyer, for instance, has long been derided on her writing style, and has even admitted herself that she’s not the best writer, but she’s does a hell of a job weaving emotion into every scene and tugging the heart strings of her readers—which is exactly what her readers want.

The point being, just because you’re not the greatest at something doesn’t mean you’re not a good enough writer to be published. At the same time, ignoring your weaknesses because “it can’t be taught” is a total cop-out, in my opinion.

Like most everyone here, I dream for that day when I’m going about my usual day, doing something boring and what-not, only to happen upon someone reading a book with my name on it. I feel the despair that I’m not quite there yet and hear the clock ticking away the time that means there’s one more day I haven’t achieved my dream. And yes, I’m a realist. I know a good portion of that is fear of putting my work out there, but I also know I’ve still got some serious weaknesses that I need to address.

When I was a teenager, I had a choir instructor who explained that he taught people who were tone-deaf how to sing. It’s in understanding the real root of the problem that allows something like that to happen. With the tone-deaf people, they had to learn how the notes related to each other to be able to figure out how to go from one correct note to another correct note without wandering off, so to speak.

With writing, I think, it’s much the same. If you understand what the real problem is, you can fix it. You just might have to look a bit harder and be a little more creative to get the results you’re looking for.

My personal demon at the moment is plot structure. Something’s always escaped me about how to put one event before another and have it work to engage the reader, move the story forward, and still service the characters.

As a discovery writer, I lean toward minimal effort spent on deep planning before writing. Unfortunately, I’ve been struggling with a few stories that I have come to realize really need to be plotted before I start writing in earnest. So, recently I decided to dedicate a good portion of this year in workshops and classes specifically geared toward pre-writing. Currently, I’m doing David Farland’s online prewriting class at mystorydoctor.com, and while it has done a fantastic job in helping me learn how to plan a novel before I write it, it incidentally opened my eyes as why plot structure has always eluded me.

For me, there was one exercise in particular that helped me figure out what the real problem was. The idea was to establish circularity between characters in opposition to each other, by writing out how each character reacts to the actions of the other. This forced me to find the cause and effect of the conflict…and suddenly I know how my plot is supposed to work and how the sub-plots interact with it. Suddenly, I get it.

So, that’s my goal for this year, to focus on becoming a better writer by taking my weakness and working to learn how to get better at it.

I refuse to believe that there are things I can’t learn. The only thing I was born with was a love of stories. The writing portion is a work in progress.

How Writing Badly Can Help Your Career

November 13, 2013

Leigh Galbreath

Craft & Skills Editing First Drafts Leigh Galbreath Motivation Publishing Rewriting Superstars Writing Seminars The Writing Life 2 Comments

Sounds a bit silly, doesn’t it? But as I’m sure everyone here knows, one of the biggest stumbling blocks for any aspiring author isn’t really how good their book is. It’s how finished their book is.

After all, you can’t have a business without a product, which is, in our cases, a completed story.

The key is to be productive and with just about everyone I know, one of the biggest obstacles to their productivity (right next to the two hour commute or the kids who can’t seem to do anything without parental help) is that voice in their head that keeps popping up to say, “What are you thinking? That comma’s ruining the emotional thread of this scene!” or “Jeez, this is crap. Let’s go play on the Playstation where it at least feels like I’m accomplishing something.”

A recurring session during the Superstars Writing Seminars is Kevin J. Anderson’s productivity tips (which he is currently covering on his website for NaNoWriMo). This is where I first heard his #3 tip: Dare to Be Bad (At First)…Then Fix It.

And the guy must be on to something because he makes prolific authors look lazy.

Now, I do spend some time prewriting to figure stuff out, for the most part I find my story as I’m writing it. For the longest time, I’d get stuck in that loop that made me want to re-read what I’d already written and tweek the text until I had to force myself to move on to the next scene. And then I gave myself permission to write badly. This was incredibly freeing. Now, when I’m doing a first draft, I can write upwards of 20-25k words a week, knowing that I’m going to edit it like crazy once the first draft is done. They aren’t great words, sometimes they’re downright horrendous, but they come together to form a completed work.

Now, your process might be different. But ask yourself, is your book stalled because you keep going back to that one or two scenes that seem so pivotal but your inner editor keeps telling you it’s just not right and if you don’t fix it now the whole book will fail utterly?

Stop that.

A house builder doesn’t sit there working on the same bathroom for years because they can’t get the shower to the perfect dimensions. They have a whole house to build and if someone isn’t living in it, it has no purpose. The same goes for you. Don’t let a desire to write perfection stop you from finishing the book, because if no one reads it, it also has no purpose.

Once the first draft is done, then you can let your inner editor run amuck…somewhat.

I usually have to step away for a bit before diving in the editing/revision process, otherwise, I’m just polishing the punctuation. Some people go ahead and send it out to alpha readers to get feeback. You’re process should be whatever works for you, but the real key to editing your own work, I think, is honesty.

Yes, that scene in your epic fantasy between the hero and his pet parakeet makes you cry every time, but does it move your story forward? Yes, you skipped that escape scene in your adventure to get to the emotional angst, but is the reader still engaged? Yes, you left out the detailed description of your cyborgs in your SF because it slowed the pacing, but can the reader really understand your world?

They may be you and your critique group’s favorite scenes. They might be hard to write. But if the story and the reader isn’t served, be honest. You’re going to have to fix it. The nice thing is that you’ll probably like the result better.

It’s actually kind of funny how often I tell someone that a scene isn’t working, or the story is missing something, and they say, “Yeah, I was kind of thinking that, too.” If something doesn’t ring true, or a scene doesn’t seem right, don’t wait for someone to remind you of something you already know. This instinct might take some time figuring out on your own, but the only way you’re going to learn how to tell what works and what doesn’t, is to keep writing and reading your genre.

It’s all so much work, I know. But that the difference between a hobbiest and a professional: get the work done, then make it the best you possibly can.

Dare to be bad. Fix it later.

Sit Down and Shut Up

September 9, 2013

Leigh Galbreath

Finish It! First Drafts Goals Leigh Galbreath Life Philosophies Making Progress as a Writer Motivation Self-Awareness Self-Motivation Starting a Career Successes The Writing Life The Writing Process Work-Life Balance 1 Comment

I admit it. I’m a slacker. I have no discipline in my life. It practically takes an act of Congress to get me to do my dishes. I’d rather sit around and spend my days swimming through a sea of imagination. Whether reading books, watching movies, or daydreaming, I’m not big on the real world, and as I live alone, I don’t have anyone around to tell me I can’t. But, that doesn’t help me get the stories in my head out. It doesn’t help me get to the next level.

Oh, I could just wait for inspiration, or that terrible urgent need that comes along that makes me write because, if I don’t, my head will explode. That happens, but not often enough to produce any complete story with any speed. I have friends who do that. Who complain that they can’t finish anything because they had “writers block” or they’re living with world-builder’s disease.

My particular demons aren’t original. I get knocked down often by periodic depression. I get mired in the difficulties of trying to construct a plot from the myriad wonderful moments I’ve concocted in my head and often like a complete failure. I forget how much I love writing. But I’ve learned the best thing for it is to keep plodding along. Even when I’m not feeling it. Even when I’d rather be reading that new book I bought. Even when I know the scene I’m writing is complete crap and will probably get cut in the next revision. It doesn’t matter. Every crappy line is one step closer to the good stuff. Every cliche is one sentence out of the sludge that keeps me down.

I’ve said it before on this site, and I will probably say it again and again. The only way to truly defeat the nagging doubts, the distracting delays, the fear that the story will never be ready, or whatever the current issue that keeps the story locked away where no one can read it, is to plant my butt in the chair and keep writing.

So, whenever I get a little lost or down or frustrated, I remind myself that no one is making me write. If I’m having trouble, it’s my own damn fault. I might feel as if writing, when I’m especially inspired, is a need rather than a want, but like the doubts that eventually creep in, that’s really just in my head. Thus, it’s up to me to get over whatever is holding me back. It’s a heady and terrifying thing to think about. It’s also easy to forget.

But even when I do forget, eventually, my inner critic slaps me in face and shouts at me to sit down, shut up, and write. This ridiculous story isn’t going to write itself.

On Cannibal Dwarves and Other Character Problems

August 19, 2013

Leigh Galbreath

Character Leigh Galbreath The Writing Life 5 Comments

So, I’m sitting in a living room with a bunch of people I know only marginally, next to a friend of mine that I’ve known for years. This is a role playing group my friend has been a part of for years, and the campaign has been long established. In an effort to speed things along, I’ve inherited a player character, a dwarf, who seems awesome on the page, then I’m told, “And he eats his own kind after they’re killed.”

Um. Okay. I can roll with that. I mean, I don’t have to play it that way. It’s my character now, and that little oddity was far outweighed by an ability to kick serious bootay.

I should have known, though. I really should have.

We proceed to play the game, and I start to realize that my character’s cannibalistic tendencies are the tip of the iceberg. The next clue came when the game master brings in a non-player character who is supposed to be the group’s guide, the priest of some god…and he hates everyone. And I mean everyone. Come to find out, this guy is the group’s guide because they are cursed by said god for defiling its temple.

I figure, okay, I can roll with that, too. I like non-heroic characters. This could be fun.

And then one of the other players decides that his character is going to go perform basically a home invasion on a farm nearby. A couple of other players decide to go with him, and about half the room toddles off to have their jollies, and just when I think I can roll with that too, the first guy decides he’s going to rape the women at the farm.

Yes. He insisted on role-playing it. And yes, the GM let him.

I don’t know about you, but…seriously?

A few years earlier, I was playing D&D with some friends I’ve known for a long while. The guy running that game was laid-back enough to let us play any type of character we wanted, including non-heroic verging on evil characters. And then he proceeded to try and have a normal, epic-type fantasy campaign that requires characters other than non-heroic verging on evil. Just getting these guys to get together into the same room required one of the other characters to go completely against type (this irritated me). Never mind becoming a cohesive, cooperative group. In the end, we were all fried by a dragon, and some god or another gave us all a choice to either change into lawful good characters or die (this made me get up from the table).

After these experiences, I’ve come to learn a very valuable lesson. Well, three lessons, really, the first of which is never role-play with the first group–like, ever. The second was that role-playing evil characters can be, shall we say, problematic. The third was that forcing characters to behave against their nature is frustrating to the point of uselessness, but letting them run roughshod over you won’t get you anywhere.

The same is true when writing, I’ve found. Characters should always be true to their nature, and if you find you’re having to wrangle them into the plot, it’s possible they don’t belong in that story. On the same token, characters who decide to go their own way and get away from you can easily derail the story and probably lead everyone on a tangent that will mostly likely turn into a giant waste of valuable writing time.

And take if from me. Stay away from cannibal dwarves. Nothing good comes at the end of that road.