Creative Nonfiction -- A Talk by Wayson Choy

Wayson Choy, author of The Jade Peony, spoke at the Humber School for Writers about creative nonfiction and the courage it takes to write it. His talk was called “Speak, Memory” and here are the notes I took:

What used to be called memoir is now called creative nonfiction. It encompasses writing that is from a personal point of view, experiences as we understand them, not necessarily “the facts.”

Understand the difference between the truth of your experiences and factual truths. For example, you have an investment in the mother you know as mother. Your story about your mother may be different from a sibling’s story. Write your story.

What is essential to the story is often invisible, such as emotion. Writing at the literary level means to write with a keener sense of knowing. The things you comfortably remember are boring. Don’t settle for what is comfortable.

Some people worry about what others will think. What will my mother think? What will my father think? “I’m comfort-blind,” said Wayson Choy. “I want discomfort. Education is the process of disturbance. I want the truth of my experience, not illusion.”

Wayson Choy talked about his background: “Chinatown [in Vancouver] was an outside colony where people were not wanted. It was a ghetto.” We internalize the oppression we experienced growing up.

Be aware, he warned the audience, about “toxic certainties.” Any certainty, especially when you think you are one degree better than someone else, is a toxic certainty. “Drop your judgments so you see the world new,” he advised. “Sit down. You have a theme. Love? What are your certainties about it? What judgments?” These certainties cause us to skirt around the story. “Love has no rules,” he stated.

If you are writing a memoir that matters, know yourself. It takes courage and daring. Astonish yourself.

Ten Tips for Writing Fiction

At the Humber School for Writers, Miriam Toews and Richard Scrimger gave their “Ten Tips for Writing Fiction.”

1. Every story has a forward tilt.
 
2. Use your best energy for writing – your best time of the day.

3. Know your main character before you begin.

4. Be brave. Every occupation has its risks. Be as honest as you can, as intelligent as you can. Miriam Toews said, “I feel nervous before I write, exhilarated.”

5. 90 Minute Rule: Commit to ninety minutes of writing. You can stop at that point or go on. It’s okay to stop. You’ve accomplished something.

6. Give your subconscious time to work on the problems that arise in your novel.

7. Take your notebook with you, Miriam Toews said. “I jot down everything. I stop mid-conversation and write something down. I’m a writer. I don’t have a fall-back career.”

8. About writing fiction, Richard Scrimger advised, “Stay on message. Ring in the fire.”

9. When writing a novel, it’s helpful to make notes as you go. Miriam Toews writes these notes in caps and puts them at the end of the document. Other than that, she tries to write the story chronologically. “All my odd anecdotes usually work. I write them intensely.”

10. About calling yourself a writer...Why not? Maybe there will be a time when people will know you’re a writer by what you do, not what you say. If you are constantly writing, what else are they going to call you?

The Story Takes Place Somewhere Local -- Alistair MacLeod

In his workshop at Humber School for Writers, Alistair MacLeod talked about the importance of place. Here are some of the points he made.

Literature takes place somewhere.

People write about what worries them – what they think about. In different regions, we worry about different things. In most places in Canada in November people are worried about the oncoming winter. Winter will kill you if you don’t prepare for it. But in Victoria in November, people have different worries. They’re not so worried about snow tires.

Let’s say you sit down to write a story about a missing son. It’s a universal worry, right? The son is 15 years old. What happened to him? The specific worry is regional. He might have cracked his snowmobile up or gone through the ice, but not in Victoria. In Victoria, it’s a different worry. No snowmobile. Maybe the boy was on the bus late at night and was stabbed. Maybe that’s what happened to him, but as a mother living in Victoria, you’re not going to worry about your son freezing to death.

Geography affects our ability to make a living.

On the West Coast and the East Coast, people worry about the DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans). What’s the DFO doing about low sockeye salmon stocks? What’s the DFO doing about the lobster catch? What’s the DFO doing to help those affected by the global recession? The DFO, the DFO, the DFO. In Manitoba, they don’t talk about the DFO; they talk about CWB (Canadian Wheat Board). They talk about the price of grain and the CWB, the CWB, the CWB.

If a writer does these specific worries well, people identify because we all have worries about feeding our families. We’re all dependent to some degree on resources and whether the steel mill or the saw mill is being shut down in our area.

Think in scenes that take place in a specific locale: in a kitchen, at a bus stop, in a graveyard. Don’t think in terms of events like WWII. Think in terms of the woman walking down the street with a parrot on her arm. What street? A street in New York City. Is that Woody Allen’s New York City? The place you choose will give you images to draw on. New York images, Saskatoon images, Vancouver images.

As a writer, it’s your job to bring the news. Bring the issues that affect us. Ground these issues in a specific locale.

Alistair MacLeod Talks About Plot

Every morning I took my seat in Alistair MacLeod’s workshop at Humber College and I scribbled down his words so I wouldn’t forget them. Here’s what he had to say about plot.

Plot is when you can go in anywhere in the story and ask, “Why?”


Alistair drew a string of boxes on the board and in each box, an event. Queen died. King died. Dog died. Prince died. So far, there is no plot here. Plot is a causal, not chronological series of events.


So how do you make the events into something more? You link them with cause and effect. When the queen died, what effect did it have on the king? Then what happened as a result? Plot consists of an action and the consequence of that action.

When the queen died, the king fell into a deep state of grief, neglecting his young son. He trusted his brother to raise the boy and as a result the prince grew to become a cruel and arrogant young man. One day, the prince was out hunting and a dog crossed his path. It was an ugly thing and the prince struck it down with his sword. The dog died and in that instant a spell was cast on the land.

That's just a quick example to illustrate cause and effect. Next time you are shaping a story or a novel, consider how one event leads to the next.

What Makes or Breaks a First Page?

Craig Pyette, editor with Random House Canada, and Robyn Read editor with Freehand Books, have seen their share of first pages. They know what they like and what they don't. Recently, they spoke to a group of seventy writers at Humber School for Writers eager to hear the words, "Yes, send us your manuscript. We’d like to read the whole thing.”

Set a scene on page one. Get the reader invested. Show, don’t tell us, what the character is like.
The page must show substantive editing. Proofread several times.
The opening sounds contemporary, relevant to today’s reader. (Avoid openings that sound too much like an early Canadian novel – too much like Sinclair Ross, for example).
Dialogue shouldn’t need commentary around it. It should be strong and stand on its own.
Too many plotlines on page one is a problem. It means there’s going to be too much editing involved in clearing them all up.
I won’t go to the next page if the writing is too “spelled out” for me.
Body language, the adjustment of a purse on the shoulder is good. It provides a beat between things, provides pacing. Avoid too much head nodding, shaking of heads. Head gestures are overdone.
A kooky character is interesting. “The father’s paranoia grabs my attention, but then you go and kill him off on page one. I was just getting to like him.”
Establish the point of intrigue soon.
A hint of zaniness on the first page is good.
Don’t start with weather. It was a dark and stormy night…”Uh huh? Where have I heard that one before?”

The first page is important. People walk into a book store and open the first page. What are you going to put on it to get their attention?

What Editors Want in a Query Letter

Craig Pyette editor with Random House Canada, and Robyn Read editor with Freehand Books, recently spoke at Humber School for Writers on the topic of query letters. What gets an editor’s attention?

Short is better. Shorter than one page.
Mention recent publications.
Include appropriate experience that directly relates to the book you’ve written.
If there’s humour in the book, then a little humour in the cover letter is nice.
Short fiction is a hard sell. Why is yours different? Why will this collection rise above all the rest?
You must present the project as complete, not make it sound like you want an editor to do all the work of assembling it.
Don’t narrow your book to one season – a Christmas book. It’s hard to make money on just one season.
Be accurate. The title in the query letter should be exactly the same as the title on page 1.
How will this book be relevant to today’s reader?
Does your cover letter suggest a clear trajectory? What’s the story arc?
It’s good to mention your mentors because they might be willing to write blurbs.
If a press turns the project down, don’t get discouraged. Perhaps they just put out a book on mental health and that’s their quota for the year.
Don’t refer someone to a webpage to view your work.
How is your book a new take on immigrant fiction?
Why mention extensive travel when the novel does not have any travel in it? Biographical details must be relevant to this novel.
Use the phrase, “This novel is about...” Don’t tell the editor to imagine. Imagine a world ruled by whales except nobody knows it’s ruled by whales except the whales...
The pitch should focus on one aspect of the novel.

One question from the audience elicited different responses from the two editors: In the query letter, should you mention that your book is similar to another person’s book? For example, This memoir is like Eat, Pray, Love but with a twist. It’s not Tuscany; it’s Whitehorse...

Robyn Read gave it a thumbs down. You have one chance to grab an editor’s attention. Why are you detracting from your own work by mentioning someone else’s? Craig Pyette gave it a thumbs up. It’s one of the first things book stores want to know. Where are they going to shelve it? It’s more to do with marketing than anything else. Knowing your market is good.

Publishing Realities at a Big House

David Kent, CEO with HarperCollins Canada, spoke at the Humber School for Writers about the realities of publishing, starting with the statement that publishing is a business and must make a profit or it will not exist.

Most books that are published don’t sell more than a hundred copies. That’s the reality. Publishers take all the risks and with that in mind, they publish a range of books. It’s similar to an investment portfolio where you want to have a range of stocks and bonds to minimize the risk.

Publishers are looking for good writing, whether it’s commercial writing or literary writing.

If you want to be published, get to know editors and editors’ assistants. How? Ask writers about their editors. Ask them who they’ve worked with. Look at the Acknowledgment page at the back of their books. Who are they thanking? Try to figure out if your book is a good match with an editor’s expertise.

Take advantage of any opportunity to introduce yourself to an editor. For example, if you are attending a workshop and editors are there making presentations, just go up after the talk and introduce yourself. If you have a finished product, tell them about it.

The pitch. When someone asks you what your novel is about, you should be able to tell them in three sentences. Prepare your pitch in advance. Ask your friends, “Does this sound good? Too timid? Too egotistical?” Don’t oversell your work. Don’t undersell it. Just answer the question: What’s your book about?

An advance is important, no doubt about it, but even more important are royalties. The bottom line is that you want people to buy your book. Do everything you can to get the word out.

Build your author platform before your book comes out. What’s an author platform? It’s anything that tells the world that you are an author and you have a book. It’s networking and it comes in many forms from the traditional word of mouth – tell your friends – to social media like Twitter or Blogger.

The good news? Publishers are looking for good writers. They want to find you.

Writing Your Second Book

Robert Rotenberg, author of the urban crime novel, Old City Hall, recently gave a talk to Humber School for Writers about what happens on the way to writing a second book. Here are some notes from his talk.

Many years of thinking go into a first book, sometimes as many as fifteen years. With a second book, you might not have fifteen years, but nonetheless you need lots of “thinking time.” Try to remember how much thinking time went into the first novel and give yourself permission to put down your pen once in a while and just think. You don’t have to be writing every minute.

Keep going to the edge of your talent. You put a lot of yourself in your first book. Writers tend to retreat in subsequent books. They don’t expose themselves as much. Maybe they are more aware – too aware of their audience. Don’t be afraid to pour yourself into the second book in the same way you took risks with the first.

Get started on the second book right away. Don’t wait for things to happen with the first book. Enjoy the feeling of writing without a deadline, without anyone looking over your shoulder. It’s a bit like writing the first book in this way. There's still a state of innocence.

Here’s a writing tip that comes from the world of screen-writing: “Come in late, leave early.” So for example, come into a chapter late. Things are already happening, dialogue is underway, tension is mounting. Then leave early. Leave your reader wanting more so they’ll turn to the next chapter.

And finally, it's not just a book; it's a career. In other words, it's okay to work hard at this job and believe in yourself and give it lots of your time. You're not just writing a book, it's a career you're building.