The Pecman

I agree to a point. But I think it's also fair to occasionally stir things up by having characters explode, yell, bellow, whisper, mutter, or otherwise recite dialog in a different way. I think this is particularly important when the emotions of one or more of the characters radically change, to show that there's something important has happened. However: like adverbs, I think alternating forms of "said" has to be done carefully and not willy-nilly. And sometimes, omitting "he said" works, too, with just the bare dialog alone, as long as it's clear which characters are speaking.

I'm a victim of malfunctioning cut & paste! Yeah, I ran that through the dictionary just to be sure, but pasted the wrong word back. Mea culpa! Never underestimate the value of good editing...

Where I come from, an Adverb is a simply word that modifies a verb. That's all. Nothing more or less than that. (I just checked, and funny enough, the dictionary says the same thing.) I don't consider an Adverb to be a category of anything. "Action," however, is a category, by the loose definition that it's a type of writing or a situation. You have an "action scene" or "action dialog," each describing a situation where something is being propelled forward at a faster-than-normal rate, maybe to heighten tension or suspense. But that's a pedantic argument beyond the original point, which is simply that many amateur writers use too many adverbs and adjectives. Let's agree to disagree. I think there's a way to use style manuals in a way that can make writing better, but at the same time, I'm the last guy to say you must adhere to them 100% of the time, for every situation. Sometimes, rules are made to be broken. But I also think it's a very good idea to know the rules first before you break them. And by the way: the word is "tyranny."

Well, to me, what you're asking for is kind of like saying: "I understand that chocolate ice cream is your favorite. What is it about chocolate ice cream specifically that you like? How does it differ from other ice creams? Is there something they lack that chocolate has? Is there something that makes you more compatible with chocolate ice cream, and vice-versa?" It kinda turns into a Monty Python sketch at some point. I don't have the time to sit down and write a 2000-word essay (especially for free) on why I liked the story. I can simply say, as I finished reading each chapter, I thought, "jesus, this guy blows me away at how good his stuff is!", and I couldn't wait to jump in and read more. His writing was visual enough that I could easily imagine this as a film -- though, because of the subject matter, it would be nearly impossible to do commercially -- and I thought the characters were striking, memorable, and lacked a lot of the cliches I see in similar work. I thought Buffet's ability to describe complex moods, multi-level emotional exchanges, and yet constantly push the story forward was something I found compelling and engaging. If you read my Gay Writing Tips piece, I'd go a step further and say Buffet did everything right, down the line. I'm not even into the kind of sex (the dominant/submissive role-playing thing) Buffet writes about, but all of the surrounding story made reading the story an exceptional experience for me. I've read it two or three times, which is something I rarely do, particularly with Net fiction. So I'd just leave it at that. (And for the record, I actually prefer chocolate-chip to chocolate.)

I think the quality of Buffet's writing is head and shoulders above almost anything I've ever seen in amateur online fiction. He's one of the few guys I know who I feel has actually achieved a real "literary" quality in his work, without any of the affectations or attitude. I also think Buffet has exactly the right balance in juggling all the elements that make up a good story: terrific description (the prose), cutting-edge dialog, and the ability to make each character distinct and different. I also think he does a great job in balancing the erotic content with the actual plot, where neither overshadows the other. Buffet also fulfills the #1 rule I stress all the time around here: his work is never boring, and he always makes you want to read more. His characters and plotlines are constantly surprising, and provide a lot of complex, subtle nuances that blow me away every time I read them. Alpha Male moves along at a fairly brisk pace, and every chapter adds more pieces to the puzzle, and also reveals many details about the characters, some of whom change very much by the time the story ends. Read Alpha Male yourself and see if you agree. You'll find it on Nifty: http://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/college/alpha-male/ Buffet's follow-up, "Master Beta," wasn't quite as good, and I think even he agreed and threw in the towel on it. I think there's still a good sequel that could be written, but it'll be up to him to finish it. To me, Buffet is one of the few Net writers I've read whose work could do well if published commercially. I've encouraged him in emails to get his work out to agents and the various publishing houses, but as far as I know, it hasn't happened yet. And that's a pity, because I think his work is on a level with many other "name" writers in gay fiction, ranging from John Rechy to Patricia Warren to Armistead Maupin.

I agree, Crichton is a frustrating writer to observe. I think he's capable of some really good work, and then once in awhile he goes and writes dull, ponderous crap that gets bad reviews and modest sales. His new one (the one that rakes environmentalists over the coals) isn't doing too well. I think there's a way to subconciously attribute dialog in context, and make it clear who's talking in a scene just by what's said and how it's said. I discovered when writing Angel that the trick is when you have a scene with more than two or three people. Then, you wind up having to attribute at least the new person speaking, then make it clear what's happening as the dialog bounces around, almost like a multi-player ping-pong match. The other way to do it is find a way to distinguish the way each character speaks and make them express themselves differently. You can do this with accents, choice of words, attitudes... there's a treasure-trove of tricks to choose from. Once you do that, you can bop back and forth between at least three or four people, and not necessarily have to attribute every sentence. I personally like to avoid attribution, and instead express it with attitude. For example, one character glares at the other, or points to him, then the dialog follows. No "he spat," no "he exploded," not even "he said." Just the dialog can work, as long as it's crystal-clear who's saying what. On the other hand: "he said" can be a beautiful, simple phrase that works. Not everything has to be fancy or profound. Sometimes, simple is best. Look at Ernest Hemingway's work; there's some beautifully-written stuff there. There's a way to balance doing it too much, and doing it poorly.

I don't think we're saying never use adverbs. It's more a question of knowing when to use them, and when to avoid them -- particularly when you're using them as a crutch to prop up a weak sentence or problematic dialog. Look at the work of your favorite authors, and note how they use adverbs and other modifiers. Stephen King swears that when he rewrites and edits one of his own 1st draft manuscripts, a lot of what he cuts out are unnecessary adverbs and adjectives. So it's a question of moderation, that's all. Try to avoid excessively using adverbs and adjectives. [Oops -- there's an adverb right there!]

My story is a lot less dramatic than the ones above. (And my sympathies to you guys -- Jesus, some of you have the makings of a fairly dramatic novel just in your real-life tales!) I had been mulling over whether I was gay for several years. I knew I was different as a little kid, but I didn't really have a name for it until I hit adolescence, around 11. By my late teens, I had gone out with a half-dozen girls, but had also fooled around with some male friends in Jr. High and High School. I'd held back from going all the way, just due to fear and uncertainty -- I guess the fear of being found out at school, being ostracized, and so on. By my early 20s, I had pretty much realized that how I felt wasn't going away. I knew about the gay bars here in LA, and in fact lived in a neighborhood less than three blocks from a whole slew of them, but hadn't had the courage to actually walk into one. Finally in early 1982 -- on Valentine's Day, as a matter of fact -- I saw the movie Making Love with a couple of gay friends. Seeing the movie made something click inside me, and I finally realized I didn't have to change who I was to accept being gay. I know it sounds crazy, but up to that point, I somehow subconciously thought I'd have to act differently if I was gay, like I'd have to turn into some kind of lisping, cross-dressing queen, which is not my thing at all. The main guys in that movie were fairly macho and very attractive, and somehow, that helped get it through my head that all I had to do was to just accept it and let it happen. I immediately felt a huge sense of relief, like a 500-pound weight left my shoulders. I screwed up my courage and confided in my friends as we left the theater, and one of them whooped out, "I KNEW IT! I WON THE BET!" So they had known all along that I had been struggling with this thing, and helped me through the whole thing over the next few months. I came out a few days later to my brother and sister and a few friends, but I left everybody else on a "don't ask, don't tell" basis. My take on it was, I'm not gonna go out of my way to shove my gay identity in somebody's face, but if they ask me, I'm not gonna lie about it, either. I figured being gay was just one facet of me, and wasn't necessarily the core of what and who I was. (And yet at the same time, I can't imagine not being gay; if I had my life to live over again, I'm not sure I'd change that at all, though I have to admit, I think the world is a lot less hostile to straight people.) Anyway, I met a guy about a year later, another writer (working for a rival magazine), we hit it off, and we hooked up. We're still together after more than 20 years, and that's longer than most straight couples we know. He's far more closeted than I am, but he came from a fairly conservative family up in Canada. And even he's loosened up a little bit over the years.

The sentence doesn't have to be "lacking" if it works in context with the paragraphs that came before it. Almost every writing book I've ever read has stressed the importance of avoiding adverbs and adjectives except when absolutely necessary. I believe it's only correct to use an adverb (like "nonchalantly") if for some reason the reader can't understand the real meaning of the dialog in context. A good example of that would be if the person speaking is being ironic or sarcastic. Take this one: "Hey, nice dress." In that case, we don't necessarily know what the person speaking really means. Is it really a nice dress? Is he cracking a joke? Is he insulting the dress? I think it's better to let the actions dictate the sentence's meaning. For example, in this case, we could have the person pause, then burst out laughing. Now we know what he or she meant, without any adjectives. I think action is stronger than an adverb. And many writing books stress that many amateur writers use adverbs and adjectives to prop up weak sentences. Make the sentences stronger, and you won't need to use nearly as many modifiers. BTW, I strongly object to people who try to use certain actions as verbs. For example: "He used to be my boyfriend," Paul sighed. Uh-uh. You can't "sigh" dialog. You also can't laugh dialog or smile dialog, either. On the other hand, you could say: "He used to be my boyfriend," Paul said, then sighed and looked away. and that works fine. You could also describe the character's physical actions, like if he stammers, or nervously picks at something on his shirt, or if a long silence follows after this dialog, and the other character realizes (through thought or an internal monologue) what the words imply. I think to do much more than this can put you on the road to excess.

Booklist says this about this book: In this sequel to Geography Club (2003), 16-year-old Russel, now openly gay and tired of being the freak at school, tries to escape as a counselor in a rural summer camp with his two best friends. The camp kids are 10-year-old burn survivors, scarred and disfigured, and Russel identifies with them. They also have fun together, once he stops seeing them as "all nervous and noble." But Russel fights with his friends, especially after discovering that he and bisexual Min are attracted to the same gorgeous counselor guy. There's much metaphor and message, including the stories Russel tells the kids about raging fires, hidden beauty, and developing toughness. What readers will like best is the honest, tender, funny, first-person narrative that brings close what it's like to have a crush and hate a friend. This and several other reviews felt the author's netaphors were too heavy-handed. I initially felt disappointed with this book, because its first chapter starts off very slowly, almost leading me to put it down. Thankfully, I stuck with it, and was pleasantly surprised to see that Poison Oak actually surpasses the author's first book, Geography Club (which itself is a terrific read). One might think that the story of three teenage friends at a summer camp might not have a lot of dramatic potential... but think again. Sure, this story's got all the expected teenage angst, but add to that romance, betrayal, lust, friendship, and a wealth of other emotions -- quite a rollercoaster ride. Some unexpected twists and turns lead to several surprising dramatic climaxes, along with valuable lessons in life for both the reader and the characters. Like the author's last novel, Poison Oak draws its characters vividly, and their many flaws make them both interesting and very real. Hartinger makes some good points, comparing children with scars on the outside to those with scars on the inside, and does it in a way that's never cloying or hokey. And the romantic yearning felt by the three central characters are universal; some might characterize the book as a being for "gay teens," but I think these emotions can be empathized by anyone with heart. This being a YA novel, don't expect for the sex scenes to be explicit. I'd call this "PG-13" sex, leaving much to the imagination, but still with enough details to make the point. The emotional content is much more intense; there's several scenes that I suspect many readers will find very moving, and at least a couple that are almost heart-breaking. And this ain't no "after-school special"; the story and characters ring very true to me, without the "happily ever after" gloss of similar stories and TV shows. Five-star reviews get handed out much too often, but I think Poison Oak clearly deserves that highest rating.

I have to agree. Definitely very good stuff here. Driver is clearly a very talented guy. I wouldn't necessarily say he's as good (or better) than mainstream authors, but I'd definitely put him very high on the list for Net fiction. For the record, the best author I've read is here on Awesomedude, and that would be David Buffett. In particular, his story Alpha Male is light years ahead of anything I've ever read on Nifty.

I want to like the For the Love of Pete series, but the whole thing recently descended into so much contrived melodrama, I'm just wide-eyed and bewildered at the whole thing. The current installment, where the two have split up because one of them (God knows which; I get them both confused) outted himself at school by coming to the rescue of a gay kid who was getting beaten up in a fight by a thug. The secret boyfriend -- I think it was Pete -- is incensed that Brian has put him in the position of pretty much being outted, gets incensed beyond belief and breaks up with him. This completely goes against the entire romantic direction the series has been in for several years. I have absolutely no problem with conflict in fiction, but this to me just rings so false, so patently contrived, I feel like the author just threw it in there to stir things up. I don't buy that the characters would have this argument for more than an day, let alone allow things to boil to a head to cause them to split up. I could also also make the argument that I don't think 13 year-olds could have romantic entanglements this intense and involved, but that's another topic entirely. (The author also seems to have forgotten that much earlier in the story, Pete somehow inherited a small fortune, and I think that money could've solved a lot of their current problems.) Don't get me wrong: I think Dewey has talent, but I think this story is meandering all over the place like an out-of-control soap opera. Angst can be a good thing in fiction, but only if the reader can really believe it. It's a frustrating story to read, because I think he's capable of doing better work than this.

I'm reminded of the memorable scene from the excellent 1973 Mel Brooks movie Blazing Saddles, where one character exclaims, "Bart! But they said you was hung!" And Bart replies, "and they was right!" I was so naive, I honestly didn't know what this meant until it was pointed out to me. Aaaaa, I was a total geek back then.

That's thoroughly wrong, at least in my experience living and working here in LA for almost 30 years. Trust me, somebody just wasn't thinking, and I bet the director wasn't even in this room when an insert shot of this address page was shot. No way would a Zip Code be "required" by anybody, and neither the Post Office or any other government agency can demand dialog be changed for technical accuracy. Hell, protesters haven't even been able to get smoking eliminated from film scenes, and that's almost a legitimate protest. In the case of the scene in question, I have no doubt that if even a lowly grip or a honeywagon driver pointed that out to the director, they'd be thanked and it would've been changed immediately. I bet everybody was in a hurry, nobody noticed, nobody caught it, and it got shipped before it was too late. Simple as that. There are whole books written on the problems of anachronisms and continuity problems in films, like Bill Givens' hilarious Film Flubs series. One that always bothered me was the car-inspection sticker on a 1962 car in the (otherwise great) movie Godfather II. The only problem is: car inspections didn't start until about 1972, around the time the movie was made. I also go nuts when they get the TV cameras, microphones, and other equipment wrong in movies about the 1950s or 1960s; the brand-new George Clooney film Good Night and Good luck does everything right, but then you see stuff like the 1979 Kurt Russell Elvis movie, where they have Elvis in front of 1977 color TV cameras... in 1956. Uh-uh. Other flaws happen, too. I worked on about 30 projects for Miramax in the 1990s, and I caught (as one example) numerous spelling mistakes in end credit-crawls. The studio was always very gracious and chagrined when they discovered the error, and had to spend thousands of dollars to fix them for the home video releases. By then, it was too late to fix the theatrical, but we at least caught it for VHS/DVD. (I also caught a mistake in the end credits of SPY KIDS 2, but that was before the film came out, and they were able to fix that problem.) I do agree with much of what you say. I believe if a writer can at least capture the "look and feel" of speech in a specific era, even if it's slightly off, you can get the gist of it and make it work for the story, and make the reader believe everything that happens. On the other hand, then there was the 2001 Heath Ledger film Knight's Tale, for which I worked on all the trailers. That one had characters saying "YES!" and making a fist, a modern gesture right out of the late 1990s. I've never seen a worse movie in terms of having the wrong historical attitudes for the time shown in the film. I also disliked the little kid in Mummy 2, who at one point turns to the villains and says, "my daddy's gonna kick your ass!" No kid would talk that way in 1932, certainly not the child of wealthy, educated parents. Both the attitude and the dialog are totally wrong for both historical examples.

Sincere good luck, Blue! I hope things work out well for you. I've been told by a few psychiatrists that it seems a larger-than-normal percentage of gay people are neurotic. But the theory is that a lot of their problems and depression were caused by years of having to hide in the closet. Once they were out, they were a lot better off, but it still took years to overcome the traumas from the times they weren't out. As for me, I struggle with depression and mood swings all the time, but I try to keep swingin' as best I can, and live up to my responsibilities and so on. Being gay isn't a problem for me anymore, but at the same time, I don't volunteer the info. Only in the last couple of years has anybody I worked with actually asked, "so, are you married?". Usually I pause, brace myself a little, and then casually say, "well, sort of. I've been with the same guy for 20 years." So that's one way to answer the question. :)

Actually, it's easier than you might think. Read the Orson Scott Card book I keep mentioning, and he has actual examples of how 1st can easily be converted to 3rd. That having been said: I readily agree that there are definite stories for which writing in 1st person is mandatory. One of the best is detective stories and mysteries, where the detective is actually telling the story (or his assistant, as with Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, most of which are related by Dr. Watson). Those would be far less effective if written in 3rd person, since this way, the audience discovers the clues as the hero finds them.

The beauty of writing in third-person omniscient POV is that you only have to change perspective when you want to. Just because you can show the inner thoughts and activities of another person doesn't mean you have to do it. For example: think of all the mystery stories you've read, at least the ones written in third-person. It would be suicide for the author to tip his or her hand at the beginning and show who the murderer is. The key is to just provide enough occasional glimpses into other people's thoughts when you need to. I discovered a lot of tricks and problems when I wrote Jagged Angel, which was my first (and so far, only) 3rd person POV novel. One thing I had to experience in order to understand it was when showing other characters' thoughts worked, and when it didn't. For example, another writer/friend of mine pointed out a scene in which I had two characters talking on the phone. He pointed out it was odd to show the thoughts of the other person on the phone, and he was right. In scenes like this, just stick with one person only, preferably the one who's the central focus of the scene. And don't bounce around back and forth; that'll confuse readers every time. My rule of thumb is, the moment one character leaves the room, then you can switch the focus to show the other character's thoughts -- like have them say, "gee, what's gotten into Joe? Why did he snap at me like that?" That kind of thing. BTW: This is all covered very well in that Orson Scott Card book I mentioned elsewhere, Characters and Viewpoint. I found this book so illuminating, I read it twice. Check it out for yourself.

Yeah, we had the crap whacked out of us here. I'm far enough away in the Valley that we escaped most of it, but it hit everywhere from Burbank to Downtown LA pretty badly. Some places had no power for two solid hours. When the medium-big 1994 quake happened, even back then I had a UPS power backup on my computer. I was up and awake, listening to Howard Stern on the radio and online to CompuServe when the thing hit. After all the shaking stopped, the only light we had in my room was from the monitor, which was lying on the floor. You really start appreciating life a little more, once you've had a few experiences with disasters...

Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. The first fiction I wrote, Groovy Kind of Love, was just a rewrite of my own life in the 1960s, and at least 50% of it was true (or inspired by real-life incidents). All the characters were based on people I really knew -- combining some people into one new character, using real-life names, or using elements from people I knew very well -- as well as real buildings, cities, streets, and places, and the lead character was a thinly-disguised version of me. Readers who knew Central Florida sent me congratulatory emails, but I chuckled because most of what I described was done solely from dim memory, since I hadn't been back there in over 27 years. I went in a 180-degree different direction with my second novel, though, and decided to write about people I knew nothing about (contemporary teenagers), in a world I never had anything to do with (wealthy families in Southern California, and kids on football teams), doing things I never did (drugs, sex, wild parties, you name it). It was a stretch, particularly for the lead character, because he was such a radically-different character from who I am. It took a lot of research, particularly on details like the inner workings of football teams, or what it was like to get arrested for murder and sent to jail, but I think it was worth it. I'm trying a different tactic for my current novel, which will be another teen story. The lead character is close to what I might be like as a teenager today, but sent back in time to a world totally different from anything I know about. Again, this is taking a lot of research, but the end result is the same: I'm writing about what I know, even though it's involves details I had to conciously learn. Quick side-story: one of my favorite pulp novel series are the FU MANCHU thrillers written by Sax Rohmer in the early-to-mid-20th century. I was surprised to recently learn that not only had Rohmer never visited Asia, he was an almost-total recluse and rarely ventured out of his West Side NYC apartment! So here's a guy who wrote a couple of dozen novels about Chinese opium dens, crime in San Francisco, the lowlife slums of London, and many other major cities -- none of which he ever visited! And yet he makes each world seem vividly real, with all kinds of true-to-life detail. As long as you can fake that, it doesn't matter if it's from your personal experience or not.

Yeah, a few of the books on writing that I've read have stressed the need for us to write a story that practically "hypnotizes" the reader and puts them in a dream-like state. I'm sure any of you who've read a really fine novel have been so immersed it in, when a friend comes up to try to talk to you, you kind of shake your head as if coming out of a dream, and go "wha? Huh?" A writer who can do that is doing a reasonably-good job. I dunno if it's "master-storytelling," but that's the desired effect. Last quick comment: some of the scenes I've written myself were so vivid to me, I feel like they're actual memories of something that really happened in my life, or a (very high-budget) movie that I've watched. I can only think of half a dozen instances where this happened, but the moments really felt powerful and emotional to me. My readers have often cited those same scenes as jumping out at them in the story, so I like to think those approached (but probably didn't quite hit) the so-called "master-storyteller" level.

Exactly. But it does seem like a really big deal when you're going through it. I often wish I could go back in time and give myself the advice I didn't have as a teenager in the 1970s. To me, coming out doesn't have to be a big deal; but on the other hand, you can't do it until you're ready. As for me, I wasn't ready until I was in my 20s, and it took a 2500-mile move, away from my family, plus another four or five years to finally get the courage to do it. Once I did, it was like a tremendous weight was taken off my shoulders. But that was back in the late 1970s. I think it's easier now, especially for teenagers, to get the right information and to understand what it takes to be honest with yourself. My joke is, if I had been able to watch QUEER AS FOLK when I was a teenager, I'd've been partying pretty hard by the time I was 15 at least. :)

I often get annoyed when I'm reading a story that takes place where I live, in Southern California, and they make some dumbf@ck mistake about how a certain place looks, or where it's located. One writer for whom I edited for a while (whose story is on this site) had some scenes set here in LA, but he made the giant error of having people bop back and forth between Anaheim and Hollywood in a few minutes. Uh-uh. That's a 45-minute ordeal, and twice that time in bad traffic. We had to make some radical changes in logistics just to make those trips anywhere close to reality. And I'm sure many of you have seen movies set in your hometown (or a place you know well), where a character turns from one street to another -- streets that may not even connect in real life. I don't mind that as much as the former scenario, but it does point to the need to get the details of your location straight, whenever you're telling a story.

I'm not a big dog fan by any means, but even I liked this story very much. I found it very moving, and this is the kind of tale that can get morbid and corny very easily. TR pulled it off very nicely.

Yet another reason NOT to use adverbs. Every book on writing I've ever read stresses the need to avoid adverbs as much as possible. To not do so is foolhardy. (Whoops!) :roll:

Yeah, there are differences, and they can be major. I once made the mistake of complimenting a writer on a very fine novel he did on Nifty, but chided him (very mildly) on some "British-isms" that crept into the story. The tale took place in an unspecified city in California, and the characters were all-American boys, but every so often, things went... uh, a "bit wonky." For example, in one scene, he dropped in the phrase "Father Christmas," which caused me to almost do a spit-take. No bloody *way* would an American refer to that character by any name but Santa Claus. Kris Kringle... maybe. St. Nick... OK. But not Father C. (And there was a lot of the word "bloody" in the story, too, which I think doesn't happen that often here in the States.) Stuff like this immediately flagged it as "fake" in my book, and I told him the characters just didn't ring true -- and I hear Calfornia teenagers speak every other day of the week. The author was absolutely indignant about my comments and really lit into me in email, which astonished me since 99% of my comments were quite positive. (If I can find the name of the story again, I'll recommend it for the BoN list.) He was convinced that, because he had a couple of friends who were Americans, and he'd heard them speak a few times, he knew American dialog better than I did. But believe me: if I wrote a story that took place in England or Australia, I'd damned sure run it past a resident to make sure I got the hang of the dialog.