Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

A Twitter Mentor

For some time, I have been following a learned writer on Twitter for inspiration. I started following him--Frank Delaney--to read Ulysses with, through his weekly podcast sessions.

Frank Delaney is a writer with an Irish background and understands the Irish feeling better than I ever can on my own, and reading James Joyce by myself has always left me with the feeling that I missed something, even though I might have enjoyed the book completely.

While doing that, I came to realize that it wasn’t only reading Joyce, but it was Delaney’s in-depth look into literature and writing that made me follow him. I also enjoy this writer’s sense of humor regarding earlier writers as in this tweet. “Today, 1791, James Boswell published his Life of Dr. Johnson – with, of course, Johnson safely long dead.”

I haven’t tweeted at or bothered FD in any way and he doesn't know that I exist unless he checks his follower list, but I kept some of his advice in a word file. And some good advice it is.

Then I thought why not share a part of it in my blog, as some WdC writer may use a thought or two. Because the tips on writing are already tweeted for the whole world and there’s such a thing as retweeting, I don’t think this will be a copyright infringement.

If you wish to follow him yourself here’s his twitter page. Frank Delaney’s fiction is also sold in Amazon.

https://twitter.com/FDbytheword

Here are a selection of Frank Delaney tips from the last two months in Twitter.

• Make your chief secondary character totally unpredictable. He/she will keep you and your novel on your toes.
• Give your protagonist your partner’s most irksome habit
• Looking for a title? Try a large old cookery book –because recipes have wonderful phrases and are often self-supporting metaphors.
• Looking for titles for your book? Try songs from decades past. Vaudeville, music-hall, operetta are rich in arresting and unusual phrases.
• People who are cheap can be more interesting than people who are not.
• "What is our most interesting emotion? The most compelling? Love? Jealousy? I'll put a bid in for remorse."
• How do your characters relate to their shoes?
• Don’t describe voices. You may have to read the audio book.
• Want to write a novel about a writer? Show us what the writer writes. It lets us into the writer’s mind – and is a shortcut into your own!
• When you describe a pair of hands, you describe the whole person.
• Take your protagonist to the doctor; you'll learn a lot.
• This is useful: List the scenes that will be most demanding to write, and schedule them for when you know you’ll be at your most rested.
• Repetition- of words, catch-phrases- reveals personality, but don't use it too often.
• Still can’t write? Begin drafting the story of your life as a biographer might. The objectivity (and the narcissism) will shake you up.
• Pace in fiction is like color in painting- disturbing if it's not right.
• It might be non-fiction, but it's still a story- so tell it.
• Looking for energy? Write a dinner scene for multiple characters and make one of them truly offensive. It’ll galvanize all the others.
• Be obsessed to uncover and read every fact that has been written on the subject.
• Great Research Sources: the archives of small-town newspapers anywhere in the world since printing began. All human life is there.
• Plot Driver: Imagine the best thing that could happen to a character you love. Write the opposite for them and enjoy the dynamic!
• Build confidence by being objective. Pretend someone else wrote your text and make yourself its kindly but rigorous critic.
• Be careful using dreams- they're often boring.
• Don't bother using your novel to slam an enemy: it'll be less readable than you think- and who cares?
• When inventing characters, give yourself the parents you've always wanted.
• Experts make great characters- Who doesn't love an expert?
• “Evil” is an anagram for “vile”-and also, for the adjective, “live.”
• Can’t find your way forward? Switch the point-of-view: e.g., write in the first person if you’re in third. It’ll loosen up everything
• Try and make us wonder what's happening to our protagonists when they're not on the page.
• Research Tip: “Never research one fact at a time: twin it with another, related fact and see how they help each other.”
• Secondary characters quite like appearing more than once.
• Make your major event happen at exactly half way; that's when the book starts turning for home.
• Make every chapter complete- and a cliffhanger.
• If there’s a fight, we have to feel the blows.
• When did you last steal from someone? And what was it? A pen? A diamond necklace? And why did you do it? Now write about it.
• Who was the last person who stole anything from you? Did you know them? If you did – recapture your feelings at the theft. Now write it.
• Who is the person you most dislike in your life? Study them and ask yourself why you dislike them. Now you have an interesting character.
• Make one of your characters very irritating – e.g., someone who only speaks in questions. Always. Never changes. Just - Questions.
• Potent Memory Dept.: What was the first food that you truly loved? If you have a meal scene, have your characters answer that question.
• Writing Tip: Take your three primary worries and give them to three characters. Watch how they address or resolve the problems.
• If your protagonist is about to tell a major lie – have the second untruth ready because he/she will need it. A lie has only one leg.
• Writing a historical novel? Choose a tangential figure – a prince’s accountant; a gunslinger’s daughter. Make theirs the worthwhile life.
• The Golden Rules: Are we (a) grabbed; (b) held; (c) rooting for someone? If we’re not – you’d better rewrite!
• Writing Tip - names of characters: If you haven’t given your protagonist the best name possible, they’ll tell you if you listen carefully.
• Writing Tip: It's all right for the characters in a novel to be optimistic or pessimistic. It's not all right for the novelist.
• Writing Tip: The simpler the style the brighter the light – but light, especially when bright, has complexity at its core.
• Writing Tip: In theory you shouldn't need italics for emphasis; your syntax and composition should do it. In practice it adds punch.
• Writing Tip: Try this: Make one chapter happen entirely inside; the next entirely outside; the third inside and outside.
• To check if a strand of your story works: Pull out the chapters of that strand: Tie them together as a single tale: See how it hangs.
• Writing tip: Lose the “-st” bit – i.e., “whilst” and “amongst” are great-grandma stuff – you’ll sound prissy.
• If you say somebody is boring – we’ll be bored, unless you amuse us with their boringness.
• Writing Tip: Suck out a difficult bit of draft and write it as a separate story. Then slide it back into the main text. Note the new energy!
• Don’t murder all your darlings – those great phrases are part of your talent.
• Short sentences generate tension; long sentences generate a mood of reflection.
• One detail – of a character or a room – is often enough.
• Make sure we have somebody to hate.
• Make us feel lonely when we’ve finished reading.