Ask the Author: Edward Beale
Answered Questions (7)
Edward Beale
This fictional couple is a bit obscure, but I always liked Dominique Francon and Howard Roark in The Fountainhead. What a duo!
Edward Beale
Sometimes the best ideas appear in the shower. Years ago I read something about crafting the perfect opening line. Robert Heinlein could be a case study for this process: read and critique the opening line in a dozen or more of his books. One example from his book Friday: "As I left the Kenya Beanstalk capsule he was right on my heals." The narrator is on travel and moving, which implies a history (why was she traveling? Where had she been?) She say Kenya, so we have a familiar place in mind, but what is the "Beanstalk?" What is a "capsule?" And she is being pursued - who is this person? Why is he following her? How did he get into the same capsule? When did she notice? The opening paragraph continues: "He followed me through the door leading to Customs, Health, and Immigration. As the door contracted behind him I killed him." So I go back and read some opening lines of several novels or books, then try to craft the most aggressive, shocking, outrageous opening for any particular page. I know I can always change it later.
Edward Beale
There is a best thing? Steve Jobs said "real artists ship." It is gratifying to see when my work has "shipped."
Edward Beale
Anything I would say is cliche or has been said before. So I'll just say it. Become a slave to the story. If it does not enhance the story, no matter how well you like the combination of words, strip it out and use it somewhere else. Watch the movie "Finding Forrester". Go visit some author houses - Hemingway, Mark Twain, Jack London, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry Beston's houses are all places I have seen in the past year. Imagine your own house as a tourist attraction some day. My work is a gestalt of research and immersion - I surround myself with stuff from the day or destination (ticket receipts, flyers), then go through photographs while writing impressions. A video helps with remembering the sound. A journal entry is how I remember the feel (temperature, wind) and smell of a place. Get beyond telling and do more showing. Showing a place requires all the senses, so get past just the look of a place.
Edward Beale
With a new book out the focus turns to marketing. Writing to catch eyeballs is different than writing to catch details of travel. I have been building a technical and sales training process book for almost two years, and am racing to have it ready before a conference in June. "Welcome to the Zombie Apocalypse: Now Start Shooting" is the working title.
Edward Beale
I'm an engineer by temperament and training. But writing is one of the most direct ways to influence the human mind - like engineering thoughts. As a child I wrote stories in small booklets of paper sewn together with needle and thread, about comic strip characters or people on television. In my 20s I shifted to poetry, and took my 30s off from writing to concentrate on "life". When I can get back to writing it is like another part of my latent creativity reemerges. It is all too infrequent. A project helps force the issue.
Edward Beale
The basic structure of the book "wrote itself" as transcriptions from a daily blog at sea. The trip was 105 day, so the book is 105 pages, plus front and back material. Behind the trip (and before the book) was the brain cancer. The illness drives every decision, every day. Is this a valuable use of these upcoming minutes, or should we do something else? With 105 pages and over 40,000 words to work with, a multi-layered treasure hunt became possible. And now it is in your hands!
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