Daniel Wallace

Adapt This

2008-05-07T14:53:00.001-05:00

Sniplits

2008-04-27T15:29:00.002-05:00

I know you're thinking sniplits are just itsy bitsy snips -- but they're not. Sniplits is an interesting new place to go where you can buy and download the audio versions of a whole bunch of different stories. It's cheaper than iTunes. And yes, I do have a story there if you'd like to check it out, "Beautiful, Faithful Asian Ladies Seek Friendship/Marriage." Which has nothing at all to do with this photo, I swear.

Goodbye Intermediate Fictioners!

2008-04-24T21:28:00.003-05:00

Live long, write well . . .

The Monti

2008-04-12T15:44:00.002-05:00

Check this out. At 7 on Tuesday, April 22nd I'm doing something they're calling The Monti. What it amounts to is an evening of a few people getting up on a stage (I'm assuming there's some sort of stage) and telling a story.

On the face of it this might appear to be right up my alley, since I tell stories on a stage all the time. But this is different. I'm not reading. There are no notes. And the stories are supposed to be true. In other words, I am very nervous. I rarely put myself into a situation where I can so easily crash and burn, and because I might crash and burn I decided to do it.

At this writing, ten days out, I have no idea what I'm going to say. If anything. Maybe I'll do that post-modern Mute Man piece I've been working on. For the locals, it's at Spice Street down at University Mall. Come. A bunch of very talented storytellers will be there, and if I fail it will only make everybody else look better.

Elynora, finally on the shelves . . .

2008-04-02T15:24:00.003-05:00

. . . in Italy, at a trade show. Being read by an actual Italian. Sneaking slowly into the world.

An Easy To Understand Explanation of the Monty Hall Paradox

2008-03-24T19:31:00.001-05:00

Google and My Book

2008-03-23T15:19:00.003-05:00

Everyone knows how much fun the Google Translator can be. Here is the Italian-to-English translation of what Elynora, the children's book written by me and illustrated by Daniela Tordi, is about:

Wallace tells a humanity suspended between myth and reality. Without transcend the limits of a daily authentic, ties the threads of magic, the mystery, the miracle that life itself nourishes and collects naturally in its folds, designing a web of characters and events.

Books with foreign accents are so fetching.

Done with pictures. Back to words.

2008-03-19T16:51:00.003-05:00

Write Your Own Caption

2008-03-15T21:14:00.002-05:00

Like they do in The New Yorker. Go ahead, write your own caption!

How to Write, Part III

2008-03-09T13:09:00.003-05:00

Not everything in a story is metaphorical or symbolic. For instance, sometimes a redneck is just a redneck.

Yep.

2008-03-08T00:01:00.002-05:00

How to Write a Story, Part II

2008-02-28T16:52:00.002-05:00

For the math geeks out there:

If anyone can do it, he can.

2008-02-25T13:23:00.002-05:00

How to Write a Story, Part I

2008-02-20T16:03:00.002-05:00

I'm teaching now over at the University of North Carolina. When I say 'over' I mean about two miles over from where I live. I really like it. It surprises me, in fact, how much I like it. I have two classes every Tuesday and Thursday, and get to talk to the most eager, intelligent and promising -- uh -- I guess I can call them 'youngsters' now that I am almost fifty years old.

I'm always trying to find the simplest way to explain the most important thing: how to tell a story. That's my job, after all. Writing a good story is, I admit, a difficult thing to do. But if the beginning writer can simplify the process, boil it down to the bone, his or her chances of success are much greater. Once you learn how all the basic parts work you can start adding to the parts and build something really big that's never been seen before in the world.

So this is what I did. I drew this picture. It has everything a story needs. It's a template. Start here, is what I'm telling them, and you can go far.

Don't take it literally: i.e., don't write a story about a guy who wants a bit of a girl's muffin. Just use these three parts: the protagonist, the antagonist, and the thing the protagonist wants, the thing the antagonist denies him. And voila.

Does this make sense?

Yes, you can write again. But remember:

2008-02-12T22:47:00.001-05:00

The Nines

2008-02-09T09:50:00.001-05:00

A million and a half years ago, when Big Fish was optioned to be a film, I had two main thoughts. The first was, Thanks for the money. And the second was, If it ever gets made -- which it probably won't -- this is going to be one very bad movie. How could it not be? The book has no real plot to speak of, and only one real character. Doesn't sound like the most propitious beginning for a movie, does it? So I figured if it ever did get made they were going to have to change it pretty radically, transform it into something which in the end would have little or nothing to do with the book. And that was fine with me because a) I still had the money and b) I still had the book. The book wouldn't change. If Big Fish did turn out to be the worst movie in the history of movie-making, I would still have more readers than I ever had before. I couldn't lose.

Then I met John August. He's the guy who found the book, read it, and saw the movie in it -- the screenwriter. He took the book to Sony and basically wouldn't leave until they said they would option it for him. I met John for the first time in '99 at a rest stop off I-95 near Richmond (long story) and we went to a pizza place and talked for two or three hours about the book -- what we thought it was about. And luckily (because as I have since learned, this doesn't always happen) we thought it was about the same things. 18 months and four drafts later, he had written an amazing screenplay. What you see when you see the movie are his words given shape and form for the screen, for which we have to thank Tim Burton, and for which Tim Burton has to thank John August.

I had a lot preconceived notions about what a Hollywood screenwriter was like, as I'm sure many of us do. Suffice it to say, John was none of those things. He's the nicest guy you'll ever meet. He's also one of the smartest. This is immediately evident when you visit his website, and even more so when you read his scripts. Scripts are how-to manuals, in a way, directions for a director, new ones written for every movie made. But John's scripts can stand on their own, much like a novel. They're beautiful. If you're interested in screenwriting you have to take a look at what he's done. He has a few on his site, I believe. Look.

What I admire most about him is his ability to shift between styles -- from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Charlie's Angels. He knows how to tell a story the way it has to be told to be the thing it's supposed to become. He brings his own style with him, of course, which includes a lot of humor and a fondness for a unique structure, but he's always open to change, open to the possibilities presented by each project. Of all the writers I know, it's his talent and intelligence I'd like to have a little bit of myself.

So. This is my long-winded way of saying: see The Nines. It's the first movie he wrote and directed, and it is wildly wonderful in about 99 different ways. It's on Amazon, it's on Netflix. And so much more about it is on John's site. Enjoy.

Drawing is fun

2008-02-07T22:49:00.000-05:00

But I continue to write. Somebody wondered whether I was writing and statistically if one person mentions something at least two other people have thought the same thought in passing. So I should address it: yes, I am writing . . . a novel! Excited? I bet. I'm about 125 pages into it, and now I'm a little nervous because I'm not completely sure what's supposed to happen next, and I'm afraid to show it to anyone because something might get said that changes the novel's intended course, which, as I said, is a mystery to me. Also, I do like it, and I want to finish it, and if the first half was read and the reaction wasn't to my liking -- well, I hate to think what might happen. Clearly, I have issues.

I've gone through a couple of titles, including A Cure for Blindness and Poor Little Blind Girl. Now I'm just calling it Rachel.

Work in Progress, III -- The Magic of Color

2008-02-02T12:32:00.001-05:00

Work in Progress, II

2008-01-28T18:27:00.001-05:00

Work in Progress, I

2008-01-25T22:40:00.000-05:00

So I'm illustrating a book for someone. I'd say who but -- maybe it's a secret of some kind? I don't know. But I'm going to preview some of the drawings here.

(By the way, the book is about writing fiction by someone who actually writes fiction.)

To Be Successful as a Writer

2008-01-23T20:56:00.000-05:00

It's all about developing a fan base. Start early, that's my advice to you.

Thanks, Charlie.

So . . .

2008-01-14T18:55:00.000-05:00

Classes have started. I'm teaching two at UNC this semester: intermediate creative writing and a class where we read short stories and view the movies they became. Both: lots of fun. Students: intelligent and eager. Me: looking forward.

But it's hard to know what to do with this commentary. Not much to say about the book, it being almost exactly between hardback and paper . . . and though I could write about all the dear people in my family who almost just died, but who seem quite well right now, I'd rather keep this centered on writing. So I'm thinking about it. And I'm open to suggestions. Over and out.

And I hope all the little children in Italy are happy

2007-12-20T22:55:00.000-05:00

Now that it all seems set and ready to go, after many wonderful and a couple of not-so-wonderful adventures, finally it appears that a children's book -- written by me, illustrated by Daniela Tordi -- will be published in Italy next year. In March, I think. It's called Elynora, and it's about a mother and her son and their extraordinary life (and death) and life. Hard to explain without giving it away, and I wouldn't want to ruin it for all those Italian kids who keep up with this commentary. Daniela Tordi is an amazing illustrator, and (though we've yet to meet) clearly an amazing woman. It's a beautiful book thanks to her.

Thank you, Daniela.

For those keeping score, this is the second book of mine that's been published in a foreign country without first being published in this one. (See here for the first.) Two books. Isn't that a little weird? I think so.

Okay. Here's the cover for Elynora!

File under: Humor

2007-12-18T19:57:00.000-05:00

“Ambrose apologized for inadvertently quoting some passages in full . . .”
The Times

“I mistook a quote in my notes for my own words.”
Doris Godwin

§§§§§

Apology

It has come to my attention that some of the passages in my most recent novel, A Day in Dublin, were inadvertently plagiarized. How this came to happen is, as most fiction writers know all too well, an understandable phenomenon, but one which nevertheless should in the course of editing be dealt with, and in the following cases it wasn’t, and I apologize.

1) On page 1, first paragraph, my hero, Steve Dedleus says, “I grow old, I grow old, I shall buy a new pair of trousers later today, oh, my yes.” Clearly, this is a reference to “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” I have mentioned in many interviews and articles what a huge influence Eliot had on my writing, and in such cases it’s not surprising that, completely inadvertently, images from his writing would infiltrate my own, but in this case the infiltration is probably a bit much. I apologize.

2) On page 2. “All happy families are alike; all unhappy families are probably a lot like mine.” I thought this was completely my own. Imagine my surprise when it was brought to my attention that something like it was originally written by Tolstoy, who in fact I have never read in my life. My apologies.

3) On page 3. The following dialogue occurs between two minor characters.

“Well then who's on first?”
“Yes!”
“ I mean the fellow's name!”
“Who!”
“ The guy on first!”
“Who!”
“The first baseman!”
“Who!”
“The guy playing first!”
“Who is on first!”
“Now whaddya askin' me for?
“I'm telling you Who . . .”

In my forward, I explicitly thank Abbott and Costello for “honing my skills as a humorist.” I thought this covered it. I guess it didn’t. In hindsight, I would have put this passage in quotes, and included a laugh-track.

4) The craft of writing fiction is complicated, laborious, time-consuming, thankless, and labor which goes virtually unpaid. There is just so much paper around. Give me a break.

5) The plot of my novel is said to have been completely borrowed from James Joyce’s Ulysses. This is quite true. But as I have said many times, “If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants."

6) On pages 67 – 219. The computer age is a bit of a mystery to this quaint and old-fashioned writer, whose first books, Catch-23 and Lord of the Spies, were written entirely with pencil on scraps of tissue paper. While cutting and pasting A Day in Dublin, I somehow inadvertently downloaded the entirety of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. My apologies to the author.

In closing, I hope these few, careless lapses do not detract from the larger issues my work hopes to address – the plight of the individual in a faceless, corporate world which awards not plain virtue but rather naked ambition and sexual exploits with co-workers. I am sorry. This won’t happen again.

Quandary.

2007-12-16T19:54:00.001-05:00

Can you say "NO" to rejection?