Positive Waves Week

A number of things happened last week, both online and off, such that I felt totally assaulted by negative waves. Therefore, I hereby declare this week Positive Waves Week at Author's Echo. There will be no rants this week, no posts bemoaning any aspect of writing or the publishing industry, no insanity -- temporary or otherwise. There will only be posts to make you happy (or, because I cannot actually control or otherwise guarantee your happiness, to make me happy).

You know what makes me happy?

• Movies -- Star Wars IV-VI, The Matrix, Serenity, The Incredibles, Pirates of the Caribbean... Give me action, fantasy, sci-fi. Give me a Chosen One, someone coming into his own, someone with special powers. Love interest? If you must. But don't overshadow the rebellion/rescue/vengeance with unnecessary kissing.
• Anime -- Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion, Escaflowne, Steamboy, Naruto, and of course Miyazaki (Laputa, Nausicaa, Mononoke)... It's not the animation style I love, it's the culture behind it. It's the worlds that are so different from the fantasy worlds the West is used to. The airships, giant fighting robots, and ninjas certainly don't hurt.
• Board Games -- I'm talking about real strategy games. Settlers, Ticket to Ride, Puerto Rico, Alhambra, Carcassonne... I think it's my German blood.
• Food -- I'm blessed to be in a foreign city that has so many Westerners in it. Though it costs 5-10 times more than Thai food, I have access to pizza, pasta, hamburgers, KFC, and (praise the Lord!) Mexican food when I'm feeling down. I love Chiang Mai.
• You! -- Every time one of you leaves a comment or sends me a note, I smile. Especially when you make jokes, laugh at mine, or tell me you enjoyed a post. You guys are awesome.
• My Kids -- I have awesome kids, guys. Right now we've got 4. There's the boys, Isaac and Nathan, both 2, who make me laugh everyday; if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you probably know that. There's Lutiya (10), willing to learn any game I'll teach her, even though she's just learning English. And Pan (17), who is the most respectful, helpful teenager I've ever met; I just wish I could take credit for it.
• My Wife -- Cindy is the pinnacle of what makes me happy. She quotes Star Wars to me, asks me why Shikamaru is my favorite Naruto character, tries out 2-player variants for Settlers, brings me pizza, and laughs at my jokes (usually). She's the mother of my kids and my favorite alpha reader. She's just the most awesomest thing that's ever happened to me.

Now listen. Positive Waves Week isn't just about me, nor does it need to be confined to a single blog. Are you feeling me? Talk about what makes you happy. Write a post to make you or others smile, and drop the link here. I'll follow every one, all week.

Phew. I feel better already.

Weekly Sketch: Sam Draper

Sam Draper. Ex-Imperial Shadow Commander. Gone AWOL, year 430. Wanted by the Imperial Navy for suspicion of theft, fraud, and piracy. Considered untrustworthy and potentially dangerous. [Edit: If they only knew.] Bounty: 1,200 Jons.


I liked this sketch better before I colored it. The green in particular was a mistake, I think. Oh well. How else am I gonna learn, right?

Once again, you are all witnesses of shattered misconceptions. Last week, I said I wasn't sure about using references for faces. My reasoning was, if I was going to draw somebody from my imagination, I didn't want that somebody to look like any existing person.

But you know what? I'm not that good an artist. It takes me a long, long time to get a Specific Person's face looking just like that Person. However, it takes far less time to draw a face that looks only kinda like them.

Case in point: Whose face is/was this? If you get it right, I'll draw whatever you want. (Note: If you say, "It's Sam's face!" you win my appreciation, but not the prize.)

Oh, also, I'm thinking this feature (if you'll let me call it that) needs a name. Something like Weekly Sketch or Sketch-o-rama, but not quite as lame. Any ideas?

Also also: super secret bonus sketch, hidden behind sloppy Photoshop editing in the upper-left hand corner above Sam's head. I was trying to see if I could still draw a certain favorite cartoon character after a decade of not having done so. Answer: mostly.

Early Writings

This free-writing exercise was found in a high school journal, dated March 1994. Edited for spelling and punctuation:

Once upon a time, in a land far away from here (where the grass was green, the sky was blue, and the air wasn't totally lethal), there was a great white castle. This castle was rather happy with its life, as it was just a castle and had very few responsibilities.

Inside of the castle lived a king. This king was not a happy king. His entire family had just died, and he was left to rule the happy castle all alone at 10 years old.

His only joy was his purple mongoose, whom he so frightfully dubbed Erskin. Erskin, however, knew not how to console his forlorn master as he was only a mongoose and, therefore, not very wise in the ways of comforting.

One day, a former knight -- who had been banished from the castle for plagiarism, false advertising, and incest, among other things -- came to the happy castle with 500 extremely not happy thieves. This knight, who also was not too happy, had come to take the castle from the 10-year-old monarch.

This made the king extremely unhappy, not to mention the castle and the mongoose. The unhappy men outside began to ram the drawbridge. This would have hurt the poor castle except the men failed to see the moat and, because of their heavy armor, they all drowned.

THE END

Steampunk, What is It?

They say steampunk's the next big thing. People are talking about it. Some folks are writing it. But what the heck is it? Honestly, steampunk is a lot of things, so as a certified expert on the subject* I'm going to give you an overview.

* Note: I'm not actually an expert, just a fan of steampunk... and of Wikipedia.

Steampunk as Historical/Science Fiction
At it's heart, steampunk applies the old sci-fi question -- what if? -- to the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution changed the world in a lot of ways, but what if those changes took a different path? What if steam power turned out to be more practical than electricity? What if airships became the most common mode of transportation and warfare? What if France went to war with Britain -- while ruled by Luddites? How might the 19th century have changed?

The classic example is The Difference Engine by Gibson & Sterling. It takes place in a 19th-century Britain where Charles Babbage has not only conceived of the computer, but has actually built one out of gears and cranks, where race cars and tanks run on steam, and where the Japanese build clockwork robot servants.

Another example is Katsuhiro Otomo's Steamboy, in which a boy inventor gets caught in a struggle between his father and grandfather, as their ideals about science collide. And when I say "collide," I'm talking steam-powered super-soldiers, jetpacks, and a flying fortress. (Seriously, if you're not sure about steampunk, watch this movie, and if you are, why haven't you seen this movie yet?).

Steampunk as Speculative Fiction
In the 19th century, science was changing dramatically. Evolution challenged centuries of creationist thinking. Subatomic structures were being discovered within the irreducible atom. In steampunk fiction, science may progress at any rate or discover things even we in the 21st century aren't aware of.

It may take the form of science fiction: a 19th-century scientist reanimates an army of the dead, or fashions a destructive laser using giant lenses and a ruby found in the Mayan ruins. Or it may be pure fantasy: magicians in the London underworld or an occultist's attempt to bring Genghis Khan back to life.

Often, it's a mix of the two. Like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, in which steampunk scientists like Captain Nemo and Henry Jekyll might team up with lady-turned-vampire Mina Harker or the immortal Dorian Gray.

Steampunk as Alternate-Earth Fantasy
Not all steampunk takes place in our history. Video games like Arcanum (gears, factories, and elves) and Skies of Arcadia (airships and pirates on a world of floating continents) take place in fantasy worlds -- even World of Warcraft has a little steampunk in it. Treasure Planet is steampunk in space. Avatar: the Last Airbender pushed the punk edge with the Mechanist and his bender-powered airships, submarines, and tanks.

What these alternate-Earths have in common is a 19th-century feel, regardless of the actual technology (or magic) level.

Steampunk as Fashion
Though steampunk is rooted in fiction, there is a massive offshoot in aesthetics. Steampunk clothing, for example, borrows styles from Victorian England or steampunk fiction: boots, top hats, coat and tails, goggles, tool belts, frills, trenchcoats, you name it. (Also guns, apparently).

There's also steampunk design. This might be anything from gluing gears onto a pair of headphones to a full-on computer/work desk modification. A lot of it is taking modern technology and making it look like it was built in the 19th-century (in the process, making it look super-cool).

So there you go. Are there any questions? Did I miss anything?

(Steampunk not mentioned in this post, that perhaps should have been, includes: Wild, Wild West, The Adventures of Brisco County Jr, Laputa, Howl's Moving Castle, Disney's Atlantis, and Air Pirates. Also, I'm not familiar with every expression of the subgenre, so others will, no doubt, be mentioned in the comments.)

Meet Suriya

Suriya lives with her aunt in the mountains of Northern Thailand. She was born with the ability to control fire. Every so often, the local villagers find out about her powers. When this happens, Suriya and her aunt become the center of unwanted -- often harmful -- attention, and they have to find a new place to live. Even so, Suriya persists in practicing her craft.


I'm really happy with this one. It doesn't look as amazing as Zhang Ziyi, but it's something new. Nobody's ever seen this girl before, and now you have.

One of the problems I'd been having with drawing from my imagination is I'd just do it too fast. I mean, it took me hours to draw Tosh and Lutiya, but I'd spend like 10 minutes on Fitch. What's that about?

This is also the first time I've used reference pictures (for the pose and the dress). I don't know why I didn't use them before. Did I think they were cheating? Probably. I've got a lot of misconceptions about artists that need to die, I think.

That said, I'm still sketchy about using reference pictures for faces. Maybe that's what I should try next then...

How I Choose a Book

Instructions: If the total number of points are greater than the dollar value of the book, it's worth buying.

Where did I hear about the book?
Independent friend recommendations: +3 each*
Acquaintance/third-party/some-guy-whose-comments-I-respect-on-that-one-blog recommendation: +1
Advertising or media coverage: +0.5
It's one of those books I'm supposed to have read but never got around to: +1

* If friend A and friend B both recommend a book, the recommendations are independent iff A and B came to hear about the book independently (i.e. not from each other). Such recommendations are cumulative.

Do I recognize the author?
Like the author: +3
Love the author: +5
Think I've maybe heard of the author: +1
I stopped reading another book of theirs partway through: -4

What genre is it?
SF/F: +3
Literary: -5
Romance: -5
(I know, I'm a jerk. Sorry.)

Front cover?
Cool picture: +1
Embarrassing to be seen with: -2

Back cover?
Intriguing plot: +1
Cool SF/F concepts: +1
Critic/author blurbs only: -0.5

Still not sure? Read the first paragraph.
Boring: -1
Insulting: -1
Infodump: -1
Bookstore employee has to tell me the store is closing: +7


How about you? How do you decide which books to buy?

Beta Phase Consensus

* Disclaimer #1: The beta phase isn't "over" in the sense that everybody's read it. I'm still getting feedback from some of the betas, and I hope to get more from those I haven't heard from. Even so, I have to move on or this thing will never be finished.

** Disclaimer #2: There is no such thing as a consensus. Nobody ever agrees on anything.*** Quite the opposite in fact, as you'll see. All I can do is take what people think and decide to what extent I agree. Now onto the post.

*** Unless it's something stupid, like when I spelled a name "Lushita" and "Lusheeta" in the same paragraph. I think everybody caught that one :-P



The beta phase is over,* and the results are in!** After spending a day or two with the betas' comments and my own thoughts, here are some of the bigger problems I came away with:

• Hagai's motivation to keep chasing the stone could be stronger.
• Dorsey's motivation to stay at home, while Hagai joins Sam's crew, is pretty flat. (For those who aren't beta readers, Dorsey is Hagai's best friend.)
• Hagai is a little too whiny at times.
  
• The first 'Sam flashback' chapter is a bit jarring.
• Something's wrong with the 'Sam in the Navy' chapter.
  

Let me talk about this Sam flashback thing a bit. One of the things I did with this novel (mostly because I didn't know any better when I planned it) was to intertwine two stories: the story of Hagai's search for his mother and the story of Sam's past and his search for his father. The first 4 chapters are Hagai's, then every other chapter after that. The odd chapters, 5-27, are Sam's.

The betas had mixed feelings about this. Strong mixed feelings in fact, and it's caused me no end of grief. Some people love the two stories, the way each informs the other, the way it never gave them opportunity to get bored. Some people hate them, getting annoyed each time the story "stopped" to talk about Sam some more.

You know what the worst part is? They're all right.

But it's helped me realize, even more clearly, that I can't please everybody. In the end, I have to decide what I want.

So Sam's story is staying, but I'm thinking of ways to make it tighter, more interesting, and also to clue the reader in early on that Air Pirates is not just about Hagai. I've already made plans to do major rewrites of 3 Sam chapters, and minor changes to 5 others. This is in addition to a massive reworking of the first 4-8 Hagai chapters.

So it might take a while, and I don't even know if it will work, but it will be better. In the end, that's all I can do.

Now, to figure out what's wrong with that Sam-in-the-Navy chapter...

Fighting Monks

This week's sketch is actually 3 weeks' worth, one for each character. I'm getting better at inking, which is to say I'm enjoying it more. The hard part is inking lightly. Things like lips, face shadows, and shaved heads came out more prominent than I'd like, but still better than previous attempts.


Faces are hard, but I'm learning why. Humans are so darn good at face perception. So if a nose is slightly large, or ears are slightly off, everyone can tell it doesn't look right, even if they can't say why.

Conversely, things like hands, feet, shirts, and swords are much easier. People can still tell if they're wrong (e.g. if a hand is too big, or a sword isn't straight), but there's a lot more leeway. After repeatedly practicing faces, it's a relief to discover the body parts I've been neglecting don't require as much practice to get to the same level.

Also, I think I'm starting to like drawing hair. This is a big deal.

I might try drawing from imagination again next week. We'll see. Copying pictures/life is fun and all, especially when it comes out good, but it's not what I want to do. I want to be able to draw whatever, whenever, you know?

I think it's the same desire that causes me to write. I've got worlds in my head, and I want to show them to somebody. I want to show them to you.

Good is Subjective

The Lost Symbol is formulaic. Twilight is simplistic, both in plot and writing. Eragon is ridden with cliches. The Shack reads like it was self-published (oh, wait).

And yet every one of these books sold millions of copies.

Millions.

For those of us who have devoted a significant portion of our lives to the written word, this can drive us nuts. It's unfair, we say. If people knew anything about quality literature, they wouldn't buy this cotton candy nonsense.

But that's just it. People don't know about quality literature. They don't know you're not supposed to start a novel with the weather. They don't know that the farm-boy-as-chosen-one plot is old. They don't know that adverbs are a Bad Thing.

But people know what they like. They know these books are thrilling, engrossing, uplifting. "But they're not!" we cry. "They don't even follow the rules!"

Okay, so here's the thing. I know this is going to be hard to hear, but... all those rules that agents and editors and critique partners keep telling us we should follow? None of them make a story good.

For those of us trying to break into the business, it's easy to convince ourselves that "good" is objective -- that all we have to do is figure out the rules and follow them. The rules increase our chances, but nothing in this business is a sure thing. Nothing.

So how do you break in? Well, not having broken in myself yet, I'm going to go with the stock answer: Write lots. Write well. Get lucky.

Usually in that order.

Another Look at Revision Fears

When I started writing Travelers, it was just to prove to myself that I could do it, I could finish a novel. Sometime during that process, though, I decided (possibly because other people said so, though I don't remember now) that Travelers might be good enough to get published.

That was before I knew anything about the publishing industry. Before I'd read Nathan's FAQ, the Questions and Face Lifts on Evil Editor, or every single Query Shark query. Regardless, once I got that idea in my head, whatever I was working on became The One That Would Get Me There.

This was mostly a good thing. It made me work hard and write with confidence. But now, as I plan my third novel and prepare to revise my second, I'm discovering this idea has a dark side. The newest novel is the one that will get published (in my head), therefore my old novel -- the one I have to revise -- is not.

I'm wondering if this is the real reason I stopped work on Travelers even though I'd gotten a couple of enlightening personal rejections. Because I'm looking at the work it will take to get Air Pirates to a place I'm happy with, and I wonder if it wouldn't just be easier to write novel #3.

It wouldn't, of course. I'd get to the end of The Cunning, send it to beta readers, and the cycle would start again with novel #4. Nothing will get published if I don't revise it, usually multiple times.

Plus, I really, really like Air Pirates. It's a world I want to write at least a trilogy in, if not more. That, more than anything, is why I will polish that thing until my spit hurts. Really, all this self-doubt is just because I haven't started yet.

Talk Like an Air Pirate

Heyya, mates. Adam asked me to send the post on account of it's Talk Like a Pirate Day, and I reck I'm the only pirate he knows.

Oy, where are my courts? Name's Sam Draper, and I'm what some folks (derisive folks, mind you) call an air pirate. I ain't flailing though; jacks and govvies all stoke the same, so I reck it must be true as truth, aye?

Here, now. I'm supposed to be teaching you how to speak skyler. Speaking skyler's a bit -

What's a skyler? They're the ones sailing the skies, aye? Merchers, gunners, jacks, runners, pirates... anyone working an airship is a skyler. Everyone else is just a groundhog.

Anyway, skylers talk a bit different from the pirates you know. We ain't got a lot of ye's or me's or be's, and there ain't no mizzenmast or foresail on an airship.

A lot of what we do is in the skies, aye? So if you want to ask if someone understands you say, "We breezy?" To tell them no worries, you can say no worries or say it's "birds in the wind." If you mean what you say, tell them "sure as clouds fly" or "I ain't drumming you," or you can quote the JI: "true as truth."

The JI? That's... you know, we ain't got time for that flack.

Another thing skylers billy with is dark water. The dark is just a patch of ocean black as shadow, but it'll pack you, sure as clouds. I've seen big men - men you could stab in the gentlemen and they'd complain of an itch - fall to the dark and scream like a baby girl. It's a fate I wouldn't wish on any man, not even my uncle, breezy? And it colors our speech as much as the sky.

The dark is trouble. You see something's wrong with your mate? You ask him, "What's the dark, mate?" Someone who don't flail much when there's trouble, you might say they'd "float in the dark." It goes the other way too, aye? Say the jacks blow a boiler just when they were on your keel. You'd call that "a spot of blue in the dark" or just "a spot." Can't see the good in something? "Where's the spot in that?" you'd say.

Anyway, that's the whiff of it. I'd give you some words to say for when a merc'ing piker tries to throw you over, or I could teach you how to jape a gobby 'fore he grubs your coin, but I reck I got you shiners scatty as it is. Anyway, jacks are on me like ducks, so I best be blowing. Thanks for reading, aye?

Geek Still Life

Early sketch this week because Saturday is Talk Like a Pirate Day and, as the self-proclaimed liaison between the air pirates' world to ours, Friday has something different.

After I drew the fan art, I wanted to draw something that wasn't a face. I also wanted to try something with complicated shading, as that was the most difficult thing for me to ink properly. So I went and got my dice bag.

Of course it wasn't enough for me to draw just the dice bag. I had to find something that went along with it. Unfortunately, I've given away my D&D books, so instead I found the next best thing.

How to Plan a Novel

How did people get anything done before flowcharts?

I know what the title says, but this flowchart is really just how I plan a novel. Actually, it's an incomplete version of the way I plan today. Take it as you will.


Some further explanations:
Ask Questions: For any element of the story, ask: (1) How does this happen? (2) Why does this happen? (3) What happens as a result? Repeat as necessary. Orson Scott Card's idea, not mine.*
Throw Rocks: Make life difficult for the characters. Test them to the point of failure. Add tension. Ask, "What's the worst thing that can happen here?" and do it. Then ask how, why, and what result.
Event Outline: What happens in the world/lives of the characters. Not necessarily the layout of the novel. The event outline may begin before the novel does, and it may end long after. It may contain events that are never shown or even referred to in the final manuscript.
Chapter Outline: How the event outline is shown to the reader, and from whose points of view. If you haven't already done so, think about different story structures.

Obviously this is over-simplified. I ask questions, detail chapters, and fix weak spots constantly, even after the draft is finished. In general, though, identifying and fixing problems earlier in the process makes for much less work. At least that's the idea.


* Now that I think about it, none of these are my ideas. I just put them all together into a definable process.

Fan Art

I'm sure most of you haven't noticed but (a) I'm giving you more than one sketch a week and (b) I haven't been uploading "What I Drew This Week." Part of that is I'm still evaluating this whole show-people-my-sketches thing, so I'm just trying things out. The other part is that I haven't finished a sketch for a few weeks, so in lieu of showing the current one, I'm sort of catching you up on what I've been drawing since I decided to draw (>=) once a week.

The first is a piece of fan art I drew for Natalie Whipple's Relax, I'm a Ninja (for which she now has an agent, if you hadn't heard). Readers of Natalie's blog may remember a couple months ago when she found the perfect actor for Tosh. Well that's who I drew. I love this sketch. Every time I look at it I go, "Woah. I drew that?"




The second piece of fan art is for my daughter, Lutiya. If you don't already know, my wife and I live in Thailand where we take in children who have nowhere to go. Lutiya is one such child and has been with us for 2.5 years now. (I recently wrote about Lutiya on our other blog, if you're interested).

This was my first try at inking. Personally, I like the pencil a lot better, but of course I have more practice with pencil. I'm going to keep inking things for a while and see what I learn. If nothing else, the inked sketches last longer.

Talent, a Dirty Word

I don't like the word talent. See, we use this word to say someone is good at what they do, and that's fine, but the word "talent" implies they are good because of some natural ability. It implies they did not work hard to become good -- they were lucky, not persistent, blessed, not persevering.

It also implies a division: between the talented and untalented. It implies that, regardless of what you want to do in life, if you haven't "got it" you'll never be good enough no matter how hard you try.

I know what you're thinking. I'm making too much of this. You don't mean all that crap, just the compliment, right? The truth is, I'm not bothered so much by talent as a compliment. What really bothers me is the thought that comes after: I could never do that.

The thing is, I've quit so many things in my life because I saw someone amazing and thought, "I'll never be that good. Why bother?" I quit piano. I quit sports. I stopped writing and drawing for years.

I quit because they had something I didn't. To quote Leia, they had a power I didn't understand and "could never have." Without talent, I thought, I'd never be good enough, so I didn't even try.

I regret those years. I could've learned so much if I'd known what I know now. But you know what? Regret is useless too. All that matters is what I want now. I can do anything I want to do, and I can be really good at it, if I'm willing to put in the work.

So can you.

It's true, not everybody's starting block is in the same place. Not everyone has the same hurdles. But nobody gets to the finish line without working hard to get there. You find me one person born with professional-level skills, and I'll show you a hundred people just as good, who practice everyday. (And probably that one person practices everyday too).

So don't say, "You're lucky to be so talented." Say, "You must have worked really hard." Don't say, "I could never do that." Say, "I could do that, but I'm working on other things right now."

Or better yet: "I'll get there, too. It's just a matter of time."

Make It Tense

Tension is what drives a story. Without it, a story is just a bunch of stuff that happens. Not just the story, but the synopsis and query too. You need tension everywhere.

Tension is whatever the reader is afraid will happen. Morpheus might die. Greg might lose the respect of his future father-in-law. Julianne might not get married and/or might ruin her best friend's wedding.

In my own writing, I've realized places where I don't know what happens next are boring because there's nothing to be afraid of anymore. The trick is, in every chapter and every scene, to ask, "What's the tension here? What is the reader afraid will happen?" and then crank it up.

Make Me Care
In order for the reader to be afraid for the characters, they have to care about them. Have you ever watched a horror movie and wanted the bad guy to kill every last one of them? That's probably because you didn't care about the characters, so you didn't care when their lives were in danger.

It's the difference between strangers in an accident vs. your wife and kids. To make the reader care about the characters, they need to be believable and sympathetic.

Back Up Your Threats
Good parents know not to make empty threats. A kid who stops when Dad says no is one who has ignored Dad before and been punished.

In fiction, give the reader what they're afraid of, and make it worse than they feared. In Mrs. Doubtfire, Daniel wasn't just caught in the act, he was caught in a public place, in front of his boss, his ex-wife, and her boyfriend.

What if you can't back it up? Everybody knows the good guy (usually) never dies. If you want the reader to be really afraid, try this: kill someone the reader thought was safe. Joss Whedon did this in Serenity. George R. R. Martin does it in every freaking book, and now I'm afraid for everybody.

Crank It Up
So the reader cares about your characters, they know you'll back up your threats, now it's time to crank up the tension. Except at the end, and maybe at the very beginning, there should be some tension at all times. The amount might rise and fall throughout the story, but it should generally increase until the climax, when everything goes BOOM.

There are lots of ways to do this. One is by raising the stakes. The Incredibles starts with Bob in danger of losing his job, then his life, then his whole family. Crank, crank, crank.

Another way to raise tension is by putting the protagonist in increasingly precarious situations. Notice how in every movie where the protagonist is pretending to be two people, there's always a scene where both people are supposed to be present at once? This is what they're doing.

If the protagonist is safe at home, force them out. If the last place they want to go is their ex-boyfriend's party, make them go to the party. Never give them a break. Ask "What's the worst that could happen?" and make it happen. Your characters will hate you, but fortunately, they're fictional.

A Pirate, an Author, and a Baby

One sketchbook page today, three pictures. Also a demonstration of the difference between what I draw from life (or, in this case, pictures of life) and what comes out of my head.

I'll save the best for last, cuz I'm like that. So first up is Fitch Mickells, an air pirate whose only loyalty is saving his own keel. It's almost a shame he hooked up with Sam Draper when he did.

Drawing from my imagination like this is fun, but hurts my fear of failure. I never know where everything is supposed to go. So I figure if I draw like a thousand real faces, I'll be better at drawing made-up ones. With that, here's one of my very favorite authors:


And one of my very favorite sons:

Trying New Things

Although I love planning and starting new novels, it makes me a little crazy too. I mean, in addition to all the normal worries (e.g. am I wasting my time? will I ever get published? if the previous novel(s) didn't get me an agent, what makes me think this one will? etc.), I have worries about new things.

I have to try new things. Unless it's a sequel, I need new characters, a new world, and a whole new idea, otherwise, what's the point? But new things are scary.

For example, The Cunning will be the first time I've tried writing a female protagonist.* Not only that, but she's a teenager. I don't know if I can do that convincingly. What if I'm trying something I'm just not good enough to write yet?

And Suriya doesn't even speak English. Am I going to have a lot of dialogue tags with "she said in Thai"? Will Suriya and Anna** have telepathic dialogue the entire time? What about the times Anna tries to speak to Suriya in English and she doesn't understand?

It also looks as though the entire first book (I think in trilogies) takes place in Thailand. I wanted to give this story something unique from my experience, but I'm afraid I'm going overboard with it -- including every little thing I know about this place. Even crazier, what if it does work, everybody loves it, but they're all disappointed because Book 2 takes place in the US?***

What if I can't find Suriya's voice? What if I do and it's no good? What if I can't bring the humor from Air Pirates into this story? What if I force the humor in and it doesn't fit?

I'm being totally stupid, I know (and thank you for caring enough to read this far, btw). Ultimately this is just a fear of failure I need to get over. The truth is if I don't try new things, I'll never know the answers to any of those what-ifs and I'll never get to tell Suriya's story.

I keep thinking that if this doesn't work it will be a year (or more) wasted writing this story, but the only way it would be wasted is if I didn't learn anything. What I really need to do is stop writing to get published and start writing for me again.

Hey, how about that? The crazy's gone.


* No, wait. The original "Joey Stone" had one, but she wasn't a teenager. Also, that story wasn't very good.

** For those of you following along, Charity's name is now Anna.

*** Think that's crazy? I'm also thinking, "What if I can't write Book 2 because I haven't lived in the US for 4 years?"

Planning Ahead

If you didn't know, I'm a planner. (Also, if you didn't know that it means you're new, so welcome!).

I love planning. I know everyone's different, with their own process that works for them, and so I can't tell you how to write. But listen. If you don't like your process, if you feel like your stories lose direction halfway through, if you find yourself quitting on stories because they don't go anywhere... you might try planning.

You might even like it.

So first of all, I'm neurotic (totally selling you on this planning thing, aren't I?). When I'm in a draft, I can't skip scenes, I hate retconning the beginning, and I have recurring nightmares about getting to the end and finding out it's stupid.*

But when I'm planning, I can do all those things and it doesn't bother me. Maybe because revising an outline takes like a hundredth of the time it takes to revise a draft. Maybe because I'm insane. I'm not sure.

I've seen people say they don't like planning because it takes all the surprise and creativity out of writing - as if there's no reason to write the draft once we know what happens. But see, there's so much surprise and creativity that happens while I'm planning, but it happens faster. It's like taking a week to discover the story instead of a year.

Does that mean the draft is a chore once the planning is done? Heck, no!** I'm obsessive about planning, but even I don't plan every little detail. I know who wins the fights, but I don't know how. Someone convinces the protagonist to change their motivation, but I don't know what they say. Characters I didn't realize I needed appear sometimes. Sometimes my outline even changes.

I know, I'm such a hypocrite.

And even if I know exactly what happens, down to the details of who hits who and how hard, there's still the surprise and creativity of figuring out how to say it. It's not like I ever think, "Oh well, gotta write this scene now. Sigh." The scenes I've thought the most about are the ones I'm most excited to write. Always.

So for me, planning doesn't remove any surprise or creativity; it just shifts it around. At the same time, it gives me some element of confidence that the weeks and months spent drafting are not wasted on a story doomed to crap out on page 212. It lets me know, in a relatively short amount of time, that the idea is sound (even if I fail later on execution).

Like I said, everyone's got their own process that works for them. Planning might not be for you. If you're not sure, maybe try it out on a short story or even just a chapter. Outline it down to a sentence or two per scene and see what happens. It might be better than you think.


*I still do those things, but planning helps minimize it - all the more as I get better at writing.

**Well, yes, sometimes. But I've never met anyone for whom drafting isn't a chore at some point, planner or no.

Thinking Through Airships

I've been debating increasing my blog output here to 3x a week. I'll try it for a bit, see how it goes. No guarantees.

I've also been thinking about posting my sketches. As I've said before, I'm trying to draw once a week, but I'm more motivated if I know people are going to see what I draw.

That said, these sketches are pretty old, but I wanted to show you the evolution of the Air Pirates' airships a little. This first one is how I envisioned them looooooooonnnnggg ago - about 4 years. Back then airships were called cloud busters or dusters (in my story). Their airbags were called squits. Thankfully, very little of that slang survived.


I never liked that version, and anyway, airbags are not very conducive for ship-to-ship battles - one bullet through the bag and it's done. Below is another sketchbook page from a couple years ago. It's me trying to figure out what I wanted the airships to look like (I don't know who the girl is).


The ship at the bottom is Shadow's End, a 'dropout' belonging to a pirate named Kiro. That design survived and makes its first appearance in chapter four, "Hagai's Death". (You may also recall Natalie used the same design in her drawing of Sam).

Don't expect all my sketches to be about what I write. I'm rarely happy with the drawings that come out of my imagination, preferring to draw from life instead. But who knows? The more I do this, the better I get. Right?

Hero's Journey

Last time I talked about the Three Act Structure as a way to map out your story. Today I want to talk about the Monomyth, or the Hero's Journey.

This one's kind of cool because it has transcended both time and culture (i.e. it's really old and lots of cultures' stories use it). Meaning this story is one that, for whatever reason, resonates with us as people. In fact, you'll see a lot of similarities between this and the Three-Act Structure.

The hero's journey is separated into three sections: Departure, Initiation, and Return. Each section has its own features, not all of which are present in any given story. But you'd be surprised how many are.

DEPARTURE
Innocent World: The hero starts in the normal and mundane, though they are not always mundane themselves. Frodo in the Shire. Luke on his uncle's moisture farm.
Call to Adventure: Something happens that draws the hero outside their world. Frodo inherits the Ring. Luke meets Ben Kenobi. There is often a refusal of the call at first. Frodo doesn't want to leave. Luke refuses until his aunt and uncle are killed.
Supernatural Aid: Once the hero has committed to the quest, their guide appears - Gandalf or Obi-Wan.
Crossing the Threshold: The hero passes through some ordeal to leave the innocent world and enter the world of adventure. Frodo is hunted by a Ring Wraith. Luke and Obi-Wan fight their way out of Mos Eisley.

INITIATION
Road of Trials: The hero faces a series of tests, often failing. Frodo's fall at Weathertop. Luke's attempts to save Leia.
Meeting with the Goddess: The hero finds his love, or something like it. Frodo meets Galadriel. Luke meets Leia.
Atonement with the Father: The hero reconciles with whatever has been holding him back. Gandalf's death and Boromir's betrayal forces Frodo to set out on his own. Obi-Wan speaks to Luke after his death.
Apotheosis: Literally, becoming divine. In the story, this is when the hero comes into his/her own. Sam faces temptation from the Ring and rejection from Frodo, and he overcomes them. Luke turns off his computer in the Death Star trench.
Ultimate Boon: The hero achieves their goal. The Ring and the Death Star are destroyed.

RETURN
Refusal: Sometimes the hero does not want to return to the normal world. Frodo wishes to stay with the Elves.
Flight: Sometimes, when the quest is complete, the hero must escape, and/or there is a return threshold that the hero must cross. Frodo and Sam escape Mt. Doom. Luke flies away from the exploding Death Star.
Master of Two Worlds: Part of the resolution shows the hero as competent both in the adventuring world and their normal world. Frodo and friends rescue the Shire from Saruman. Luke (later) returns to Tatooine as a Jedi.
Freedom to Live: This mastery of both worlds leads to a new contentment, freedom from fear, and love for life. Sam gets Rosie. Frodo leaves for the Gray Havens.

Obviously not every story is a hero's journey, but it's surprising how many of them are. Personally, this is one of my favorite stories. I find myself constantly coming back to this structure when I'm plotting. I hope this is useful for you too.

Three Acts

By popular demand (8 out of 15 votes), the new working title for my WIP is The Cunning. I want to thank everyone who voted and commented. You've given me a lot to think about for later when I give this thing its real title.

And a special thank you to the folks who said they liked the story idea. That kind of encouragement is always welcome here :-)

So I'm plotting out The Cunning now. I freaking love this part. Everything's out there, just waiting for me to figure it out, and (because I plan before I draft) I don't have to spend a lot of time doing it. I might talk more about that later. Right now, because it's on my mind a lot, I want to talk about the Three-Act Structure and (maybe later) the Hero's Journey.

The simple form of the 3-Act goes like this: (I) setup, (II) confrontation, (III) resolution. In more detail...

Act One
* Introduce protagonist, "normal" world, and supporting characters.
* Introduce simple conflict.
* Ends when the main conflict is introduced and the protagonist's world is irrevocably changed.

Act Two
* In an effort to solve the main conflict, protagonist tries and fails against increasingly difficult obstacles.
* Ends with the Final Reversal - the last bad thing before everything is resolved. The protagonist has had enough, or the villain thinks they have defeated the hero for the last time. Whatever.

Act Three
* The protagonist faces the main conflict in the climax.
* Everything else is resolved.

That's one way to look at it, albeit a simple one. But it doesn't explain much about Act Two, which is supposed to be half of the story. Screenwriter Syd Field saw this and improved upon the 3-Act Structure calling it the Paradigm...

FIELD'S PARADIGM, Act One
Opening Image: The first image or scene that summarizes the story, especially its tone. This is kind of a screenplay thing, but it can work in novels just as well.
Inciting Incident: The protagonist encounters the problem that will change their life.
Plot Point 1: The turning point, in which the protagonist's life is irrevocably changed.

FIELD'S PARADIGM, Act Two
Pinch 1: A reminder, halfway between the beginning of Act Two and the Midpoint, of the overall conflict (e.g. while the protagonist deals with his obstacles, cutaway to the villain for a scene).
Midpoint: An important reversal or revelation that changes the direction of the story. Field suggests that driving the story to this scene can keep the middle from sagging.
Pinch 2: Another reminder scene, connected to Pinch 1, and halfway between the Midpoint and Plot Point 2.
Plot Point 2: The final reversal, when the hero has had enough or the villain believes they've defeated them for the last time.

FIELD'S PARADIGM, Act Three
Showdown: Midway through Act 3, the hero confronts the problem for the last time. They don't have to win.
Resolution & Tag: The issues of the story are resolved, giving the audience closure.

This post is long enough already, so I put my examples in the comments. Feel free to add your own too; trying to match stories to this formula will probably teach you more than I could. (I learned a lot just figuring out my examples).

And remember, the three-act structure is not The Formula By Which All Stories Are Told. It's just one way to think about things. If you're not sure where your story needs to go next (like me) then it can be really helpful.

Your Call: New Working Title

For over a year, I've been using the working title Joey Stone for my next project. The name came from a short story I wrote about a powerful psionic-in-training believed guilty of treason like his father.

Unfortunately, that title and storyline is 100% obsolete. So I need a new working title, one that does as much of the following as possible (in order of importance): (1) makes you want to know more about the story, (2) conveys a sense of the world, (3) conveys a sense of the plot.

I know that's totally subjective and that there's no perfect title that does all three really well. Clearly, in situations like this, the best thing to do is to use an unscientific online poll:

(If you can't see the poll, click here).

I'd like you to vote without any more knowledge of the story, so please vote before reading on. If after reading the blurb below you change your mind, or think you have a better title than the options above, feel free to say so in the comments:

Suriya thought she'd hid her powers pretty well, until a group of Chinese bounty hunters comes after her. She escapes using her ability to call fire, but the fire gets out of her control and destroys an entire Chiang Mai city block. Even worse, now everybody knows what she is.

More bounty hunters come, but Suriya finds unexpected help from a woman named Charity.
They don't speak the same language, but Suriya understands when Charity speaks directly into her mind. She says Suriya is one of the Cunning - a group of people born with fantastic abilities. Charity wants to take her to the US where she can be trained.

Suriya wants to trust Charity, but when she overhears her speaking with the bounty hunters in Chinese, she wonders if Charity is telling the truth. She wonders if she can really trust anybody.

Writers' Journey

I'm trying to draw something every week, so when someone mentioned a map for Natalie's hiking analogy, my muse said, "Oh!"

The hiking analogy is like this: writing is a hard, long trek up a mountain. It's beautiful, but sometimes you wonder if you'll ever get to the end. And a lot of us are trapped in the Forest of Lost Minds, where we begin to wonder why we started this journey in the first place. But there is a way out and a point at which everything is clear; you can see how far you've come, how not ready you were before, how close you are to getting "there" - Lookout Point.

That's the short version. Read Natalie's post for a better explanation. I added some things too:


On a related note, does anybody know anything about oil pastels? This is my first time using them, and the effect was only slightly better than if I'd used crayons. I like the mountains, but that's about it. Any tips?

Answers

You guys asked some really good and difficult questions. Hopefully this is as much fun for you as it is for me. If not, well, that's too bad, because I'll probably do it again.

Ben asked: What is your least favorite book?

Of books I've read to the end, my least favorite is probably Tribulation Force from my least favorite series, Left Behind. It wasn't the theology that bothered me (I was actually interested in a 'what-if' of rapture theology). What bothered me was the dozens of major characters all alike, the paper cut-out villains, the huge apocalyptic moments handled in a single paragraph.

So why this book rather than one of the other 16? The title edged it out. Tribulation Force is just... not a cool name.

Ben: What is the worst thing you would do to get published with your favorite editor?

I would crush my enemies, see them driven before me, and hear the lamentations of their women.

Was that your question?

Ben: What is your favorite quality of your writing or yourself as a writer?

When I'm outlining and drafting, I love everything. When I'm getting critiques and rejections, I hate it all. I will say this: whatever anyone else thinks, I love writing air pirate dialog. It's just fun, aye?

Of course even my most critical betas said they enjoyed the way air pirates talk, so I might have just decided, after the fact, that I like it too.

Anne L. B. asked: Why do you write (other than you can't not)?

I've always loved to create stories - kindergarten make-believe, Star Wars action figures with my brothers, writing Choose-Your-Own Adventures, designing video games, GMing D&D sessions...

About 6 years ago I decided my time was too limited to do everything I wanted. I chose to focus on writing because - between making novels, board games, computer games, or movies - I thought a novel was something I could most likely complete with the skills/resources I had.

Of corollary interest, around the same time I wrote a prototype game based on the Air Pirates world. It just shows how long I've been thinking about it, I guess:


Natalie said: I've always admired what you do in Thailand. What made you want to go there and work with kids?

The short answer: God called us.

A longer answer: Cindy (who is Thai-American) wanted to run an orphanage since highschool. When I first told her I liked her, the third thing she said to me was, "If God calls me to be a missionary overseas, what will you do?" (Yeah, we were thinking long term from the start). That got missions in my head.

Years later we finally decided to "become missionaries." My original thought was to plant a church or something, but one thing after another kept putting Fatherhood on my heart. When we moved here, and started volunteering at a children's home while we learned the language, I realized being a father was all I wanted to do. It's what I was made for.

Natalie: What's your favorite Final Fantasy? Least favorite?

I've only played the big ones a little bit (meaning VII thru XI). Of the ones I have played, Crystal Chronicles is my favorite. You can't beat multiplayer RPGs, I think. Four guys on a couch in a boss fight, yelling at each other so we can get the combos timed just right... Yeah. Good times.

My least favorite was probably Final Fantasy I, not because it wasn't good, but because I recall many hours of fighting Frost Gators just to level up. On the other hand, FFI introduced me to airships.

Hilary asked: After reading the first page of my manuscript, would you want to keep reading?

Yes, largely due to the stranger (yay, tension!) and because I want an explanation for the last paragraph. I left more comments in your comments.

Hilary: When/where are you most inspired to write?

For some reason, the ocean tugs something inside me; when I see it I want to write, to create worlds. Mountains and other landscapes do it too, but nothing quite as strong as the ocean. I don't know why. It sucks that I live like 20x farther from the ocean than I've ever lived in my life.

Excellent stories also make me want to write excellent stories. Miyazaki, Cowboy Bebop, Firefly, and Naruto inspire pretty consistently (yes, most of that is anime). Though occasionally something really excellent, like say Dark Knight, just makes me think, "Man, I'll never be able to write like that."

Questions

I'm a little burnt on posting amateur writing tips,* so today is your opportunity to ask me anything you like. Put your questions in the comments, and on Friday (well, my Friday... you know, in Thailand), I will answer them.

I agree to answer all of them, however nosy, strange, or inappropriate. I agree to answer with the truth when possible** and humor otherwise. And what the heck, I agree to post at least one picture.

There. I feel better already.


* This may have something to do with critiques that are coming in now. At the moment, I don't feel like I have much to say on how to write. Don't worry. I'll get over it.

** Which, of course, means when I feel like it.

Again With the Infodumps

I've been doing some critiquing lately. I think I've critiqued about 8 short stories/novel chapters since I joined, and at least half of them have the same problem: infodumping. (I know I've talked about this before, but bear with me. There's an Air Pirates excerpt a'coming.)

An infodump is when the story stops, to exposit information about the world or the character. This happens a lot in SF/F stories because they involve worlds with which we're unfamiliar. We need them to be explained, but usually not as much as many writers (myself included) believe we do.

For example, in one chapter Sam is in danger of losing his most trusted friends. His pirating used to be an attempt to do good, but Sam has become just as bad as the people he attacks. While his crew celebrates the Winter's Night festival in Savajinn, Sam stays on board his ship to think. The following outline is how the scene went in the first draft:

1. A paragraph about how Sam's ship was refitted from a merchant ship and the changes he made.
2. Two paragraphs about Savajinn and Sam's relationship with the town they'd moored at.
3. One sentence of Sam thinking.
4. Four paragraphs about Winter's Night, it's origins, traditions, and the differences between the festivals of Savajinn and the Imperium.

At the time, I thought it was all important. No, that's not true. I knew some of it wasn't, but I wanted to share all the cool stuff I'd come up with - like Savajinn and Winter's Night. The problem? Most of it had no bearing on the story. To the reader, Savajinn is just another country and Winter's Night another festival. Unless the details define the plot, readers don't need to know more than that.

In my first edit, I cut the infodumps by half and rewrote the remainder to be (mostly) more connected to Sam. Below is part of the scene - the paragraphs about Winter's Night, both before and after. It's still kinda infodumpy (I bet I could cut the whole thing actually), but it's better than it was. I submit it here with the hopes of helping some of you who may be doing the same thing, but don't realize it:

Before

After

The sun set alone beyond the sea. It marked the beginning of Amber Winter, when the amber sun eclipsed the warmth of its sister. At the same time, fireworks went off in town, for the first setting of the eclipse also marked Souls’ Day – though in Savajinn, where the monks had little influence, the holiday was still known by the old traditions as Winter’s Night. Souls’ Day was a day to remember the dead, to celebrate their life and their afterlife. People would feast and pray to their dead relatives, then launch fireworks and hot-air lanterns in celebration. Winter’s Night, on the other hand, was not a night to remember the dead, but to fear them. On Winter’s Night, it was said, the spirits of the restless dead came back to haunt the living. The fireworks and lanterns were meant not to celebrate, but to drive the spirits back to their world. Same traditions, different meanings. Although the monks did have this much influence on Savajinn: there were no Winter’s Night feasts before the monks came. Sam watched the celebrations from the prow for a long while. There was singing and dancing, even a parade winding through the streets. Children went here and there dressed as ghosts in what was once a prank to scare older folks, but had since become part of the fun. Some children even dressed as Azrael, for the pirate had become something of an icon to this feast of death.

Fireworks were set off in the town of Chuffton below. Everywhere, people released hot-air lanterns into the air. It was Winter’s Night, when – according to Savajinn tradition anyway – the spirits of the restless dead came back to haunt the living. The fireworks were meant to scare them away, and the lanterns to guide them home, though few took those things seriously. Mostly Winter’s Night was another excuse to get drunk.

I Draw Like I Write

I've been drawing again, and every time I do it, I realize more and more how much my drawing process is like my writing process.

I drew as a kid, but stopped when the things I drew didn't come out like they were in my head. I would doodle occasionally, but no more. So I guess that's the first similarity: I quit because I thought I wasn't any good.

Something inside me still wanted to do it, though, because I bought Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain a few years ago and worked through it. I think it was that book, more than anything, that taught me one of the most important lessons of my life: I learned I can be good at anything I want to be good at, if I'm willing to work hard.

Okay, so the first thing I do when I decide to draw is I don't. I write down "draw" on my todo list and put it off for a few days. Then when I'm done with that, I open my sketchbook and stare at a blank page for about 5-10 minutes. Why is this important? It's not. It's bad, actually. But I do it every time because: I'm afraid of drawing (or writing) something wrong.

When I finally get started, I plan. When you write, it's called outlining. When you draw, it's called blocking. Not everyone does it, but I do because I want to know that everything is in the right place before I start drawing "for real." So in both: I plan until I'm confident the end product has no major flaws.

Lastly, when I write, I'm constantly going back over each scene and chapter to clean it up. This is sometimes wasted effort when things get cut or rewritten, but I do it anyway. Apparently I do this when I draw too. I'll start with maybe the left eye, and I won't move on to another part until I've got all the detail - not perfect - but good. See: I want the part I'm working on to be "done" before I move on.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I treat both kinds of art the same way. It's me, you know? I am surprised at how much fear plays into both processes. I guess I need to work on that.

What's Cliche?

Everything creative is plagued by cliche. Writers are told over and over again not to use cliched phrases, cliched plots, cliched characters... But what's cliche? Sometimes people talk about cliches like they're definable and objective, but I think it's slightly more complicated than that.

At its heart, a cliche is something you have seen before and are tired of seeing. You're bored of it, maybe even annoyed or angry, BUT it's your opinion. People like to say things like, "The washed-up superhero has been done. It's so cliche." And maybe it has been done, but whether it's old and boring to you is another matter.

Take ninjas. Ninjas have been done, a lot. But you know what? I'm not sick of them. Give me Japanese guys in black pajamas - give them swords, shuriken, and smoke bombs - and I'm sold.*

My point is we should be aware of cliches, but not afraid of them. If it's something that you still enjoy, there may be others like you. If someone says they don't like your work because it's "been done," don't set your hard drive on fire. Write well, be as original as you can, but write what you love, even if everyone else is tired of it.**

But most of all, don't be afraid to write.


* It's worse than that. I know nothing about motorcycles, but I want a Kawasaki Ninja. There's a bottled tea here made of red beans and poppyseed (blech!), but because it's called Ninja flavor, I want it. I'm so sad.

** Now, it's different if an agent or editor says something is too cliche. They know what will sell, presumably. At the very least, they know what won't sell if you don't listen: you.

Much To Do About Nothing

A random writing sample from highschool. We were grouped in pairs and each given the same opening sentence. The assignment was to write a short story using at least 15 vocabulary words from the year. My partner and I used 51.


Much To Do About Nothing

The machine looked simple enough, rumbling and pulsing with an on-off, on-off glow. It was POLYGONAL in shape. It GENERATED two AUDIBLE sounds which were CONJUGATED into a LOGICALLY SYNCHRONIZED UNITY. Bob, the BENEVOLENT BIOLOGIST was SUSPICIOUS as to the CREDIBILITY of this CRYPTIC GENERATOR. It was FRACTIONALLY EVIDENT to his PRIMORDIAL, NON-OMNISCIENT mind that he had never been a SPECTATOR to a SPECTACLE of such INCREDIBLE MAGNITUDE. When he EXTENDED his APPENDAGE in the GENERAL DIRECTION of the AUTOMATON he was OVERPOWERED by a SPASM of CHRONIC PANDEMONIUM as the UNIVERSE SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUSTED in a SINGLE, SIMULTANEOUS series of SPECTACULAR, SPASMODIC, EXTENSIVE EXPLOSIONS of INDEFINITE MAGNITUDE, CREATING a RELATIVELY TITANIC VOID of IMMENSE PROPORTIONS which MATERIALIZED in the VICINITY of SPATIAL OBLIVION.

Twists and Turns

I've spent the last week thinking of another short story to write. I've thrown out a lot of ideas as boring or predictable. The problem I've been having is finding a good twist.

I'm starting to think that the shorter the fiction, the more important it is to twist it. I'm using "twist" here in its broadest sense as something unexpected (as opposed to a twist that changes the meaning of everything that has happened in the story), so heck, maybe all fiction needs a twist.

One problem is predictability. If the reader sees it coming, then every time you hint at it or try to misdirect, they'll get increasingly annoyed. "Look, I already know the mysterious stranger is his father. Get on with it." This problem is exacerbated by the fact that so many twists are cliche (e.g. see Strange Horizons' list of stories they see too often, #9).

This can be tempered by using a smaller twist. Imagine twists on a continuum; on one end, there are the big twists: "OMG, Bruce Willis is dead!" or "OMG, Kevin Spacey is Keiser Soze!"* On the other end are smaller twists: Frodo decides not to destroy the Ring or Marlin sees Nemo in a plastic bag and thinks he's dead.

The bigger the twist, the harder it is to pull off. Readers are pretty good at figuring out what's really going on. But when a big twist does work, it's mind-blowing. Smaller twists, on the other hand, won't blow anybody's mind, but they're still interesting and much easier to pull off.

But what does it take to pull them off? Here are some ideas:

• Practice. Try different things and see what works.
  
• Read a lot. Among other things, this will help you know what's cliche.
  
• Avoid hiding information from the reader artificially. If the assassin is the POV character, and he knows all along that the target is his daughter, hiding the info from the reader will only annoy them. (Exception: the unreliable narrator; e.g. give the assassin a reason for hiding it from the reader).
• Misdirection. Set up something else that appears to be the truth. This is tricky, though, because it can't be too obvious. Like in Scooby-Doo, you knew the ghost was never the mean old janitor who hated the museum curator.
• The twist should be better than the straightforward ending would have been. Like I've said before, don't twist just to be unpredictable. This is one reason why the "it was all a dream" ending always fails.
• The twist should make sense. It'd be nice if this went without saying, but...
  

Anyway, I've decided on a smaller twist (I threw out a lot of ideas similar to the assassin-and-daughter example, because I couldn't hide the information in a believable way). Let's see if I can make it work.

* If you haven't seen these movies, I'm sorry. On the other hand, they're old - way past a spoiler moratorium, I think.

A Road of Misconceptions

Pre-HS
The first thing I remember writing is a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book. I don't remember what it was about, but I know I drew pictures and stapled my thumb (twice) trying to put it together.

Major Misconception: At this time, I think my only misconception was that I was a fantastic writer, which when you're a kid is a pretty good misconception to have.

High School
I wrote a lot of humor, I recall. Spanish skits about butlers who watered the carpet and put the cat in the washer. Douglas Adams-style tales about gods who were heads of lettuce.

I wrote novels too, though I never finished any. A near future story about an elite team of soldiers who secretly protected the world from alien invasion. Another story in which a group of people woke from cryogenic hibernation to an empty Earth.

This period of writing stopped when I started a fantasy novel about a simple gnome-like creature who got swept up into adventure, where he met elves and dwarves and wizards on his way to saving the world. Around the time he reached a Rivendell knock-off, I realized I was rewriting The Fellowship of the Ring. I got depressed and didn't write anything again for years.

Misconception: To write, you had to be original. Being original meant not getting ideas from other stories.

Post-College, c. 2000 - 2007
Sometime after college, I realized that every song or story is like something else. There's nothing new in the world, and all that. This freed me to write whatever I wanted and worry about originality later. I started a few stories, but every time it got hard, I'd get lazy and forget all about it.

Maybe a year or two later, I realized if I ever really wanted to write I had to just do it. I wrote a short story, to prove to myself I could finish something, then started Travelers. Whatever happened, whatever I felt about the novel, I determined to finish it.

Misconception: Any decent story could be published. I'm actually glad I believed this. I'm not sure if I would've kept my resolve knowing how hard it really is.

Querying Travelers
When I finished Travelers, I didn't know if it was good enough to be published but figured I'd try. I'm glad I did. I learned a lot from the process, and even more from reading agent/author blogs around the web.

Misconception: A lot of misconceptions were shattered around this time, but the biggest one was that the query letter was just a formality. I thought agents just wanted an idea what the book was about, then they'd read the book and decide if they liked it.

With the exception of the Lost Years in college, I have no regrets about the road I've taken. I mean, sure, it'd be great if I knew everything before I started, saving myself time, embarassment, and trouble. But I don't think life works that way. I look forward to more shattered misconceptions in the future.