This is Incredible!

I subscribe to a newsletter from David Farland (aka Dave Wolverton). I have to recommend his regular emails. They have incited me to examine my craft and he gives much good advice.

If he's not your cup of tea, then find someone else. Brandon Sanderson and crew have created Writing Excuses, an excellent podcast on writing. Alexa Donne has some great advice on her youtube channel.

Professor Jane Friedman has a wonderful course on publishing in the Great Courses

Or look for advice from your favorite writer. I'm sure there's a paper or interview somewhere on the internet.

My point is, you have resources. Learning how to write is a master's degree level endeavor with very little feedback from your professors. Take some time to learn about the craft. Just remember to write too.

What are some resources you've used?

Worldbuilding - Governing Systems

It's election season, and so I thought it might be nice to forget about government and turn to world building...oh...wait.

Well, like it or not, some system of governance is a vital part of any world, and with some luck, it can even be fun. You've seen it play out in many stories. The dystopian government that needs to be defied, the evil Empire (or New Order), the tribal council, the council of mages, the corrupt governor, the evil king, the kind king being manipulated....the list goes on. But the society of your story includes many more dynamics than simply the government. It is the rules of society in which your character must move and act. Who has the power, is your character on the side of the power or do they oppose the current system? Is part of their journey learning how terrible the seemingly good system is? Are they going to struggle with their feelings about the world and conclude that the current system is actually a net positive?

Is your character a kid at school, and the system of government the other kids? Is your character on a interstellar ship subject to the rules of an AI? Here are some questions you might want to ask when designing the governing system of your world.

1. Who is in power, and how are they chosen? (e.g. assigned, elected, last-person-standing, prettiest toenails)
2. How does the government/society provide for the needs of its members? (In a schoolyard story, the needs of the members may mean acceptance. In an epic fantasy, it may mean the entire economy with levels of production and commerce.)
3. How much agency does your character (and the general populace) have over their own life? (Can they choose any path in life, or are they cast in a certain role? Are they "Chosen" and therefore bound to a certain path, or are they free to become what they want? How does someone choose what job they will have in life?
4. What is the social stratification? Are there wealthy and poor classes? Are there inherited roles? How easy is it to cross or intermingle between strata? How strong are class bonds?
5. What role does religion play in your society? Religion has been a large part of all earth societies. Do your characters have religion at all? If so, what do they believe, what are they allowed to believe?

Another way to look at government is to note who cares about who? In order to make things simple, you can look at these two divisions. The individual and the tribe. When I say tribe, I mean the people that an individual cares about beyond themselves.

How does your character provide for their own needs in their society? How do they interact with their tribe? Does the society incentivise working with others like in many oriental cultures, or are people supposed to stand on their own two feet like in the USA? How far does their tribe extend? Is it their immediate family or housemates? Is it extended family? Is it their group of friends or co-workers? Who is their tribe, and how far would your character go to help them?

How does the overall government treat the tribes? Does it encourage family units? Does it encourage extended family units? Does it discourage or outlaw ties to blood relations?

In the USA, this year is a big deal for government. Maybe you feel like you don't have any control over what is happening. Maybe you feel like you do have a say. Either way, when you are creating a world and a story, you have complete control....what kind of government system is that?

A Stand Alone Novel With Sequel Potential

In one of my favorite writing podcasts, Writing Excuses, they often have Q & A sessions. In one of their episodes there were a few questions about writing endings, series, and in particular the question came up, "How do you write a stand-alone ending with sequel potential?"

There are really two questions here.

1. How do you write a stand alone story?

Writing a good stand-alone story is not the same as writing the first novel in a series. A stand-alone story requires a satisfying ending that resolves all of the important questions in the plot. Your story should not require a sequel to complete it. You are not writing the first part of a series. You are writing a stand-alone novel. You are not writing The Fellowship Of The Ring, you are writing The Hobbit.

It might be useful to think of the opposite of a stand alone story. In the TV show, The Flash, each episode has a story. Many of the episodes are linked together, but they always (especially early episodes in the series) wrap up with the bad guy being defeated by The Flash. The problem is presented, explored, and then resolved. They start out as stand-alone, or episodic stories. They have an ending. But as the episodes go on, you start to have story elements that tie between two or more episodes. Captain Cold doesn't get caught, and so we know there is more story. Not just because a bad guy is on the loose, but because we see a scene showing Captain Cold getting a new partner to fight The Flash. "Hook" scenes like this clue the audience in to the fact that there is more to the story.

If Captain Cold had just gotten away, we could have accepted that as the end of the story. Untidy endings are pretty compelling sometimes. But because we see Captain Cold planning to fight The Flash, we know that it's not really the end.

Books that are a part of a series use "hooks" like this to carry the reader through multiple plot arcs. Sometimes the overarching story actually plays out over more than one book. The Fellowship Of The Ring ended with the fellowship reaching the river where Boromir dies. It was a satisfying end to their flight from the shire and across/under the mountains, but we knew the story wasn't over. They hadn't completed their quest. It's a good book, but it wasn't stand-alone.

So, to create a stand-alone, you need to be ready to tell your whole story. Don't get caught up in writing clues about future books or adventures. If you do have something you plan on using later, make sure that it doesn't make the reader expect another book. If the emperor is going to be resurrected, let the heroes be satisfied that they defeated him. You can hint toward a "magic stone" that has the power to restore life, but don't say, "As soon as the emperor dies, his second in command will just bring him back to life." If you do, the reader will know that there is more to this particular story. A stand-alone is not afraid to end. Think of a movie rather than a TV show.

2. How do you create sequel potential?

Now this is where the answer gets fun. Short answer: make your world big enough to have more than one story.

Long answer, well as Delia Sherman says in the episode, any good story has sequel potential. Let's consider some types of sequels. Necessary Sequels - These are the sequels that are required to complete the plot arc of the first book. This is the book that someone picks up knowing before hand that they are getting into a series. A reader must be ready to commit to this story, and they can't pick it up in the middle because they'd be totally lost no matter how good the writing is.

• Perpetual Sequels - I stopped watching Arrow, and countless other american style TV shows because they never reached a satisfying ending. They aren't planning on ending until the ratings drop. LOST had this problem. These stories avoid answering any question completely. Instead they keep stringing you along by "showing" not "telling" and make you think that every situation is important. Soap Operas also use this technique. Most modern TV dramas do as well.
• Episodic Sequels - These are sequels that include the same main characters, and events from one book/episode will carry over into the next. But the reader won't need to know the first story at all to enjoy the second. Star Trek: The Next Generation is a great example of this storytelling method. They didn't have the luxury of knowing that their audience would buy whole seasons on VHS, DVD, and then watch them all on Netflix. Every episode had to be enough to attract a new fan who could pick up that episode and then start watching from there.
• World Based Sequels - These are sequels that take place in the same world, but don't necessarily include the same characters. If you liked Star Trek: The Next Generation, chances are that you gave Deep Space Nine and Voyager a shot.

Next, let's look at some of the reasons people will want to read another book.

• Character - Let's face it, if you get to know a character, and you like them, you'll probably want to read about them again.
• World - If you have created a great world, then people will want to read more about it. Think of Terry Pratchett's Discworld.
• Relationships - This is similar to characters, but if you have a relationship that your readers want to see more of, they'll ask for another book even if there isn't one planned.
• Persistent Conflict - If there is a bigger conflict that your story takes place in, then your readers will want to find out more. If your character's parents died mysteriously as part of their backstory, readers will want to find out about that, but since it's backstory they won't expect it to be resolved in the first novel.

Here are some other tools you can use.

• Job - If your character has a job that will present opportunities for drama/conflict, then readers will probably be willing to check out another book. Superheroes have villains. Doctors always have new patients. Detectives will have new crimes to solve.
• Backstory - Give your character a backstory that is unresolved.
• Conflict - create a persistent conflict. Your character has an arch enemy who he puts in jail (e.g. the joker) or who flies off in a space ship (e.g. Darth Vader). Your hero saves the day for one town, but the bandits are now one town over.
• Exploration - This could fall into the Job category, but Dr. Who is a time traveling explorer. He has great episodic stories, but we always know he's going to explore something new next time.

Be careful not to make your first story dependent on future story arcs. Don't set "hooks", but give Easter Eggs. When a reader reads your second novel, you want them to be glad they read the first, but the first book has to be solid on its own.

In the end, any good story has sequel potential even if the sequel takes place 2,000 years later after the end of civilization. You just have to make your world big enough to hold it.

A Foreign Coin

Economists are taught to assign value to everything. Even things that other people wouldn't generally assign a cost to. One way they do this is by using the concept of opportunity cost. For those of you that might not know, here it is in a nutshell. Opportunity cost is the value of the things you give up by making a choice. If you have one dollar to spend at the dollar menu, you can get a burger or some fries. You cannot get both. I'm going to apply this to something a bit more abstract. If you want to go out too dinner with your family and someone suggests a great Thai restaurant and someone else suggests Italian. You can't eat at both. If you eat at one you'll be full. If you compromise and only eat a bit at one restaurant then get a small plate at the other, you won't have gotten the full experience. There is always a cost.

This is how I pay to write my books. In coin of time, bills of leisure, hobbies, friendships, and freedom. Writing a book is an expensive investment, but if you are willing to pay then you might find that the return is a thousand fold in joy, satisfaction, influence, and possibly even real money.

But opportunity is a difficult coin to spend on purpose. You must always see what you want and what you cannot do because of it.

If I choose to write, I cannot successfully pursue a hobby at the same time. I cannot spend that time with my wife. I cannot strengthen my relationship with my children, friends, or siblings. Writing a book takes a lot of time. That's your time. Time that you could be doing other things. Time that you probably want to be doing other things. Time that your friends, family, or others might want you to be doing other things.

Is it worth it?

You can spend this coin on purpose. You can use your opportunities to bring you to many different goals. But if you don't make your choices on purpose, you may never get your book. Do you want a book? Do you want to be successful in your writing? The next time you have a choice of what to do with your time, consider what it's costing you. If you have good friends, then they'll understand. You've got to buy your book, and opportunity is the only coin that will buy it.

Spend your opportunities with intent.

Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing

As a student in the AFROTC I remember learning about leadership and group dynamics. Most of the lessons I learned have faded as I moved away from the military career route, but one model has stuck with me to this day. I think I still remember it because of how useful it has been in many facets of my life, and especially in writing.

First, I want to say something about intellectual models. Models help us understand something, but they aren't that thing. Models are simplified to the point that we can understand them. Simplification removes some truth. It doesn't make the model incorrect. It just means that we should understand that there is more there.

So this model is about teams and groups. It says that when a group comes together to accomplish a task, there are four main stages before they can really work together as a team.

• Forming - Forming is the group coming together. Your name has been drawn out of a hat, and now you go to meet your associates.
• Storming - After the group meets, there needs to be some sort of organization. If all members are equally ranked, then they'll naturally shuffle themselves around until a "leader" comes forward. Sometimes this is a power struggle, sometimes it's just a matter of who speaks first. Sometimes we try to skip this step and keep things calm. Having defined roles can help negate some of this struggle. But in the end it will happen, and if the team survives then it will be stronger. (With my personality type, I try to avoid this stage as much as possible even though I know the results are usually positive.) 
• Norming - This comes after the struggle. Everyone settle in to their place in the group. They may not be happy with it, but they know where they stand.
• Performing - Now the group works together and performs a job quicker and more effectively. They are a team.

You've seen this pattern before in nearly every sports movie, but it's also present in romantic comedies. In fact, if you graphed the progress linearly you might find something very similar to Freitag's pyramid. It's also how Piaget breaks down our encounter with new ideas(well, at a very basic level). Meet an idea, struggle with it, classify it, and then use it. But it's not a one time event. We are ever changing, ever meeting new ideas and people that we must struggle with.

Some of the strongest teams are formed from some of most adversarial people. Some of our best ideas are formed when our current ideas are challenged.

You can use this when creating relationships or teams. It even happens inside a single character. (Imagine a character who is lost in the forest and twists their ankle. They have to struggle until they figure out how to move forward in their new condition.) Which stage are they in when the story starts? Do they work together well throughout the whole story, or does something happen to throw off the balance so they have to storm a bit to find their norm again. Look at your own relationships or careers. Which stage are you in?

What Lack I Yet?

"What lack I yet?"

This is the question that a wealthy young man asked to Jesus of Nazareth. His question was about his own spiritual worthiness to enter the kingdom of God. He had done everything that he had learned, but just wanted to make sure. Jesus' response was pretty demanding, "Sell that thou hast, and give to the poor..."

In another religious episode, Siddhartha Gautama was a wealthy young man who was asking the question, "What lack I yet."  His answer was also to leave everything seek a life of spiritual enlightenment.

Countless other religions have motivated people to do great things, and to do some terrible things. But whatever it is they do, it's hard to argue against the idea that religion is a powerful motivator. Most people in the world owe their current social existence to religion in some form in another. In fact, the idea of a state religion was pretty common until recently. And it's not totally gone now.

Religious and moral motivations are alive and present in nearly everyone's world and they have been for all of recorded history. Just to be clear, I'm talking about religion in all forms - from devout and prescribed religious ceremonies all the way to basic beliefs about what the world is. Even atheists will often act on moral or ethical codes that they believe exist outside of themselves.

My point is that there are things that motivate people enough to change their lives, if not their world. What is it for your character? Does your character have religion? Or perhaps even a religion? What are the things that would make them change the world, or change their lives? What kind of person, god, or prophet would they be willing to follow? When they attend a funeral is it the detached funeral of modern television, or is it the spiritual experience of the Hopi who believed the death was the beginning of a journey for the souls of the departed? Is it a time of weeping, or a time of joy, or does it matter at all?

In current media, most characters are portrayed without religion. Heroes are supposed to be good moral characters, but we ignore the part of their life that helped them become good or moral. In part that may be because it's easy to become too preachy, and in part it's because personal beliefs are just that, personal. Another reason might be that people don't always talk about their religion. It's entirely possible to tell a full and engaging story about someone and never know many aspects of their life. And it's difficult to portray religion well.

But it might be worthwhile to consider your characters beliefs and backgrounds. Do they have the have the individualistic sense that comes from the classical Greek and Roman background found in many European cultures? Or do they have a stronger sense of accomplishment from the success of the whole as in some Oriental cultures. Do they look at a poor person and say, "I should give them my coat." Or do they say, "That lazy bum is getting what he deserves."

The less you plan the religion of your characters, the more their worldview will simply be a mirror of your own or the generic agnosticism of popular culture. Your characters don't have to be religious. But give it a thought once in a while. Maybe a little religion will add some spice to your stories.

Light a fire

It's very possible that many people in medieval times didn't know how to start a fire. Do you? I mean without a match or lighter. Maybe you do. You've probably seen at least one person do it on TV.

But they didn't have TV. They also didn't have matches or lighters. But they did have fire.

So why would I make such an absurd statement?

Most people didn't need to start fires. Even though they used fire for many things we use modern technology for today (light, cooking, heat, etc.). Did they go without all this? No. They just didn't let their fires go out. They kept the coals burning.

In the early religion of India there was one person assigned to never let the fire go out. Other people had little containers that they used to carry embers around in when they were traveling. Fire was a big deal. Someone had to know how to light it, but most people may not have. (Check out this video for fun.)

Even if you're good at it, lighting a fire is not easy.

It's the same thing with writing.

If you stop writing for a while, it's hard to start. If you keep yourself in practice, then you've got an ember of the writing skills still kicking around in your brain. A few minutes a day is enough to keep the embers glowing.

But you don't want an ember. You want a ravenous flame that keeps those pages lit with wonder time after time. So write a bit each day. Keep your embers hot. And when you're ready, coax your little flame into something greater. Because professional writers write. They write a lot. Their writing flame catches on to all sorts of things....Come to think of it, perhaps a fire analogy wasn't the best choice when talking about books.

Ah, well. Keep up the writing. Don't let it go out. Because just like fire, it's more difficult to start all over from the beginning.

Is e-publishing really changing the world?

As you probably have heard, there is such a thing as an e-book. The idea of the e-book is basically the idea of trade paperbacks. For years people who just wanted to read a story would buy a paperback. They weren't as sturdy as a hardbound copy, but the reader could get the same story for cheaper. But the more expensive option was still there for anyone who wanted it.

E-books just go another step toward making publishing less expensive, and delivering stories to readers in a more convenient way. Mostly it's more convenient for the publishers (in this case amazon.com, applestore, smashwords, etc.). There is no physical copy, so making the text available is way cheaper. There are no physical copies, so there are no worries about printing too many and not selling them. The publisher/author can make changes and corrections without having to run a whole new print line. There's more, I'm sure.

The reader also gets some benefits. You don't have to go to a store to get a book. You can keep an entire library on a single device (or link your devices). You can change the fonts. E-books are cheaper.

Really the last one is probably the driving force for both sides. We've still got the arguments that it's nice to read a physical copy of a book (which I agree with). I do both*. But if I want a hard copy, I can get one. It's just more expensive. I do the same thing with movies too. Some stories I want to ingest, digest, and be done. Others I fall in love with and I want to keep them. Those are the ones I want on my bookshelf. Those are the ones I will keep.

But in the end you as a writer have the same problem you did twenty or fifty years ago. When you write something you need to get someone to read it. That's why the publishing industry came about. Writers can't make a single dollar without someone buying their books. In the end it's all about marketing. We have new online tools, and new markets, but you won't make a cent unless you convince someone else to read your work. And though there are new tools, it's still a pain in the rear end. You can try to sell to a publisher, or you can publish yourself. But you need to find readers, and that takes time. Don't worry though. The good news is that it's still possible, and perhaps even more possible for writers without a big publisher.

And it all starts with writing something worth reading.

P.S. Oh, and I almost forgot. I'm doing a little experiment. I'm giving a presentation at LTUE about how to format your e-book. And a big question is where to put your book and who to format it for. So I put a short story online at Amazon with the limiting Kindle Direct Publishing, and then I put another short story on Smashwords which lets you publish anywhere else. I want to see if there is a significant difference in the number of views or purchases. I'll be posting the results in about 3 months. Not the most scientific, but it will be interesting to see what happens. Happy Writing!

*Realistically, I should admit that I listen to books on tape (or audio books online) so that makes me not a bookworm, but a...I'll let you finish that.

Writing in Layers

Painting takes time. But because of the magic of video, it doesn't have to take a lot of time anymore. Four minutes and fifty five seconds to be exact.

In the above video the artist creates a great mood piece of a forest. It's pretty simple, but you'll notice a few things. The artist starts out by painting some background colors. She shades them and blends them until the background is done. Then she paints over the top with some trees. Great. Ok. The trees look nice. But she's not done. She adds more. And each thing she adds covers up something else. It takes away (just a bit) our ability to see the previous layer, but by covering up the early layers she adds to the picture and lets us see her entire vision.

Do you like it? Doesn't matter. I do, but that doesn't matter either.

Here's what does matter. The layers.

When you write through your story the first time you've got a LOT to think about. Sometimes it might be useful to think of your work in layers - adding new elements with each pass. Here's how it has worked for me before:

Many times when I get ideas for a book or scene, I really only get a piece of an idea. I see a character doing something interesting, I think of a great line (or a few lines), maybe a dramatic moment stands out. Sometimes that's all I have. So as I think about the scene I try to fill in the blanks. (David Farland compares it to putting together a puzzle.) Often I'll write an entire scene with only dialogue. To a reader it won't feel complete, but I've managed to frame the whole scene just by writing what my characters say. And I did it all while the iron was hot.

But of course, it's not finished. I go back over the scene adding descriptions, actions, what each character thnks, etc. Then I read through it again making another pass at emotions, or sensory details.  The end product is not what I started with. If you read through the initial pass, you may have expected something completely different (just like the painting). But the end product is what really matters to your reader. They'll love to hear about how you got there, but only if they like where you got. So don't be afraid to take it in steps. And in the end you may come up with something that is much more than anyone expected in the beginning.

Bored

I had a friend tell me recently something to this effect.

When I get bored of writing a story I just stop writing. I figure that if I'm bored writing it, then my readers are going to be bored reading it.

I admit, there's some truth to this statement, and I'm sure that the way he meant it was true, but I'd like to compare it to something I learned in acting. When a play is emotionally moving, it's not because the actor is feeling sad, or angry, or happy, or brave. It's because the audience members feel that way. An actor could feel like they are just going through the motions, they could have a stomach ache, and if the audience felt the right emotions then the actor's performance would be a success. I can't tell you how many times I've told someone that their performance was very moving and they'd respond with, "Really? I felt like it was really weak this time."

It is a somewhat disturbing truth that an actor learns certain skills that allows them to portray emotions and invoke certain responses. A talented actor can literally control your emotions (much more so when you've placed yourself as a willing audience*). And very often the actor relies on those skills rather than actually feeling an emotion. This is especially true in stage plays where an actor might be asked to perform a death scene hundreds if not thousands of times. It doesn't matter one iota what the actor is feeling when they perform. It matters what you feel as an audience member.

The same is true in writing. You will often feel excited about your work, especially at the beginning. There's a reason it's called the honeymoon phase. But there will also be times when you are anything but excited about what you're writing. It's when you're not excited that you'll begin to rely on the skills that you are developing as a writer. You'll push through until the next moment when you are excited. There are some tricks to get excited (I'll put that it another post), but sometimes you just aren't. Sometimes you just don't feel like writing, but the only way an audience will know that is if you stop. They'll know because the story isn't finished. Here's a quoty way to say it, I'll even put it in italics: If you don't feel like writing, write until you do.

You could test this. As an experiment, write consistently, every day for a month, no matter how you feel. Then at the end of the month read over what you wrote and see if you can tell your mood from the writing. I bet you'll be surprised with the results. You might even find that you produce better work when you're not excited about writing.

(NOTE: It is entirely possible that you are bored of the story and that is a sign that the story itself is boring. Keep it in mind as a possibility, but it's just as likely, if not more, that you just need to push through. Developing the skill to understand why you're feeling hesitant about writing is a post for another day.)

(*NOTE AGAIN: As a writer you will also develop this creepy ability to manipulate other people's emotions. Novelist Mary Robinette Kowal, on the Writing Excuses podcast, has even called it mind control from a distance. Be careful with this power, it is super cool.)

The Value of Finishing Something

A while back I had the opportunity to speak with James Christensen, the artist. He had taught art classes at the college level (I believe at BYU) and he mentioned something that I've found useful.

James Christensen liked to teach with water colors, and he found that water color painting was one of the best ways for his students to improve. Now I've seen some great watercolor paintings, but generally I don't think of watercolor as the ultimate artistic tool. It's what you give kids to paint with because it will wash out and it's not too expensive.

But his reasoning was insightful. Why is watercolor so great? Well one reason is that you can't fix watercolor (Bear in mind that I'm talking about actual paint, not digital). Once you draw a line and it dries, there's really no going back. When you're making a watercolor painting you are forced to keep going or start over. One corner of one painting would turn out well, maybe another corner in another one. Each painting would help hone their skills in one area or another. James then said that he would tell his students something like this, 

You've got to make a million pieces of trash before you make your first masterpiece.

There's a similar saying among writers.

You've got to write a million words before you're ready to be published.

This is why I find this anecdote useful as a writer. I have a friend who has some aspirations to write. I personally believe that he has great talent. But he told me recently that he'll often write something in a short snippet of time and then when he comes back to it he just rewrites it. This is not uncommon.

My suggestion for any writer who wants to really get better is to just write. Write something, and don't go back to fix it until you've finished the entire project. Don't let yourself. Imagine that you just put those words down in watercolor and you can't go back to fix them. 

I can imagine many arguments against this exercise, but here's what you gain:

1. You get the experience of writing through the entire shape of a story.
2. You're practicing writing.
3. You know what it takes to push through the difficult parts of writing.

There is great value in learning how to revise, but a perfect first paragraph is not as useful as a mediocre full story. Patton said it this way, "A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week." The point is that if you're always planning and tweaking your idea, you'll never be doing - never actually get something finished. You'll be stuck with a really good first paragraph, but then you won't know how to write the rest. Experience completing a thing makes you a veteran. You may have things to learn, but at least you know that you can see it through.

So go finish something. Write a complete story (short or long). Write a dozen. You'll get better with each one. And then one day you'll look back at one of your pieces and you'll realize that it's actually worth revising.