Author Archives: David Heyman

Another month brings me another really interesting subject to blog about: adaptations. There were certainly a lot of directions I could have gone with this, lots of movie and television options to consider for example. I’ve been a big fan of adaptations over the years: books that became movies, television series that became books, expanded universes and spun off realities. Despite this, I knew pretty quickly what kind of adaptation I wanted to cover- -a type that requires no contracts, no licensing and is usually done just for the pure enjoyment of it: fan fiction.

Wait, come back.

Look, I’m aware that fan fiction has something of a reputation and it is true that many examples of fan fiction can contain writing elements and prose that are… let’s call them underdeveloped. This is not true of all fan fiction of course, there’s some marvelous stuff out there. Addressing the ones that are a bit rougher to read though, I’m here to submit that this very rough nature may be as much a feature as a bug.

I’m not going to discuss the definition or the history of fan fiction, not when you can read all of that here <link>. Rather I’d like to discuss my own view of the concept, and why I think it is both an excellent writing tool as well as one of the purest forms of creation out there.

I think many of us started with some version of fan fiction. This was certainly true for me – The first stories I ever created were fan fiction. Before I could even write, I was dictating stories to my mother of G.I. Joe’s adventures in the jungle, hoping she’d send them to Hasbro where they’d be made into new toys. (Back in those days Joe had ditched the Army and become more of a Indiana Jones type complete with kung-fu grip!) Later I would draw my own Star Wars and Star Blazers comics as well as write my own Battlestar Galactica short stories.

Many years as an adult later the writing itch began to come back to me. I had a novel I had been carrying around in my head for a long time, but I still didn’t feel ready to attack that yet. I needed a warm up, something to get the writing muscles in shape. I decided to join an online fan fiction writing group, writing shared stories within the Star Trek universe. I wrote with this group for a few years, creating several characters and learning a great deal about duilding tension, working with character dynamics and crafting satisfying endings. It was a great experience and really prepared me for the full blown fiction writing that lay ahead for me.

Looking back on that now, I see the value fan fiction had for me as a fledgeling creative writer. When you write an original piece of fiction, the sheer amount of creation you need to do is very daunting, especially in the speculative realms. Not only does the plot need to be worked out, but you must create the characters, locations, backstories, technologies, and so on. It can be overwhelming.

With fan fiction, much of that work is done for you. It is a sandbox where everything you need to play is already set up for you. You still need to create the adventure, but the rest is already done. This allows the new writer to just focus on the story creation, let’s say by creating a new adventure for Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise. Later, the writer could expand things by adding a new character of their own creation, or sending the ship to a new planet they’d have to invent. In this case, they are taking on world building and character design in nice bite size pieces, learning to crawl before walking. Fan fiction allows a new writer to step into the world of story creation slowly, working at their own pace and adding skills one at a time. There is a freedom there that I think had a great deal of value.

Additionally, I admire fan fiction for the pure honesty it represents. These are writers who will never be paid and will never see their work in print. They write instead to see their favorite universes in a more personal light; allowing for a broader range of stories, representation and scenarios that often are simply not available in the ‘canon’ universes. Viewed in this light, fan fiction might be the the truest adaptation form of all, one done for the sheer love of the source material. These writers are writing for the pure joy of creation, and I find that compelling.

It is easy to look down on fan fiction as something ‘lesser’ than paid fiction, but I feel doing so overlooks a very special and unique category of adaptation, one that had a great deal to offer both reader and writer.

See you next time!

The Darkness Within

October 12, 2016

David Heyman

THE DARKNESS WITHIN

Hello all! For my take on this month’s subject matter I will be focusing on internal darkness as a concept, and how that darkness has been used by a specific author I have been reading all of my life. Living as I do in Maine, the subject couldn’t be more appropriate as Maine is the home state of a man who for decades has reigned over America’s fear and anxieties with the authority of a King.

Stephen King is traditionally cited as a ‘horror’ writer, which is a genre as broad and multifaceted as fantasy or science fiction. When people think of King, they likely conjure up monstrous images such as the vampires of Salem’s Lot or the horrific creatures of in The Mist. As a young reader growing up in the 70s and 80s, this was the King that fascinated me. Horrifying demonic clowns (It), cemeteries that reanimated the dead (Pet Semetary) and possessed killer machines (Christine, Trucks, The Mangler). I could name countless more- -the short story collection Night Shift was particularly loaded with these wild monster stories.

As a kid, I ate it up. Great stuff, with more than a bit of pulp to it too.

As an adult though when I go back and read King, I see a different type of horror. One that is much more unsettling, because it is more familiar. It is one thing to look in the mirror and see a monster behind you, it is quite another to look in the mirror and see the monster in yourself. To me, the real potency of King’s work is not in the boogeymen, but rather in the darkness he would show in the average person.

Sometimes, he’d highlight people who were basically good, if damaged- -then force us to watch as they were slowly overcome by the darkness of some external force. A great instance of this is Jack Torrance in The Shining, his baser natures and fears preyed upon by the supernatural Overlook Hotel. Sure, a ghost in Room 217 is scary- -but looking at Jack’s slow transition from well-intentioned husband and father to family destroying monster? Horrifying. Another example could be Louis Creed from Pet Semetary, who allows grief to push him into incredibly dark places.

In other cases, a supernatural event allows people who were already dark an opportunity that had not presented itself. Big Jim from Under the Dome was a monster from page 1, with far more evil in his heart than the actual villains responsible for the town’s isolation. All he needed was that moment, that crack in the door that society normally kept shut. You can see this same dynamic in the short story The Mist, as well as multiple instances of it in Needful Things. There might be rage and evil inside anyone, just waiting for the right circumstances.

I feel these stories are so potent because they prey on a fear within all of us that is much darker than any skeleton or zombie could induce. The fear we have of each other, and ourselves. We wonder, could that be my neighbor? My spouse? Could that be me? Could I be driven to that dark a place? Could I do those horrible things?

What would it take? Not much, those dark whispers of King’s stories say. Maybe much less than you think.

Pardon me, I just felt a chill go up my spine.

I have found this a useful lesson for my own writing, when writing not just my villains but also my heroes. Darkness is a naturally occurring part of the human condition. Including a hint of it in any character makes them a bit more real, but also a bit more dangerous. Readers who care for you hero might worry that in his or her rage they might let that dark part take over, driving them to do something that is not in their best interests. It helps make bad choices believable, allowing for more opportunities for things to go wrong for your hero.

As writers, we all want things going wrong for our heroes, right?

As a fellow Mainer, I couldn’t be prouder to focus on Stephen King for my walk down the dark road as it were. In addition to his superlative On Writing, I recommend writers check out his lesser known Danse Macabre, which is an interesting discussion on what the master himself finds scary.

See you next month!

Taking it down to the studs

September 15, 2016

David Heyman

Damage Control Dave Heyman POV The Writing Life Your Writing Career 1 Comment

Hello Readers!

Back here with my second post as a Fictorian, and the subject couldn’t be more timely. Damage control is a broad subject, but my case is very personal and very specific. I found myself deep in a manuscript headed in the wrong direction, and my early results at damage control only made things worse.

To set the stage- -for the past several months I have been working on my new novel, which is a historical fantasy set in 1950s Nepal. I’m a pre-planner, and thus I had my whole arc planned out, the whole novel outlined and charted and graphed to the nth degree. All of this based on a simple set of dual facts. My main character would be an American (we’ll call him Steve) and the primary sidekick character would be a local young Sherpa girl (we’ll call her Chenji). I set them up for somewhat of a brother/sister relationship with lots of fun adventures, etc.

Off to the races I went, writing about the first half of the story in one big push. Steve had POV for most of the chapters, with Chenji getting a few from her viewpoint as well. As I wrote, some problems started creeping into the back of my head. I wasn’t really aware of them, it was more like that smell that warns you something might be burning in the oven. You sort of notice it, but it’s not enough to get your brain out of the chair and into the kitchen.

So, I put the book in front of some trusted readers. There was a lot that they liked, but on the negative side they came back with two major pieces of feedback:

Steve was boring as hell
Chenji was really interesting, but she wasn’t featured enough

Reading this feedback, I felt my (surprised) conscious mind make contact with my (un-suprised) subconscious. Yeah – I guess I already knew this was a problem. Thinking back on my writing sessions, I realized I had been bored writing Steve’s sections, and quite energized while writing Chenji’s.

I could fill a whole new blog post with why I was bored with one character and energized with another, but I’ll do my best to stay on point here. Both my beta readers and I agreed that I had a problem, and we agreed on what that problem was.

The question was: what to do about it?

My first instinct was to troubleshoot Steve and figure out why he didn’t resonate that much for me. I won’t spend time on my process, though it too would be a good subject for another article someday. Suffice to say I came to the conclusion that Steve wasn’t working as the main character because he wasn’t designed to be one. In truth, Chenji had much more going for her: more stakes, more local resonance (the story is in her homeland after all) and a better character arc.

Here finally we arrive at the *real* subject of my post. On one hand, I have the wrong main character for about 45,000 words worth of work. On the other hand: 45,000 words of work! Was I just going to throw all that out and start over?

I really didn’t want to redo all that work. I made a choice that I would swap the focus and the roles, giving Chenji not just the lead role but also the majority of actions I previous had assigned to Steve. It wasn’t as simple as: find <Steve> replace with <Chenji>, but there was some of that spirit in there.

In the end, this was the wrong choice. In the end it was not because the action in chapters was designed for Steve, because I did extensively modify the action to accommodate Chenji’s skills and abilities. No, it was because those actions and those scenes were designed for Steve’s character. His motivations, his story. They didn’t tell Chenji’s story as well.

Additionally, because Chenji came from a culture that would be more unfamiliar to many of my readers, her backstory was peppered with terminology and mores that were more complex. In the end, I laid these on too thick and the scenes became very jargon heavy.

This time, it was harder for me to see these problems. I was, in effect, doing a minor renovation. Painting a wall here, adding some nice tile there. I was too close to these scenes to judge them in their new, modified state. When my readers got a hold of them, their feedback was clear: They loved the new focus, but they were very confused and things just didn’t flow correctly.

In the end, I realized my renovations had not gone far enough. In an effort to preserve some of my previous work, I had used duct tape and paint where dynamite and sledgehammers were needed.

I needed to things down to the studs as it were. Almost everything of those early chapters had to be taken out and completely redone from a blank page to better fit Chenji and her role in the story. It means throwing out (or at least, putting to the side) weeks of work and starting over.

Painful, but in this case it was the right choice. That’s where I am right now with this project. I started with blank pages, fresh framing on which to hang the new drywall of my story. I have been writing all new scenes for both Chenji and Steve, and it is going a lot better. I can feel that it is better, and I am confident my readers will think so too.

So, the lessons learned here for me were plenty:

At all times, listen to that voice in the back of your head. Check in with yourself while writing. Are you excited to write this chapter or are you bored? Are the some characters you enjoy writing more than others? These are early clues you might be headed in a problematic direction.

Sometimes minor changes are all you need to correct an issue, whether it is one you noticed on your own, or an issue several readers might be mentioning. A new line here to illustrate a motivation better or an additional scene to allow the pacing to breathe. The same scene being told from a different character’s POV. Changes that allow you to keep some of your previous work.

Other times though- -you need to break out the sledgehammer. Pull up that tile, rip out the plumbing and teardown the drywall. I’m not going to lie, that’s not my job folks. It’s going to hurt and it’s going to hurt a lot.

Sometimes, you have to go back to the studs.

See you next time!

The Earth my sky, the Moon my siren

August 17, 2016

David Heyman

Craft & Skills Dave Heyman Flash Fiction Science Fiction The Writing Process 1 Comment

Hello everyone,

Before I get to my 55 word story, I wanted to say how I excited I am to post my first official entry as a Fictorian! I have guest posted here four times before, and I am both honored and thrilled to be made a full time member.

Now, on to my first blog post- -and it was a doozy! Write a story in exactly 55 words? It sounded like a fun challenge, but a difficult one. In the end I enjoyed the puzzle of writing the story so much, I documented my journey through double-nickel-land for this post. First I’ll give you the story, then if you want to stick around I’ll take you through my process of writing it.

***

THE EARTH MY SKY, THE MOON MY SIREN

The hatch is open, my radio channel closed. Alone I float through the stars, alone with her.

Through the glass she had called, her song a sweet wind. She whispers, reaching for my helmet. Without it, I will hear her better. Her hands and mine, both at my collar.

Who removes it? It doesn’t matter.

***

All in all, I’m pretty happy with how that came out. Funny thing is, I had my idea for the story pretty quickly after getting the assignment. In my mind’s eye I saw an astronaut floating in space, getting farther and farther away from his capsule. I knew he was out there because he wanted to be, but also against orders. (I acknowledge more than a passing nod to David Bowie’s Space Oddity in the imagery.)

The siren concept and the ending both came quickly to me and I was off to the races. Now the question was: how could I possibly tell this in 55 words?

So I figured first I’d bang out what I had using as brief prose as possible and count it up. This version (sadly?) is lost to the ether, but it was 70 words long.

“Great!” I said. “I’m only 15 words off. I’ll just squeeze it a bit more and count up what I have!”

That second version ended up 90 words long. Somehow my prose squeezing added 20 words instead of subtracting them!

Here is try #2, the 90-word version:

***

The stars are my world now. Outside the capsule, I am alone among them. Alone with my new friend.

She had beckoned through the window, called to me with a song I’ve heard on the wind since I was a child.

There is no wind here, as she floats with me. The capsule is far now, but she is close. With my helmet off I will hear the wind, feel the song in my ears. I cannot tell if it is her hands on the helmet seal, or mine.

It doesn’t matter.

***

So all the core concepts are there, and the ending is there. Still now I am 45 words away from my goal. I was, like my astronaut, drifting farther and farther away.

I decided on my third try I would just capture the core concepts in a few words as possible. No prose, nothing fancy. Just A to B to C and see what that count was.

Here is try #3, where I also started counting the number of words in each sentence:

***

I am alone in space, outside my ship (8)

A woman called me with her song (7)

We float off together. (4)

She wants me to remove my helmet to hear her song. (11)

Either she or I remove it, it doesn’t matter who (10)

***

Ok with the core concepts down, I did the math: 8+7+4+11+10 = 40

That gives me 15 words to play with. I could add a bit, and swap in some ‘prosier’ word choices.

I decided I wanted to add “The door is open, my radio channel closed.” as a first line – that’s another 10 words, leaving me 5.

Here’s version #4:

***

The door is open, my radio channel closed. (8)

Alone I float through the stars, alone with her. (9)

Through the glass she had called, her song a sweet wind. (11)

She whispers now, reaching for my helmet. (7) Without it, I will hear her better. (7).

Her hands and mine, both clasping the collar. (8).

***

Okay, still needs the big finish, what do I have left to work with? Five. Five words. “Who unclasps it? It doesn’t matter.” is six. Maybe I can cut one in one of the sentences above. I decided to kill ‘now’ in “She whispers now”.

Here’s a look at what I hoped was the finished product, version #5:

***

The hatch is open, my radio channel closed. (8)

Alone I float through the stars, alone with her. (9)

Through the glass she had called, her song a sweet wind. (11)

She whispers, reaching for my helmet. (6) Without it, I will hear her better. (7)

Her hands and mine, both at my collar. (8)

Who removes it? It doesn’t matter. (6)

***

I also swapped ‘hatch’ for ‘door’, which I think is better. I made a second minor change because I didn’t want to use ‘clasp’ twice. At this point, I decide it’s done and that is the version you read.

For 55 words I’m pretty happy with it – the major thrust of what I envisioned is there. I wish I had a bit more room for atmosphere and to show his emotions about removing his helmet, but I’m happy with the result.

If you are a writer (or want to be one) I encourage you to try a double-nickel challenge of you own. I found it to be a fascinating little puzzle and I think it grows some great skills.

See you next time!