Author Archives: Nathan Barra

About Nathan Barra

Though Nathan Barra is an engineer by profession, training and temperament, he is a storyteller by nature and at heart. Fascinated with the byplay of magic and technology, Nathan is drawn to urban fantasy and soft science fiction in both his reading and writing, though he has been known to wander off into other genres for “funzies.” He is an active blogger and posts twice weekly at NathanBarra.com. Nathan is always up for a good conversation, so please drop him a line through his contact page, or write on his Facebook wall (www.facebook.com/WriterNathanBarra).

Writing With A Full Plate

Business Choice Craft & Skills Day Jobs First Drafts Ideas & Plotting Nathan Barra Starting a Career The Writing Life The Writing Process Work-Life Balance Your Writing Career No Comments

I have always felt that National Novel Writing Month was scheduled during one of the most inconvenient times of the year. Many of us in the United States have significant travel plans and social commitments for the Thanksgiving holiday. College students are working on end of term projects and preparing for final exams. People with full time jobs are feeling the push to meet year-end financial goals, working extra hours to close out projects, and getting ready for the next financial year. To top it all off, Christmas looms just on the horizon. With all the commitments pulling at our time and attention in the month of November, keeping up a consistent work count is hard. But maybe that’s perfect after all.

You see, we can’t just be able to write when things are easy, when our writing space is clean, organized, quiet, and perfect, our beverage of choice is at our elbow, and we have neither a care nor a commitment in the world. If I waited for those moments to put my butt in the chair and fingers on the keyboard, I’d get 10 pages done a year max. Especially for those us trying to break into the business, there is constant distraction, ever growing commitments, and a million and a half other things that need doing right the hell now. For people like me, writing isn’t about quiet afternoons and hot cups of tea. It is about carving moments out of the chaos to make the dream work.

Having NaNoWriMo during one of the most socially active months of the year teaches us to manage our writing while still honoring those commitments. Writing can be all consuming if you let it. I’ve met more than one aspiring or published author who bemoans driving away spouses, losing touch with friends and siblings, or missing parts of their children’s lives because of the muse. I never fully realized the toll that writing takes on those we love until I saw how worn out and lonely my girlfriend was after my first NaNo success. I’m going to find a way to be a prolific author AND give those I love the time and attention they deserve. I can’t give you any advice on this one, as I’m still working on the balance myself. All I can tell you is that I, like many of you, need the people in my life and that we can make it work.

We all have full plates, but learning to make time between the courses is part of the process. NaNoWriMo provides structure to help us learn that lesson. It gives us a concrete goal, an international group of supporters, and a really busy month in which to make it all happen. If you are anything like me, you aren’t going to find a two-hour chunk of time that fits neatly in your schedule. Rather, you are going to take your laptop to work and write during breaks and lunch. You only have fifteen minutes? Well, then grab that cup of coffee and boot up the laptop. Write fifteen words. That’s a sentence, maybe two. Pack it up, go back to work. Eat your lunch quickly at your desk, then pull out the laptop. For me, lunch break writing is the hardest. I work at a computer all day and often am mentally worn out even by lunch. However, I have found that escaping into fiction, turning off the analytical side of my brain and letting the creative side reign, helps refresh me to finish out the day. Just remember to set an alarm for the end of lunch before you get lost in the joy of writing, only to be interrupted by a boss who passes by your office at 13:30 and asks you what you are doing. Because that never happened to me, not four times.

Furthermore, you don’t have to be putting words on the page to be doing writing work. I find that some of my best fiction thinking gets done during my commute home, while on my bicycle, or when I’m pushing a lawn mower around the yard. I crank up some high energy music, focus the active part of my brain on the task at hand, and get to doing what needs to be done. Meanwhile, my unconscious mind invades my thinking brain, co-opting some of the real estate to work out plot problems, have conversations with my characters, and just imagine the possibilities. I’ve had so much success with this, that physical exertion has become one of my main strategies for working my way around or through a block. They key is to carve out a little time after the physical activity to make use of that authorly momentum. It doesn’t need to be much, maybe thirty minutes or an hour, but taking the time to get the words that build up onto paper is essential.

The last piece of advice I can give you about having a packed plate and finding the time to write is that you must maintain your momentum. I don’t care if it is only one sentence, spend the time every single day writing something. Sometimes that one sentence will turn into two, then a couple paragraphs, then ten pages. Sometimes it will stay one sentence, but it will be more than you had the day before. 50,000 words may feel like a sprint, but really it’s just preparing you for the marathon. Daily practice builds those pathways in our brains, strengthening our writing muscles, and making progress. Even if it is only one sentence. They key is that it’s something.

Now, Go Forth and Write!

Being Gentle With Yourself Choice First Drafts Making Progress as a Writer Nathan Barra The Writing Process Your Writing Career No Comments

Welcome to the final hours of our pre-NaNoWriMo time! There are many people who are out there right now, anxiety ridden and dreading the toll of midnight. But y’all, dear readers, should be ready. You should be pumped. Our bloggers and guests have shared a plethora of advice and their own experiences. Hopefully you found their insights useful. You’ve done your prep work, imagined the impossible, and planned your way through to success. You’re ready to climb the mountain.

But what if you are still nervous? I mean, NaNoWriMo is a huge commitment, right? The answer is that you write anyways. You put your butt in the chair, your fingers on the keyboard and you give it everything you have to give. Though there are people who sprint up mountains for fun (crazy, right?) I prefer a hike. A slow and steady plod will get you there just the same, no matter how loud those voices in your head yell that you can’t make it.

What if you aren’t done with your prewriting? You have at least another 965,439.27 hours of prewriting left to do. You have to work through the complete 17th volume of your world’s history, and you don’t know how your protagonist kept their hair in the third grade, and there are at least 60 constellations you have yet to name and invent complete mythologies for… What do you do then? You put your butt in the chair and fingers on the keyboard. At some point, prewriting time needs to be over. As one of my mentors, Kevin Anderson, said to a group of us at a seminar, “A book that doesn’t exist cannot be published.” The hard truth is that most books are never finished, they are abandoned. Start, work your hardest, and you’ll be surprised by what you can do.

But what if you miss a day? How could you possibly crest the 50,000 word peak if you lose your momentum… Step 1: You forgive yourself. Step 2: You put your but in the chair and your fingers on the keyboard. Seeing a theme? I once saw a nutritionist who told all her clients that meaningful change was a process. You only failed when you stopped trying, success being one choice away. You just had to keep choosing to fight. And you know what? It works just as well for writing as it does for losing 40 pounds.

So, all of us here at the Fictorians wish you the best in this year’s NaNoWriMo. Surprise yourself, discover that you are far better than you give yourself credit for, and work your way up that mountain. Know that you aren’t alone in this. Know that what you are about to do is really hard, but you have everything you need to do it. The view from the top will be worth the climb, I promise. First drafts need not be perfect, but they do need to be finished. Now, go forth and write!

Prewriting: Getting Your NaNoWriMo Game Face On

Conflict Craft & Skills First Drafts Goals Ideas & Plotting Nathan Barra Plot Structure Self-Motivation The Writing Life The Writing Process 2 Comments

I tried to discovery write my way through my first two National Novel Writing Months, but failed both times. It wasn’t until my third attempt that I committed to the change that made the difference. For years, my friends and mentors tried to tempt me into outlining, promising mad productivity gains, stronger stories, and less time spent drudging through the editing phase. I resisted because I was convinced that outlining would ruin the joy of creation, dampen the rush I got through discovering my story and my characters. But between you and I? The real reason was because I had no idea how to outline effectively.

Every other time I tried outlining, I started by listing plot points. What I didn’t realize was that I was stacking up two-by-fours and hoping to end up with a house. My first major challenge was to realize that I needed to instead start with the big picture.

Story and plot are not the same thing. The plot is what the character does, the story is what the plot does to them. The plot of Star Wars: A New Hope starts with a boy who grows up on a moisture farm before running away with a space wizard, two droids, and a pair of smugglers. They are captured, and during his escape, the boy saves a princess before fleeing the Empire. They all join the Rebellion and our hero ends up blowing up a weapon of ultimate destruction and evil. The movie’s plot takes 67 words and 3 sentences to describe. The story can be stated much more simply. Star Wars: A New Hope is about a boy who comes from humble beginnings only to discover that he has the ability to change his world by standing up to a great evil. 33 words, 1 sentence.

If that’s not a familiar story, you haven’t been consuming much fiction. Frodo from Lord of the Rings, the titular character of the Harry Potter series, and even Simba from Disney’s The Lion King all experience the same story. Truth be told, humans have been telling each other the same stories for most of our history. Keep it simple and find a story that will resonate with your readership. This will be the foundation for your outline.

My next breakthrough came when I took Dave Farland’s Story Puzzle class. I learned that I needed to build my story like I would build a house, by starting with the studs and working my way out. A plot’s studs are its scenes, and scenes are nothing more than goals paired with failures that lead to an eventual success. Understanding your story’s try-fail cycles means that you need to dig down into your characters’ motivations. How is your protagonist going to respond to the initiating event, both emotionally and then through action? How is that reaction going to interfere with the antagonist’s designs and how is that character going to respond? Rinse, and repeat. Once you understand what your protagonist and antagonist want and how they’ll go about getting it, the rest falls into place.

So, after much work I had a functional outline, by far the best I had ever written. I started my third NaNoWriMo attempt. I was only days in before I found a plot problem. It wasn’t a big plothole, but enough of a stumbling block that I missed my daily goal. In the past, I would have agonized and insisted on filling the hole before being able to move on. However, the next day I started my writing session by typing, “<<Assume my character accomplishes her goal, she disarms the bomb and saves her friends.>>” I then opened a new scrivening and started writing my next scene. The beauty of the outline was that I didn’t need to discover the end of the scene. It was all planned out, I could move on and come back to fix it later.

Things were going well, I was reaping all the benefits that my friends and mentors had promised me. I was cruising along, exceeding my daily word counts. Then one day I had an idea. It was good enough that it was worth changing my whole outline. This was my third challenge. I was worried that my discovery writer past was catching up with me, that I was going to ditch my novel’s blueprint and would end up wasting all the time I had saved and all the progress I had made. Rather than starting to knock down the walls I had already built, I took a few days off of writing and reworked my outline mid-NaNoWriMo. It seemed crazy to do, but the idea was just that much better than what I had planned before.

The outline may have been my book’s blueprint, but I wasn’t committed to following every detail. It was there to help me visualize the whole structure of my novel and decide where my renovations fit in. I knew which walls were load bearing, where all the piping was run, and how the rooms would flow one to the other. Because I understood the totality of what I was trying to build, I could honestly and objectively decide if my new idea was better. I went back to writing with a newly revised outline and I ended up finishing strong, winning my third NaNoWriMo attempt.
Though I have been wooed into becoming an outliner, I still find ways to discover. It hasn’t taken away from the thrill, but rather increased the satisfaction of a story well crafted. This month on the Fictorians, you’re going to hear from many writers about their own experiences with prewriting and the techniques that allow them to keep up the grueling NaNoWriMo pace. If you are an experienced NaNo’er, welcome back. If you are a newbie who is considering taking on the mountain for the first time, welcome to the family. We have 30 days left to build our base camps, folks. Will you be ready to start the climb?

Authors Lie to Tell the Big Truths

Authorial Trust Believability Character Craft & Skills Doing Good in the World Nathan Barra POV Reader Investment & Empathy Reflection Setting and Milieu Suspension of Disbelief No Comments

When we pick up a work of fiction, we are seeking to lose ourselves in a beautiful lie. While some readers are driven by the need to escape their reality, most use fiction as an emotional exercise, a way to live vicariously through the adventures of another and stretch the limits of what is possible in our own lives. This latter sort of reader won’t be satisfied by fantastic worlds and flashy plots. While they may be entertained by these elements, they want to sink their teeth into some deeper meaning, a truth that resonates not only with the story, but with their own experiences.

The first step in delivering this deeper human truth is establishing a sense of empathy between the readers and the characters. No matter the culture, or even the species, of the protagonists and points of view, their motivations and choices must ring true. Would we be willing to accept a teratogenic dwarf that cons his way into the admiralcy of a space mercenary fleet? Sure, no problem. However, if Miles VorKosigan were to suddenly give up his military dreams and decide to become a farmer? We’d call shenanigans. Readers invest in characters, not stories. We must see them struggle against impossible odds and make choices that lead them to victory. No matter how fantastic the persona, it is only when our characters are true to their natures and goals that we as readers can invest in their struggles.
Once our readers invest in character, they will begin to look for a link between the protagonists’ fictional journey and the questions and struggles they face in their own lives. Sometimes these truths are topical and current. As an example, I can write countless blog posts about racism, discrimination, prejudice, and fear, but for the most part will have a hard time convincing those who disagree with me. Rather than arguing with my audience, I could make my characters argue for us. Furthermore, by couching my argument in the terms of a fantastic lie, I remove ego and defensiveness from the equation. After all, I am talking about my characters, not about them, right? I could make my protagonist an anthropomorphic bunny who is trying to break a species barrier and fulfill her childhood dream of being a police officer. I pair her with a fox conman and force her to question her own views of predators and foxes in particular, with whom she has had bad experiences in the past. As she questions her prejudice and preconceptions, so will the audience. In so doing, I use my fantastic lie to proxy larger, current social struggles and make an argument for diversity and inclusiveness that is more likely to achieve meaningful success than a thousand angry blog posts.

However, as writers we aren’t limited to current social questions. There are some truths so profound to the human experience that variations on their stories are repeated across generations and cultural barriers. We want to believe in a world where a hobbit from the Shire can face and destroy the greatest evil of his world because sometimes we feel small and powerless. We want to see Aragon and Arwen marry because if they can find a way for their love to survive war, distance, and hardship, then our own romantic futures aren’t hopeless. We want to return to the Shire with Sam because we need to believe that all the chaos and pain of living is for a greater purpose – home and family. Though we might not have the perspective to see the arc of our own lives, we can spend hours, days, or weeks with a story to gain the catharsis we need to push through our own struggles.

As writers, we rely on our readers to willingly suspend their disbelief in order to work our storytelling magic. However, no matter how fantastic and entertaining we may be, our stories must ring true on a deeper level for our readers to commit to the tale. It is only when our characters are believable, empathetic, and when their decisions and struggles resonate with our own experiences that we can truly connect with a story. Readers want to believe the lie, not only because they seek to escape reality for a time, but also because in so doing we seek to understand the truth of our own world.