Category Archives: Craft & Skills

Characters 101

Character Jace Killan Narrative Voice 1 Comment

MaleficentThis month we are discussing characters. When I first started writing my protagonist was all-good, while my antagonist all-bad. My protagonist was a saint, a genius, wealthy, good looking, and great with the ladies, like James Bond or Jack Ryan. But as I wrote these stories I struggled with taking them anywhere. My writing was extremely bland and I thought the problem lied in my plot structure, not my characters.

I guess I was raised on Disney movies where Maleficent was the evil antagonist without a single decent trait contrasted by Princess Aurora that could do no wrong if she tried—nor could Prince Charming.

The other Disney shows followed the same pattern, Snow White and the Evil Queen, Cinderella and the Wicked Step Mother, Ariel and Ursula.

Aladdin, Lion King, and many since have added other dimensions to characters and in my opinion were better stories. Aladdin was a thief, not a “good” profession, but he was kind to the monkey and the children, so we forgave the sin and became more endeared to the character.

The movie Maleficent was incredibly creative. Disney took a character that we learned to hate as children and endeared us to her by adding more dimensions. I think that multi-dimensional characters resonate more with readers. No one that I know is all-good or all-bad. Some might appear that way on the surface, but when you dig in there is always layers that make them real—human.

Series like The Office were successful because of the Characters. Anyone that has seen the show knows exactly what I am saying when I state, “That is so Dwight,” or “That is classic Michael Scott.”

Multi-dimensional characters allow us to go deeper in our stories. We can play off their strengths and weaknesses to deepen plots, relationships, and conflict.

I’m excited to learn from our guest writers and fellow Fictorians this month as we are shown how to better utilize our characters to make a better story.

Finding Strength in Weakness

Craft & Skills Goals Guest Posts Motivation Self-Awareness The Writing Life 1 Comment

A Guest Post by Darke Conteur

I love to write. I love putting words together to form beautiful scenes, or insightful articles on interesting topics. I’m enjoying myself right now as I write out this post, and it’s because of this love that I set certain goals for myself when I started writing full time.

Back then, I had just an inkling of what it was like to be a writer. Sure, I’d written a few stories, nothing published. I thought, if I’m going to do this, I might as well discover all that writing had to offer. That meant exploring as many aspects of writing as possible. Everyone writes novels, but how many write short stories as well? Or flash fiction? What about writing a script? These idea’s tantalized me with possibilities. Whether or not they would prove to be fruitful was anyone’s guess, but I didn’t want to limit myself for anything.

I explored the world of flash fiction and became a content editor for a small online eZine and I wrote, and had published, the only flash piece I ever wrote. I wrote novels, and was on the editorial board for my local newspaper, and yes, I even wrote a couple scripts.

My jaunt into the genres was just as rewarding. Paranormal and scifi short stories were accepted, and my only erotic short story published with the first place I submitted it too (and for money. Sex sells! ;D ). The goals I put before me were falling like flies, and there was only one more attempt I needed to cross off my list to round off my goals; write something in the every-popular category of Young Adult.

Alas, my luck ran out.

It was a time-travel scifi novella involving two teenage boys. The plot was good, but there was something inside me that didn’t spark with this story. I tried again, re-working it into something a little tighter, but again, it fell short of my expectation. Was it the genre? No, I’d written other scifi stories and they were published. Was the story too short? Again, no. I wrote a paranormal novella and that was fine. The only thing I could conclude was that it was the YA category. As I looked over my other stories, I noticed the characters were all adults. Even my WIPs had adult characters. Many of them over the age of thirty. Whatever connected me to my previous stories couldn’t connect me to this story because the characters were too young.

I failed. I couldn’t write Young Adult.

I considered this a disappointment, but it was also a revelation. It showed me that I have limitations. Limitations that allow me to focus on the projects I know I can write. Not every writer can write everything. We all have that one genre or format that we can’t or won’t write. I don’t see that as a failure, I see it as a strength. It means we understand our craft as it pertains to us. We understand our writing style, our voice. In the end, I realized setting up these goals showed me not only where I failed, but where I could create.

 

Darke Conteur is a writer at the mercy of her Muse. The author of stories in several genres, she prefers to create within the realms of the three ‘S’; Science Fiction, the Supernatural, and Steampunk. A gamer at heart, she also enjoys knitting, gardening, cooking and good music. When not busy writing, she attends to one husband, one wannabe rock star, two cats, and one ghost dog.

http://darkeconteur.weebly.com/contact.html

That Moment it went from Hobby to Career

First Drafts Goals Jace Killan Motivation Rewriting Self-Awareness Starting a Career The Writing Life Writing Tools 1 Comment

researchWhen I picked my topic for this month (titled above) I didn’t realize the title of my first Fictorian post this year, “Keeping the Day Job.” The two titles definitely describe where I was and am in my writing and I’m happy to see the progress made this past year due in part to my keeping goals.

I wrote everyday. There might have been a month or two that I didn’t hit 20,000 words, but there were others that I surpassed that. I did not submit something each month, but I submitted 12 pieces for publishing during the year. I finished a novel, my first, The Broken Amulet, and am in the stage of cleaning it up and editing. I went to Phoenix and Salt Lake City Comicons. And I attended David Farland’s writing workshop.

It was there that writing changed for me from a hobby to a career. In that workshop I was able to see how I could actually make money at doing what I enjoy. I’ve started working on a new book. David Farland helped me see how to craft, research, and frame the story and I’m confident that I will have it in the hands of an excited publisher by the end of 2015.

There was a moment in the workshop that I realized that I could be a successful author if I continued to learn and grow and develop as a writer. There wasn’t a month last year that I wasn’t a better writer than the month before.

So I’ve set some new goals and have developed a bit of work ethic. Here are some things that I am doing different now.

  • I set up an author email, jacebkillan@gmail.com that I use to keep all my writing stuff in one place. As I have ideas for short stories or plot twists in my novels I email those to myself with a descriptive subject line so that I can find them later, but I don’t spend too much time thinking on new things and forsaking my current work in progress.
  • I set up an author profile at Wattpad. At some point I will share a short story or two. It seems to be a great tool for aspiring and published writers.
  • I write at least a couple blog posts each month. This gives me a break from my work in progress and allows me to process things on my mind. It also helps in developing a readership.
  • I started outlining my novels. This was a hard thing for me as I’m a prancer or discovery writer, but Farland’s workshop helped me get some direction without losing interest in a story once it’s laid out. Another great tool is Farland’s Million Dollar Outlines.
  • With a good outline, I’m able to research with direction. I’ve spent the last month scouring old books, the internet, and museums for research on my work in progress. The picture above is of my readings this past weekend. In my hobby days of writing I would have taken the lazy, less expensive, less timely road of just making it up. Actually, I wrote a chapter of my current work in progress before Farland’s class.

The scene takes place in Milan, Italy in 1774, where the protagonist is enjoying chicken parmesan after having travelled a great distance from Nice, France. After Farland’s class I learned through research that Milan, Italy didn’t exist in 1774 but belonged to the House of Savoy in a country known as Sardinia. And tomato sauce wasn’t really used in Italian cuisine until later. And Nice wasn’t yet a part of France either, but also belonged to Sardinia and it wasn’t until a few years later during the Napoleonic era that Nice was annexed. So I rewrote the chapter and it no longer reeks of novice.

  • I started using Scrivener to keep track of my research and keep my thoughts and outline organized.
  • Every movie, television show, book that I experience is now analyzed for its story telling features.

To wrap up, my goals for this next year are as follows

  1. Finish my work in progress
  2. Find an agent
  3. Submit at least once to Writers of the Future
  4. Finish editing The Broken Amulet
  5. Outline another novel
  6. Attend two cons
  7. Attend two writing workshops
  8. Register for Superstars in 2016

I’m confident that I will become a published writer and professional author because I continue to improve, I continue to learn, and I continue to write.

 

 

 

A Crash Course on the Best and Worst Elements of Writing

Ace Jordyn Character Craft & Skills Reading Reviews The Writing Process Writing Tools No Comments

What an enlightening month November has been! If you ever wanted a crash course in what makes writing the best or the worst, this was it.

There is so much to learn about writing craft and storytelling from the masters yet we can learn equally from writing that doesn’t engage us. Deciding on the ‘best’ means we need to understand why we like what we do and what constitutes the best for each of us (Kristin Luna). It also means not disregarding other forms of fiction because the best stories use elements of both literary and commercial fiction and knowing how each works makes us better skilled writers (Susan Forest).

Elements in the best writing includes:
precision of word choice, great imagery and detail plus an author who gets right into his character’s heads (Clancy); a grasp on multi-sensory prose which like a dream, makes the fantastical normal and lifts the reader to a place of wonder (Brenda Sawatsky); cliffhangers and when multiple story lines crash together in a maelstrom of calamity at the end of a book (Evan); well executed diverse fiction that helps the reader understand the world we live in and cultivates respect (Kim May); story matters and being a good storyteller with proper pacing and resolutions is key, but before telling the story, think about how much you can tell us by each word, each sentence, and the beauty you strive for in bringing them together (Colette); it’s not just about the protagonist against the antagonist but about how every character interacts with every other character (Jace Sanders); heroes aren’t heroes all the time. They are just humans with something about them that is extraordinary, and the more flawed a character is, the more human they seem (Leigh Galbreath); the best writing has characters who strive for themselves along with sentences that soar on their own (James Van Pelt); successful prologues convey information without being an info dump and they promise a story/writing style upon which they deliver (Ace Jordyn); a consistent background which functions almost as another character, widening the options for the protagonist’s conflict along with psychological realism where characters behave consistently (Al Onia); the key to the ‘best’ has less to do with perfect prose, and more to do with story impact when what we’re writing matters, emotions rise up, and the reader can feel it (Adria Laycraft).

What constitutes the worst writing includes:
meandering prose that loses the reader and is boring and there’s no beginning, middle or end and no characters to invest in (Clancy); it’s a bad idea to mislead readers about what kind of story you are telling readers for pick up books because they’re hoping for a certain type of experience. (Mary); when writers grab hold of a culture’s cool elements—Samurai swords, martial arts, ninjas—and throw the rest out the window because the history, philosophy, sociology, and traditions are so intertwined and influential on the cool elements that you can’t separate the two and do it justice. (Kim May); it’s not possible to root for a guy who seems like a walking pity party or if the main character lacks any sense of wonder (James Van Pelt); prologues don’t work if they create expectations that the book doesn’t meet either in story content or style, if they’re an info dump or if they are used to foreshadow or tease (Ace Jordyn); when writers betray the promises set in the beginning of the book and shatter the reader’s bond with the story (Frank).

So how can we judge how we each measure up at being the best? We can compare our work to those we admire and like to read or, as Nathan Barra observed, we can learn by comparing our earlier works to our current ones and being motivated by that.

In case you want to follow up on any of the excellent points I’ve summarized, here is a list of November’s blogs. Just click on the title and the link will get you there.

Happy reading and writing!

Lee Child vs the Boring Clancy
Not What I Signed Up For Mary
The Dreamer Brenda Sawatzky
In Loving Appreciation of the Story Swirl Evan Braun
The Emperor and the Impostor Kim May
Kneeling in the Silver Light Mary
The Importance of Word Choice Colette
Learning from the Masters Jace Sanders
A Tale of Two Readers; or, Everybody Wins Kristin Luna
The Not So likeable Hero Leigh Galbreath
Pluck, Pity Parties and Prose – What I Like Best and What Doesn’t Work James Van Pelt
SSWS Writing Scholarship: Should YOU Apply?  Colette
Clive Cussler, Guy Gavriel Kay and DJ McIntosh are Masters at … Ace Jordyn
Writing What I Like to Read Al Onia
Writing Stories that Matter Adria Laycraft
Looking for Progress in a Mirror Nathan Barra
Don’t Break Your Promises Frank
Using the Tools of Both Literary and Commercial Fiction Susan Forest