Category Archives: Writing Tools

A discussion of the various software that authors employ to write, plot, backup, and ultimately use to write a novel.

We’ve heard it before and we’ll hear it again because it’s a truth. We can’t do it all and sometimes we just need to say No.

I was reminded of this when a writer friend sent a link to this blog and the last line of what Seth Godin says is “No is the foundation that we can build our yes on.” I think that’s brilliant.

And a reminder I obviously need tattooed on my forehead. No matter how many times I remember this, it’s usually after I’ve over committed myself – again – and I’m stressed out about having too much to do. Like right now.

We all have families, friends, organizations, careers, and so on that we need to do things for on the occasion. The trick is balancing it, prioritizing it, and keeping what’s important always in mind. And sadly, sometimes that means we just can’t do it all and stay sane. I know I feel crazy more often than I should.

For me, it’s a circular snowball effect. Let me explain the cycle: I feel good, so I say Yes to too many things. When I don’t have enough time to get all of said commitments done, I start to stress. Stress impacts my depression. My depression makes it harder to be productive for even the important stuff so now everything is harder. I realize I’m a dope and try to wrap up or shed the commitments I can as soon as possible so I can focus on the ones that are super important. I push through and say No to a lot of things. Commitments ease up so I can be productive where I need. I feel better. I feel good….. and it begins again. Hence the tattooed reminder.

The friend who sent out the link was one of the people I asked to guest blog for this month. When I did a follow-up to see if she was going to or not, she said, “You know, at this point, I’m going to have to say no. Does that screw you over? I don’t want to screw you over.” And I thought, Smart Woman! I told her I completely understood. And I do.

It isn’t even just the special projects we should be saying No to… like the class I’m teaching that I haven’t written yet, or the motorcycle riding class I’m taking over four days, or the offer to help an elderly friend run errands. It’s the daily grind stuff that keeps my calendar looking like a multi-headed hydra on steroids has planned a host of events for each damn head for each damn day of the week. Ridiculous. And I have no one to blame but myself!

Who else is suffering from the dreaded Yes-itis Over-committus disease? Raise your hands. Now commit with me to this instead – I will say No. Repeat it with me, now. I WILL SAY NO.

When asked to XXX, I will say No.

We can find a cure together, people. I believe this. 🙂

I read a book recently, “18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done” by Peter Bregman. One of the things he says to do is come up with a list of the five most important goals for your year, like spend time with family, focus on career, and so forth. And then whenever a request is made, assess whether that request falls squarely inside one of your target goals or whether it is a distraction away from it. Say yes or no accordingly.

I’m trying to do that…. And as I say ‘try’ I hear Yoda in the back of my brain, saying, “Try not. Do, or do not.”

I know what I need to do.

From an Artist’s Point of View

April 16, 2014

fictorians

Author's Perspective Business Craft & Skills Guest Posts Writing Tools 2 Comments

A guest post by Suzanne Helmigh.

Two Aliens walked into a bar,one an author and one an artist.The author alien makes his order:”Could you serve me a smooth but strong beverage that will burn like gentle oil from Neptune as it slides through my throat?” The artist alien orders, “I’d like that purple stuff with the bubbles, can I get it in one of those spiral glasses with the sugar coating?”

Many of my artist friends and I share similar experiences when it comes to working with authors on their book covers. It seems like misunderstandings or misinterpretations are a common problem, because we simply have different ways of describing things. Both authors and artists are creative people, though one thinks in words and the other thinks in imagery.

Authors tend to over-detail their descriptions, but the artist simply needs a still/fraction of the story, as if putting a movie on pause. Often, the artist gets more information than needed, which can make their vision of the image cloudy.

An artist only needs 3 things.

The synopsis of your story.
A movie frame instance for the cover. (If it portrays a scene/keymoment.)
Physical description of the main object or person.

When you’ve worked on a story for a long time, it becomes dear to you. Artists make stories,too, yet they rarely get portrayed into words, so we understand how precious specific details can get. You’ve had times where you share a quick run of your story to a non-creative friend,but they drown in the details and enthusiasm of your world, loosing the plot line because they’re simply not experienced with keeping track of such things. It’s like explaining to my mother how Skype works; she’ll get parts of it, yet still tries to video-call me over Facebook.

My point with this: when you make your idea for the book cover clear to the artist, treat them like you would treat that non-creative friend or I would treat my mother about Skype. Spare them the copious amounts of detail and keep it limited to a simple synopsis, spoilers included (so a little different from the back blurb of a book.)

The next thing the artist needs is the “movieframe”.

Maybe it’s just me, as I’ve done film school and my first passion towards drawing came from wanting to become a story-boarder for films. Though most artists I know do seem to work with the same method, a simple list:

Who: (What object or character is the main element and or side elements.)
What: (What is going on??)
Where: (Where are they, small description of the environment.)
When: (This is needed for lighting; colors are different during sunset than at noon. If it’s an interior scene, simply describe what the light source is. candle light- neonlight… you see my point?)

Now the character portrayed or the object needs some description, too. We don’t need to know about the person’s history or the fact he/she is a bird lover, unless it clearly shows by all the feathers in their outfit. Let me show you a sample of a character we probably all know, and explain what’s relevant and what’s not.

Aragorn (Lord of the Rings.)
Middle aged. Rugged by living outdoors. Adventurer. Dark hair, blue eyes, Caucasian.
Carries sword and elvish necklace. Color scheme of clothing matches nature.
He’s a hero, traveler, calm and mysterious.

That’s all an artist needs. Even though we know Aragorn is actually 87 years of age, it has no relevance as he looks in his 40’s because he’s a Dunedine. Dunedine? The artist probably has no clue about any race/type/planet/order/organization names you mention, so simply don’t. He has the elvish necklace from Arwen which contains her immortality, not something of relevance for the image unless, of course, the image is a portrait of his head and shoulders and the necklace becomes a center piece. Though an image of Aragorn wielding his sword against a bunch of Orcs makes the source of the necklace far from relevant. The less items are shown in an image, the less we need to know about its details.

The big “Don’ts”.

Naming fictional elements such as races/types/planets/orders/organisations etc. When you say “Vera is a half Funderon and half human…” we have no idea how to image that. When you say, “Vera looks like a human but with rabbit ears and a flat rabbit- like face,” that brings us much closer to the visual appearance.

Don’t send the artist pages of the book unless they ask for it.Sometimes 1 page can be fine if it perfectly portrays the scene for the cover. Though, I’ve had entire chapters with highlighted portions before, and it’s one of those drown-in-the-details moments.Suddenly sneaking into a movie in the cinema midway through, and then leaving after 15 minutes, will make you very confused about the story.

Please don’t get too nit-picky about the tiniest points. The last thing an artist wants is to become a machine that loses their own vision and simply copies. The 3 different eye colors of the octo-alien in the distance really won’t be bigger than a pixel.

Another helpful thing: send the artist imagerythey can use. Maybe you fancy the look of a certain actor or you’ve seen a lasergun that really comes close to the style you’d like. Heck, you can even make a mood-board! It will only help the artist’s vision match yours better, presenting it to them in a form they understand.

I hope this will help you communicate with your artists. I’m curious to read your point of view as a writer so I can better understand you as well.

Suzanne Helmigh Bio:

At 24 years old, Suzanne Helmigh is a professional artist who went from film to concept art and illustration. She always wrote stories as a hobby, but found her words get lost compared to her ability to create images.

Currently, she’s working on an Artbook titled Caldyra, which will show a story portrayed into illustrations and key element concept designs–a bit of a mix between a graphic novel without words and a concept art book for animation or games. You can have a look at her Facebook fan page and let her know what you think!

https://www.facebook.com/Caldyra

Writing Who You’re Not

April 11, 2014

mary

Character Craft & Skills Mary Pletsch The Writing Life World-building Writing Tools 1 Comment

Two aliens walked into a bar. “Greetings, Earthling,” they said to the bartender. “Take us to your leader!”

That was the point where Dar’xyl threw the book across the room. “Human authors can’t write us worth scrap!”
#

While I was studying for my Master’s degree in English, I sat through several classroom arguments to the effect of, “This (male) author can’t write realistic female characters; this (female) author fetishizes gay men when she writes; this (Black) author shouldn’t write a book about Native Americans; no, wait, it’s okay when this Black author writes about Native Americans, but not when these White authors do.” I left these classes wondering if I dared ever write about anyone who came from a culture, ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation or any background and experience different from my own.

If I only wrote characters rooted in my own personal experience, all the people in my stories would be female, white, under 40, Canadian, and of German, English or Jewish heritage. There would be no Asian people, no transgender people, no Muslim people, no elderly people, and no men. The setting would always be late-twentieth or early-twenty-first century, Planet Earth.

I wouldn’t want to write in this world. It’s got no relation to the world around me—it doesn’t feel real—and I’ve yet to think of a compelling and logical reason why it would be peopled only with characters whose experiences parallel my own. In order to write a realistic, compelling world, you’ll probably have to create at least a few characters whose experiences are rooted in backgrounds you don’t share (unless you’re writing about, for example, an isolated village in China where everyone is probably Chinese; or a colony where a plague has killed all the men; or another scenario where minimal diversity is a critical component of the setting).

On the other hand, it’s one thing to make your character a different faith, gender, age or ethnicity, but another thing to write such a person realistically. Oftentimes authors, sometimes unconsciously, fall into stereotypes when they try to write from a different point of view. Take some time to do some research and understand what experiences, attitudes, and cultural values might shape such a person’s thinking and worldview. Choose carefully what story you want to tell – is it a story best told by someone with personal experience? For example, I’m comfortable writing a story with a gay male lead, but I’m not comfortable writing a story about what it’s like to be a gay man in modern Canada.

Also understand that just because two characters come from the same religion/ethnic background/culture/etc., doesn’t mean their worldviews are going to be the same. Losing an arm, for example, will be a different experience for the rich person who buys a cutting-edge prosthetic limb than it will be for the poor thief who now has to make a living with just one hand. Being Black is going to be a different experience for the Black kid who’s the only Black person in her entire high school than it is for the Black kid who grows up surrounded by a community – and that community’s experience will differ depending on if it’s in 1990s Nova Scotia or 1960s Alabama. Being Christian can run the gamut from Mother Teresa to the Westboro Baptist Church, and so on.

The best weapon in the writer’s arsenal is the ability to imagine and empathize with another’s point of view. This was a challenge to me in a recent short story in which the main character is a religious leader, but his own belief is best described as agnostic. I was tired of – yes, a stereotype, in which every character who is a religious leader is always either highly devout, or else utterly corrupt. I wanted to create a character who wrestles with his faith, who tries to fulfill the duties of his job despite deep personal misgivings.

I’ve always been a strongly religious person, so I had to imagine: what experiences made this person an atheist in his youth? What experiences made him suspect that there might be a God after all? Why did he choose his current faith over all the others? Why is he still unsure that his God is real? Writing this character helped me imagine an experience different from any I’ve ever had myself.

This is one of the great powers of fiction: the ability to make the reader understand, empathize, and see the world through different eyes—to experience what it’s like to be someone else. Sometimes that “someone else” is a person of a different gender, ethnicity, faith, age…the list goes on. This power challenges the writer to provide a view that doesn’t simply reinforce cultural stereotypes. And even though the story might be fiction, the understanding of how that point of view feels from inside, can linger long after the story is over.

*If you’re curious – you can meet Shaman Pasharan, Sigil of the Silver Future, in the upcoming EDGE anthology Tesseracts 18: Wrestling with Gods, in a story entitled “Burnt Offerings.”

Writing in Color

February 17, 2014

Jace Killan

Character Craft & Skills Jace Killan Storyline The Writing Life Writing Tools No Comments

My writing started to get good when I learned how to write in color.

As children we are concrete thinkers; we see the world in absolutes, black and white, good and bad, likes and dislikes, right and wrong. As we grow and develop we begin to comprehend abstract thought, such as, just because Jonny does something bad doesn’t necessarily mean he is bad, and just because Sally does something good doesn’t necessarily mean she is good. Abstract thought leads us into a new world of judgment and emotion. As we try to understand our existence and reality, abstract thought helps us wrap our head around those complicated, even contradictory themes life presents.

My early writing portrayed much of this concrete thought. My protagonists were all good, and my antagonists were all bad, right and wrong, loved and hated. I soon discovered that my stories lacked conflict. Oh, there was plenty of opposition between the good guys and the bad guys, but real life conflict isn’t so easily defined and identified. My writing in black and white created predictable plots, boring dialogue, and failed to solicit an emotional response. In short, my writing was forgettable.

As I struggled to understand why, I thought back to all of the stories (written and film) that I remembered from my youth. Stories like “The Monkey’s Paw” by W. W. Jacobs and “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury caused my mind to stretch, mainly because there wasn’t a happy ending, a resolution that I could forget. My mind continued to replay the plots, over and over, thinking of alternative actions, alternative endings in search of resolution.

Movies like “Old Yeller” and “Against a Crooked Sky” provoked me the same way. I found myself days, weeks, even months after watching the films, trying to rewrite the plots for better, happier endings. If only the protagonist could go back in time and do it right, then the ending could be different.

A couple of years ago, I attended a workshop where I read a short story I had written. I was complimented for my fine piece of horror. Shocked at the assertion, I argued that my story couldn’t possibly be considered part of that genre. The instructor smiled and said, “You are definitely a horror writer.”

I decided to read some horror to prove her wrong, and sure enough, I am a horror writer. I enjoy reading it, and love to create it.

As a horror writer, I take the reader to an uncomfortable place. Instead of forgettable, happy-ever-after-type endings, my writing allows me to dwell in the horrific, the sad, the hard, the pain, and the unthinkable. Through that experience, I invite the reader to return to the story in search of a better resolution.

Character development is a crucial part of unforgettable writing for it is their choices that often create the dire circumstances in which we find ourselves. Nathan Barra wrote something to the effect that a good character is someone that you’d like to sit down and have a drink with but you’d also like to punch in the face. Great characters like Javert and Gollum won’t fit into good and bad molds, they do good things for the wrong reasons, and bad things for righteous reasons, and do terrible things for terrible reasons. To err is human. I love experiencing such characters and their choices as they create worlds of desperation, loneliness, bitterness, and fear allowing me as the reader to feel, empathize, pity, and relate, all along searching for resolution whether it comes or not.

For a story to truly be unforgettable, it needs to be written in color.