Well, my careful plan for a biweekly ranty blog has fallen apart. As plans always do. Best we can do is move on and try to get things back on track. And by we, I mean me. I’m not expecting you to do any of this for me…

Anyway…

Three or four weeks back I got a newsletter reply (you’re subscribed to the newsletter, yes?) asking about working on multiple projects. Did I tend to do one thing at a time or juggle a few things at once? And if I was a crusty juggler… how did I keep things straight?

This was kind of timely because when I got this question, I’d been working on this draft of TOS but just gotten an email from a magazine editor with suggested edits for a story I wrote back in… May? And I also got an email from Blackstone about some work we need to do on God’s Junk Drawer. Plus there’s this ranty blog and the newsletter. So this past month has had me working on a few different things.

So, yeah, I’m juggling stuff right now. But I think a key thing to remember, for this little discussion, is that I have to. No options. Writing is my full time job, and that means I’ve usually got two or three things at different stages

Now, left to my own devices, I usually just focus on one thing. I’m not against scribbling a few notes or thoughts for potential projects, but I rarely go that far with it. That’s just kind of my process. Also, mental note, haven’t really discussed my process here in a while. Let’s put that on the calendar.

That said… the magazine story was a dream project I’ve wanted to do for many, many years (for a few different reasons) so I couldn’t really pass it up. And I’m under contract with Blackstone, so no putting off those edits. And my agent’s waiting for TOS because… well, it’s the next thing. That’s how the job goes. I write stuff, he finds someone who wants to buy it.

So how do I juggle multiple projects?

Honestly, I’m not really sure.

I think, on a very real level, it’s a lot like any other job. Yeah, right now I’m trying to do payroll but somebody just walked in with a petty cash problem. I’m framing walls but right now we need all hands to unload a truck. I’ve been trying to get the warehouse organized but tomorrow’s the big spring cleaning day out in the store. We all do this, all the time. We’re working on one thing. We need to switch gears for a while. And then we go back to what we were doing before.

Granted, it can be a little tougher in the arts. For me, personally, going from one project to something completely different just means I need to get my head into the story, probably like how an actor (I’m guessing) sometimes needs to get into a role. I don’t need to call on my inner muse or anything, but I usually re-read some of my manuscript and maybe go over my notes. Bigger projects will probably take a little more reading and have more notes (novels vs short stories, for example) but doing that’s usually enough for me to remember what I was thinking and where/how I wanted things to go.

Of course, there are some writers who can flip back and forth with no problem at all. And some who may need a lot more work and effort to get back into something they’d set down. And some who are very much working on one project only and that’s it, from first word to publication. It’s very much an individual thing, and I can’t tell you what kind of writer you are. It’s one of those aspects of writing you’ll just have to play around with and figure out what works best for you.

I think my best tip would be, when I stop working on Thing One, I should be sure to use any of the tricks I’d normally use to make starting the next day easier. Get at least two or three sentences onto the next page. Make an all-caps note to myself right there in the manuscript. Don’t assume I’ll remember anything later—jot it down so it’s definitely there when I come back to it. Plot point, line of dialogue, song in my head, whatever. And if I’m only going to work for a while on Thing Two before going back to Thing One… well, do the same for it.

That’s kind all I’ve got for you there.

Not a super-satisfying answer, I know. Sorry.

But let me spin this another way.

If I wasn’t doing this full time—let’s say it’s the career I’m trying to jumpstart or maybe just something I’m having fun with on the side—I guess a better question might be why am I working on multiple projects at once?

I used to have a lot of different things I was working on. For all sorts of reasons. Shiny new ideas. Trends I’d try to follow. Different formats I was writing in. Fear I was working on the wrong thing and I should spend more time on something like that.

But eventually I realized I was jumping around so much I wasn’t actually finishing anything. Sometimes this was deliberate, yeah. A story idea was going nowhere, so I just moved on to something new.

Other times, though, it was just lack of focus. The minute something needed some actual effort—some serious thought about structure or tension or character motivations—well, that’s when I’d decide to slide over to something else. Keep lots of projects going, right? If this one stalls just move on to that one. Or that one. And then that one. And this one. And oh, y’know what I just thought of…

Y’see, Timmy, while I’m not against working on multiple projects, I know for me, at that point in my career, it became more of a way to sort of dodge really committing to anything, if you know what I mean. And said career moved forward considerably once I focused on one thing and actually, y’know, finished it.

Is that where you’re at? Only you know the answer to that one. But it’s something I might consider when looking at those three or four or fifteen different projects on the desktop.

Next time… well, I’m hoping to get caught up on my reading.

Until then, go write.

It strikes me that if I’m going to keep doing this biweekly (which I have to admit, I’m kind of liking right now with everything else I’ve got going on) it feels like a much bigger shift when I suddenly swap topics for the week. Apologies if the last post threw you a bit.

But getting back on track…

If you’ve been writing, or even thinking about writing, for any amount of time, you’ve probably heard someone talk about three act structure. Doesn’t matter if you’re working on novels, screenplays, or short stories, I’m willing to bet you’ve come across this term or had it pushed at you.

Now, I’m a big believer in three-act structure. I think a good number of flawed stories can tie their problems back to it. Or more specifically, to a lack of it.

But I also believe three act-structure gets misunderstood a lot. And I think there are a lot of folks out there arguing for (or against) three-act structure who… well, don’t have any clue what they’re talking about.

It’s also important to note right up front that three-act structure doesn’t quite fit in with the other story structures I’ve talked about in the past—linear, dramatic, and narrative. Another one it gets confused with a lot is the five act structure that a lot of network dramas have (which leads some gurus to champion six- or seven-act structure or some such nonsense). But this type of structure is just an artifice of the way commercials are arranged in a time slot. Again, not really related to three act, linear, dramatic, or narrative structures.

I think these distinctions cause some confusion when folks start talking about structure. Because structure sounds like it should be one topic and not lots and lots of different, just-barely-connected things. It’s a type of story structure, but it’s not the same kind of story structure, if that makes sense? It’s like how an apartment can have a plumbing system and an electrical system, but we all understand they’re very much not the same kind of system even though they’re part of the same overall thing (the apartment).

So what is three- act structure? Well, I think I can explain it to you in pretty simple terms. Ready with the notebooks?

A good story has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

That’s three act structure.

No, seriously. That’s pretty much it. Three act structure in a nutshell.

Okay, fine, if we want to go into a little more detail…

In storytelling we have names for each of these three acts. And again, you’ve probably heard them before. We call them establishing the norm, introducing conflict, and then resolution.

Establishing the norm is just what it sounds like. We show our audience (our readers in our case) how things are on a normal day. This is when my characters go to work, pay bills, spend time with their loved ones, and so on. It’s when we often find them at their most relatable. It’s me, the storyteller, establishing a baseline so my readers understand when something amazing happens.

Remember that everybody has their own “usual day.” For me a usual day is taking care of cats, sitting at my desk, and maybe just posing an action figure or two on said desk. But for someone in Kenya or Palestine or stationed at the South Pole… well, their usual day is likely going to be different than mine. Heck, for Wade Wilson, a usual day probably involves a lot more severed limbs, gunfire, and decapitations, while for someone in Starfleet there’s scanning and analyzing and maybe some synthohol at the end of their shift. A usual day for someone is all very much a matter of context.

It’s important to have some sense of this, what a normal day is like for my character, even is my story’s set right here in the real world. Because if my characters don’t have a normal day, they can’t have an abnormal day. Make sense?

Introducing conflict is when that abnormal thing happens. It means something’s knocking my characters out of their comfortable little world and forcing them to take some sort of new action. A mysterious stranger shoves a jump drive into their hands. The building manager says they’ve got to pay all their back rent by the end of the month or get evicted. Their reflection tells them they’re actually a mercenary and also the avatar of an Egyptian god. They find out Wakko—Wakko of all people—is going to ask Phoebe to the prom.

Also worth noting that conflict has to cause, well, conflict. By definition, conflict requires some kind of opposing force. It doesn’t need to be some massive, overwhelming force of non-stop action, but there needs to actually be something between my characters and them immediately dealing with this issue or problem that’s appeared during their up-until-now normal day. If I introduce a conflict that doesn’t bother my protagonist or takes no effort to deal with… I mean, that’s not actually a conflict, is it? That’s just boring. And if it’s boring to them, it’s going to be boring to my audience.

Resolution is when things get resolved. Yeah, look, it should’ve been clear up front this isn’t really that complicated. Usually because my protagonist has taken some action and made things come to an end. It’s when answers are made known, hidden things get revealed and plot threads all come together. Hopefully.

So, all clear now?

I’m a big believer that pretty much every story needs these three acts. If it’s done right, any reader can tell you when these acts begin and end in my story. And I believe that we can all instinctively tell when one of them isn’t there.

Now, there are a few caveats to all of this, of course. A lot of stories start in the middle or maybe even close to the end before they go back and explain the beginning. “In medias res” some folks like to call it. We could probably list hundreds of great examples of books and movies that do this.

The thing to remember, though, is all these stories still have a beginning, a middle, and an end, even if they’ve been juggled around a bit in how they’re told. As we’ve talked about before, the narrative structure of a story doesn’t change the linear structure. The events have a definitive starting point. The characters have a baseline the audience sees them at. There’s a progression brought about by conflict. And it all leads to a definitive conclusion.

Y’see, Timmy, a story that’s missing one of these three parts has a sort of… meandering quality to it. We’re left trying to figure out if actions and reactions are odd or normal. Characters do things without any apparent reason to do them. And geeeeez… if I try to impress an agent or editor with “to be continued” what I’m really telling them is “I don’t have an ending for this.” And they won’t be impressed.

So look at your latest story and break it down. Is there any sort of norm established? Is there a point where things deviate from the norm for the protagonist(s)? Do things actually get resolved? ‘Cause if so… you’re probably doing okay.

Next time… somebody recently asked me about working on multiple projects. I think that could be an interesting thing to talk about.

Until then, go write.

Okay, I’m warning you right up front, this is going to be kind of an ehhhhhh newsletter. More personal stuff than cool in-depth updates.

Why you ask…?

Well, during the week between the last newsletter and San Diego ComicCon I had two middle-of-the-night trips to the pet emergency room. With two different cats. And one of those middle of the night trips was the Wednesday of SDCC—preview night. I still went down there Thursday but holy crap was I tired.

SDCC was… okay. I managed to get the toy exclusives I wanted (for me and some other folks). I also got to hang out with a couple people you may have heard of and talk about film stuff. Yes, in the “maybe we should adapt this” way. But it’s still very early days and I don’t want to say anything more until I know there’s actually something worth saying.

Alas, despite masking the whole time, I was one of the many, many folks who caught covid at SDCC. Even the best mask has a small degree of risk, and when you’re dealing with a crowd of 70-80K people (the majority of them not masked)… well, the odds really aren’t in your favor. Yeah, I can dodge bullets 96% of the time, but when someone shoots ten thousand bullets at me… I had chills and cramps on Monday that I wrote off as mild food poisoning (because I was testing negative) and then Tuesday I slept for the whole day. I woke up, went back to bed around 10 am, then woke up again on Wednesday. And when I tested then… wow, it took that second line all of ten seconds to appear. It looked like someone drew it with a Sharpie.

I isolated in my office and my beloved aired out the whole house, but it was too late. She tested positive late the next day.

And the cats are still sick, too.

Anyway, the short version of all this is… I have not managed to get a lot of work done. Very thankfully, there also hasn’t been a pressing, scheduled need for anything, which is probably going to happen in the near future as certain things kick into gear.

So, what do I have for you?

There’s still not really anything to talk about with God’s Junk Drawer. Things are happening, but they’re all the very, very boring early things. No, I still don’t have an official release date yet. Or a preorder date. Trust me, you’ll know.

I’ve got about seventy pages left in the second draft of TOS. Again… so much kind of ground to a halt this week. I did manage to untangle a last few snarls, though, and I’m thinking this book might be… really good? Like, really good. A few things have just opened up and lined up in ways I hadn’t even considered when I first started my sketchy outline for it. So I guess we’ll see on that.

What else have I got for you…?

Cool Stuff I’ve Been Watching
Honestly… not a lot. With everything going on, we just haven’t had the time or energy to watch anything. I think we finished up season four of My Hero Academia, watched a few episodes of Gardener’s World, annnnndd… I fell like there’s something else but it clearly made a great impression

Cool Stuff I’ve Been Reading
As above, holding a book up felt like a lot of effort these past few weeks. I think I read a few more issues in my big Micronauts omnibus and… that’s it. Kinda blows my numbers for book-reading this year.

Cool New Toys
Well, I got the Marvel Legends exclusive Death’s Head at SDCC (yay…?). Got a Blight figure for Animal Warriors of the Kingdom off eBay, and then grabbed a second one to customize into a new character. And I got an amazing Arcee model kit I’m hoping to put together before the next newsletter.

And I think that’s all for now. Many thanks, as always, for reading. I’ll try to have more interesting stuff to tell you next time.

Okay, I know last time I said I was going to talk about three act structure but…

There was, as my fellow youths say, some discourse on Bluesky (and maybe the dead bird site, too, but why would anyone be there?) about recognition. It’s one thing to finally make some money off my writing, but let’s be honest. It’s also nice when we finally get known for our writing. When we get those starred reviews and interviews and con invitations.

And the awards. Can’t forget about the awards. We just had a couple sci-fi/fantasy ones in a row, and I think that’s part of what spurred this little bit of discourse. That’s the big recognition, isn’t it? Getting to stand up there in front of our peers and give a speech and get applause and know that we’ve been acknowledged. Our work’s been judged and recognized and now we’ve got a little rocket/ obelisk/ haunted house on our shelf at home to remind us—to remind everyone—that we’re really good at this.

I felt like a lot of folks covered said discourse pretty well. But it kept nagging at me. I think it’s because it’s something I’ve got a fair amount of experience with. On both sides.

So let’s talk about screenplays for a few minutes.

If you’ve been following along here for a while, you know my partner and I both read for a couple different screenplay contests during our poverty years. Some of them were big enough contests you may have heard of them, if you follow such things. And some of them you probably haven’t heard of, even if you really follow such things.

Thing is, it gave me a real look behind the curtain at this sort of thing. How semifinalists and finalists and winners get chosen. And look, the simple truth is so many contests and awards and fellowships all have a bunch of inherent problems. Some of them have poorly written rules for the contestants and/ or poorly written instructions for the people judging them. The judges all have their own personal biases they may or may not be able to avoid to some extent. Hell, most contests and awards are very limiting by design—you may notice it’s been quite a few years since a sci-fi romance won the Stoker Award,

And this is before we even get into someone deliberately putting a thumb on the scales, which has happened… well, quite a few times in the recent past. People tend to abuse systems. Sometimes they abuse systems that let them abuse other systems. And all of that, again, affects the final scores and results of all these judging systems.

Now to be very, very clear, I’m not saying that contests or awards are bad things. They’re absolutely not. I think it’s fantastic to recognize achievements and it can be a gigantic morale boost for lots of people when a book or writer you really relate to gets that recognition. Hell, especially you if it’s you who gets the recognition.

But I also think it’s important to remember that not getting recognized isn’t necessarily a sign of failure or that my work’s lacking something. It can literally just mean one (just one) of the key people who looked at my screenplay (or novel or whatever) didn’t connect with it. Or maybe connected too much in the wrong way. It could just mean three people sat around a table and said “well, that one’s a little less sci-fi than this one…”

In a way, this is a lot like deciding what gets to be art, which I talked about a few months back. Art is a completely random, subjective term that gets redefined constantly. Some things will get recognition now. Others get acknowledged years later. And yeah, some things should get recognized in a much bigger way and just never are.

(quick note that not getting recognized also doesn’t automatically mean everything was rigged and my work is flawless and brilliant and I’m a genius who deserved to win. Don’t be that guy)

Anyway, my personal take has always been that awards and recognition are great, but they really shouldn’t be seen as the end all-be all of writing. I definitely shouldn’t let it drag me down if I didn’t win. Or even get nominated. Being a writer’s tough enough without beating myself up because some random strangers decided they liked someone else’s book slightly more than mine.

And that’s my thoughts on that.

Oh, I also updated the FAQ, if that’s of any interest to you.

Next time, three act structure. Really.

Until then, go write.