Category: first

March 22, 2018 / 9 Comments

The First Time Around

Is it still a pop culture reference if I’m referencing one of my own books? I mean is it really a “reference” when J.K. Rowling talks about Harry Potter? Or is it just self promotion…?

Anyway, this week I wanted to blab about an issue that cropped up in a book I just read. I mean, it’s a fairly common problem, truth be told, and it’s easy to see why it happens. But it’s one of those things that almost always makes readers grind their teeth. Even if they’re not sure why they’re grinding their teeth.

And to explain this, I’d like to start by talking about my mom.

My mom had me when she was really young. Not scandalously, Gilmore Girls young, but young enough that there was still a touch of scandal. Especially back in New England during Nixon’s presidency. It’s struck me a couple times in my life to think where she was in her life at the same age.

Of course, I didn’t always think like this. I didn’t really put the math together until some time late in high school, I think. Because my mom didn’t look young. She looked… well, mom-aged. Why would I look deeper into something that was totally normal? My thoughts just never turned that way.

No, the odd thing when I was growing up was how all of my friends had old parents. I think I was around seven or eight when it first struck me that the friends I’d ended up with all had parents that were at least a decade older than my mom. It was odd, yeah, but I logically assumed that all those many, many parents I hadn’t met were normal mom-age.

Hopefully the point I’m trying to make is clear. All of us assume our lives are normal. That we’re the baseline. Even when we come to realize they might not be normal in a greater societal sense, they’re still normal for us. It still doesn’t surprise me that my mom’s not-quite twenty years older than me because… well, she always has been.

And this is true for fictional people, too. The world they live in is—big shocker—the world they live in. It doesn’t surprise them. Kincaid Strange isn’t shocked spirits and voodoo are real because that’s her world. Since Charles grew up in a world of metal spiders, a horned God on television, and mechanical implants in the back of people’s skulls, these things are more annoying background noise to him than disturbing. Constance Verity doesn’t get surprised by aliens or androids or monstrous creatures at the center of the Earth because for her… well, that’s a Thursday.

Granted, they can still get surprised when something changes in their world. We tend to call that “plot.” But the day to day aspects of their life shouldn’t come as any big shock. They’ve seen it and experienced it before. It’s normal to them.

One mistake I see a lot in stories and screenplays is when characters in my story go for a hover-drive, go to work at the vat-meat processing plant, or telepathically scan perps for evidence of crimes… and are in awe of these things. Maybe even feel the need to dwell on these things for a paragraph or three. It knocks a reader out of the story because it’s immediately apparent this is something the characters should be familiar with.

But it’s not just genre stuff. This happens in “real world” stories, too. I’ve seen characters be eyes-wide amazed at the smell of dog food and the price of milk. Not because these things are radically different than expected, mind you. Just because… they’re there.

Let me put it a slightly different way. And I’ll give you another personal example. Or, in this case, you can give yourself the example. No, you don’t need to share or even write it down, don’t worry. Just keep it in your head.

Do you remember the very first time you saw your current (or most recent) significant other naked? Girlfriend, boyfriend, wife, husband, whoever they may be. I’m not asking for a date and time—do you recall how you felt at that moment, at the sight of them exposed to you? What was running through your mind? What your heart was doing in your chest?

Okay, now get yourself under control–there’s a follow-up.

How did you feel the last time you saw them naked? Maybe this morning or just the other night. Were you as focused? As breathless? Heck, were you even thinking about them? Not in a “someone else” way, I just mean maybe you were working out a problem from one of your own stories. Or thinking about stuff you had to do this weekend. Heck, maybe you were reading and they were just walking around in the background. You knew they were there but you just had to finish this chapter.

Y’see, Timmy, sometimes, storytellers get focused on the fact that this is the first time my readers have seen Wakko perform an exorcism. Or it’s the first time we’ve seen a dynochromium field in use. Or it’s the first time we’ve seen Phoebe and Yakko together (in any sense). And so the writer want to explain these things—to show how horrible or amazing or beautiful they are.

But just because this is new for the reader doesn’t mean it’s new for the character. It’s not their first time. These are normal things for them. Mundane. Perhaps even a little boring. Definitely not cause for heart-pounding excitement.

When I start shaping dialogue and reactions to be informative for the audience rather than to make sense for the other characters, my focus is going in the wrong direction. It might seem right on a quick-pass, mechanical level, but when we really study these examples… they just don’t work. You may recall all the times I’ve brought up that most hated of dialogue phrases– “as you know.” It’s a perfect example of writing my dialogue for the reader and not for the characters.

Now, there’s an addendum to this, and it’s a real killer. It’s when I make plot points out of these things people should’ve known about before. If my characters all know Wakko can actually use dowsing to find water, they shouldn’t be completely baffled why he’s digging a deep hole out in the field. At the very least, they should have some suspicions about why he’s doing it.

Because if they don’t—or they don’t even consider his dowsing abilities—well, they’re going to look like idiots in the end.

An easy way to get around this is something I’ve mentioned a few times before. I call it the Ignorant Stranger. It’s pretty much the opposite of “as you know.” In some cases it can help a lot to have a character in my story who’s not quite as in the know. Someone who things need to be explained to, because this is the first time they’re being exposed to something. They can even be my protagonist. In fact, it’s not a bad thing if they are. If my hero needs things explained to them, it means they’re in new, unknown territory. And—as mentioned above-that’s where I tend to find a plot.

One of the worst things I can do as a writer is confuse the first time my readers see something with the first time my characters do. It’ll ultimately come across as false and it’s one of those clumsy mistakes that’s hard to recover from. I need to find the balance point, the sweet spot where I’m informing my readers but things still make sense and feel natural for my characters.

Next time… okay, I’m trying to get a draft done before the end of the month, so next time might just be a few quick questions for you to think about.

Oh, and if you’re going to be at Wonder Con this weekend, I’m there all day Sunday. At 11:00 I’m doing a two hour version of the Writers Coffeehouse, at 2:00 I’m on a panel called “Knowledge: Handle With Care,” and we’re doing a book signing right after that.

Until then… go write

March 8, 2018 / 7 Comments

Step 1: Collect The Underpants

Whoa! A relevant pop culture title. First one in ages!

Okay, there’s an issue that pops up at the Coffeehouse now and then. Someone sent me a message about it on Facebook a week or three back, too. And it’s something I’ve kinda had in the back of my mind to mention again.

It takes a couple different forms, but what this usually boils down to is keeping enthusiasm up for writing. It’s always fun to start a new project, but then they almost always boil down to… well, work. And when we think of writing, people don’t like to think about work. They want passion and muses and wild nights of drunken creativity when the words flow at a rate of two thousand an hour or more.

But the ugly truth is… it’s often work. A lot of work. Suddenly all that excitement of that first step is gone and enthusiasm begins to ebb. We’re not exactly sure what we’re supposed to do next. And we’re only on chapter four!

So here are a few things I can do to make that first draft a little easier

–Know where I’m going

Writing a book is kinda like taking a trip. It’s going to take time. I’m going to need some skills. I may need some supplies. I can plan out every step of the way or I can be a little looser with it, but either way I should probably have some idea where I want to end up.

Yeah, sure, there’s something wonderful and romantic about saying “wow, I just learned how to drive this weekend—it’s time to explore America’s highways!!” Just jumping behind the wheel and taking off. No destination, no maps, nothing. Just me and my best woman/man/dog in the passenger seat. We’ll figure it out as we go!
Again… sounds wonderful and romantic, but I think we can all guess how a trip like that will really turn out.

If I’m going to write a book, I should start off with a really rough idea of how it’s going to end. I don’t need to stick to that ending, but it’s tough to keep moving forward when I don’t know what direction forward is. So even just a very general endpoint—“Wakko and Dot sell their invention and get rich.” “Yakko uses his giant Mechbot to stop the aliens” “Phoebe’s the only one who gets out alive.”—will give me something to aim for.

–Schedule the time

Okay, I admit… this can be a tough one. I’m in a lucky position when it comes to writing. It’s my full-time job, and I make a living at it. I do it from home. I don’t have kids. My girlfriend’s a writer, too, so she needs her own time just as much as I need mine. Most people aren’t in this position.

But y’know what? I wasn’t always, either. I had a full-time journalism job while I wrote Ex-Heroes and Ex-Patriotsand my Crusoe mash-up novel. And I haven’t always been in such writer-friendly relationships.

Heck, I’ll be honest. There were a few romantic relationships in my past where me announcing “I want to write for a while” got a bit of a… negative reaction. There were rolled eyes, some gentle mocking, even a bit of resentment. And being a younger man who wanted to preserve certain day-to-day aspects of these relationships… I put my writing aside. It was ultimately my choice, and that was the choice I made. Which is why I didn’t have much writing success in my twenties—writing was a very low priority that I was willing to ignore for other things.

There’s always going to be other things, so I need to make time for myself to write. An hour before bed, on the train into work, or a big block on the weekend. Just like exercise or learning the violin or finally watching Downton Abbey, writing’s something that’s easy to put off. It can very quickly become the thing I’ll do nextweekend. So I need to figure out a time and try to stick to it.

–Don’t starve myself

I know some folks try not to read similar things while they’re working on a project because they don’t want to be influenced. I think sometimes this leaks out and becomes one of those telephone-game pieces of advice where new writers end up thinking they shouldn’t read anything while they’re writing. Or watch anything. or listen to anything. Or talk to other writers. Or…

We need input. That’s just common sense. No input, no output. I can’t expect to build a lot of muscle if I’m not eating anything.

Also—and this is, again, just my own opinion—this kind of “starvation” approach can easily turn writing into some sort of punishment. I’d like to hang with my girlfriend or read a comic or watch the finale of Rebels…but I didn’t write today so I get nothing! If my method makes me hate writing… maybe I don’t have the best method.

But again, don’t use feeding appetites as an excuse to put off writing until next weekend. Don’t fall for the same traps twenty-something year old me did! Learn from my mistakes!

–Know what I know

This is also a good time for me to toss out my usual comments about voice and spelling and drafts. It’s important to learn and develop these things, because it’s easy to lose momentum when I end up second-guessing myself a lot. If I stop to double-check every four-syllable word or verb tense or read each line of dialogue out loud… it’s going to be easy to lose enthusiasm. Don’t forget that none of this matters in a first draft. It’s definitely going to matter—just not right now. First drafts are big, messy, gap-filled things. They’re not the point where I should be worried about little stuff. For now, just plow ahead. I’ll get to deal with all that stuff soon enough.

–Just do it

I know this sounds like crap advice, but sometimes the way to keep writing is just, well… to keep writing. At the end of the day, sometimes that’s what it comes down to. I can keep making excuses, let myself get distracted, promise myself to do it later. Or I can just do it.

Or maybe ask myself why I keep not doing it.

So there you go. A few easy ways to keep yourself on track. If you’ve got a favorite of your own, feel free to add it below.

Anyway… hopefully, next week’s rant will be better than this one.

Until then, go write.

drafts first outline read tips

February 3, 2017

The Second Mouse Gets the Cheese

Running a little late today, but still here. Thanks for waiting.

So, our title this week is one of those not-so-clever aphorisms that folks usually have to work through for a minute or two. I only mention it here because Shane Black used it in Iron Man 3… with the whole joke being that Tony Stark (cuffed to a bed frame at the time) didn’t get it.

In the interest of moving things along, the second mouse gets the cheese because the firstmouse set off the trap… and got killed. Now the trap’s harmless.

See what I mean. Obvious in retrospect, not so much when you first see it.

That’s what I wanted to blab on about. The traps that seem like good ideas at the time, for one reason or another, but later it’s clear they were the wrong choice.

Lots of aspiring writers fall into traps. Sometimes it happens when they follow bad advice. Other times it’s because they insist on using a method or writing in a style which really doesn’t work for them. And sometimes… sometimes that trap’s just sitting there in the tall grass, waiting to snap shut on someone’s leg.

We all want to think the traps are clear and easy to spot. But we’re all going to fall into a couple of them. That’s just life out here in the writing jungle. The trick’s to get out as quick as possible. Some folks, y’know, get caught in a trap and then try to convince themselves they wanted to be at the bottom of a hole with two wooden stakes rammed through their legs. Hell, everyone should be in a pit with two wooden stakes through their legs. It’s really the best position to be in.

None of us want to be that guy. Or to listen to that guy. Right?

So, with all that said, let me toss out some common—and maybe even dangerous—misconceptions people have about writing.

Writing is easy – Probably the most common misconception there is. I mean, most of us learned how to put words on paper when we were ten, right? We could write passable essays by ninth grade. So writing for a living, for an audience greater than your immediate friends and loved ones, how hard could it be? Anyone can do it once you’ve got a clever idea. Heck, I’d bet 90% of Americans have immediate access to a word processor of some sort.

Truth is, writing—not basic, grade-school literacy, mind you, but the ability to write— is a skill which needs to be learned like any other. All you need is to browse Twitter, Facebook, or the comment sections of any news feed to learn how few people can express their ideas through words. Yeah, I took English and reading classes in school. But most of us went through twelve years of gym class, too, and we all understand that doesn’t qualify us to be in the Super Bowl.

Writers need to train and practice for months–maybe even years–before they’re ready to show off their writing. I don’t have hard numbers in front of me, but I feel safe saying Stephen King didn’t make much off the first 100,000 words he wrote. It’s work. Hard work. It requires skill, a great deal of practice, some actual talent, and a heck of a lot of dedication. That’s why so many people don’t succeed at it.

This is probably the most successful trap because it doesn’t just catch the writer–it tends to kill them 2/3 of the time. Most of the folks who believe that writing is easy have never actually written anything. They also tend to come up with a lot of reasons (unrelated, of course) for why they never complete a manuscript.

First person is easy – A lot of prose writers start off with first person stories. It’s quick, it’s not hard to get into, it’s easy to find a voice. It’s also very personable, so a reader can relate to my characters immediately. Plus there are tons of formats ready and waiting; journals, diaries, letter, memoirs, and so on. My first two published short stories were both first person.

Truth is, though,first person is a very difficult, very limiting viewpoint to write in. There’s a reason lots of professional writers avoid it. It takes a lot of experience and planning to pull off a successful first person manuscript.
Writers who get caught in this trap start their first novel and pound out 20,000 words worth of journal entries over one weekend. There’s always that chance they may be brimming with so much raw talent they’re the next Hemingway or Steinbeck. Alas, there’s a far better chance, they’ve just wasted a long weekend.

Writing doesn’t require any writing – I think we’ve all heard or seen that person who talks about their brilliant story ideas, and usually follows it up with—“Well, I’ll write it out when someone’s willing to pay me.”

This mindset is a remnant of the huge spec script boom in Hollywood a few decades back. It was one of those rare periods when studios acknowledged the importance of writers and were paying millions for screenplays—or even just the idea for one. And that frenzy sold some books, too

However… this was almost thirty years ago. These days producers and publishers are much more cautious and they’re not interested in ideas. They’re interested in complete, finished works. Not two-thirds of a manuscript. Not most of a script.

Want easy proof of this? What do you think will happen if I self-published my idea? Not a complete manuscript, just my one-page, cool idea? How far do you think that’ll take me?

If not having a manuscript doesn’t work for self-publishing, it’s sure not going to fly in traditional publishing.

Just to save time, knowing the right people won’t change this. No, it won’t. I don’t care what that website said. As a first-timer, I’m an unknown quantity. Who spends money on unknowns?

Not to sound too harsh but… well, no, this is harsh because people can only end up in this trap by choice. If someone can’t write and complete something, they can’t be a writer. That’s really all there is to it. I should stop now and go back to those criminal justice classes I thought about signing up for.

Writers don’t need to read – Somewhere along the line, some numbskull started pushing the idea that writers shouldn’t waste time reading—they should spend all their time writing. This is kind of like saying drivers shouldn’t waste their time stopping for gas.

Every professional writer I’ve ever met, interviewed, or even just read about (myself included) reads voraciously. A writer should be devouring works in their chosen field to stay current and snacking heavily on everything else to stay fresh.

Alas, the folks who fall into this trap tend to write plain awful stuff. Not from any inherent lack of talent—they just have no clue what’s been done. They go for every easy idea, hit every cliché plot point, and tend to follow the textbook formulas they were taught in some creative writing class somewhere. What else can they do? They’ve had no other input. They end up trying to mimic one or two famous examples of what they aspire to… and usually end up looking just like the worst of the worst.

Research everything – This one’s more insidious than deadly, which is why I saved it for near the end. We all want to get the facts right in our stories. We check books, make phone calls, visit locations… okay, yeah, and maybe some of us just spend a lot of time on Wikipedia. Point is, how can I be expected to move forward with my story if I don’t know the exact month they started laying railroad track in Independence, Missouri? It’ll ruin everything if I say June and it turns out to be July.

This is an awful trap because getting stuck in it means I’m trying to do the right thing. Research is important, but I can’t ever forget that research isn’t writing. There’s a time for putting noses in books but there’s also a time for putting fingers to keyboard (or pen to paper if you’re old-fashioned).

Some folks get caught in an even deeper layer of this trap. They get stuck researching how to write. We’ve all known someone like this, yes? The one who buys books, takes classes, studies YouTube tutorials… but never does any actual writing.

For some people this becomes a defense mechanism of sorts, sometimes subconsciously and sometimes… not so subconsciously. If I never start, I won’t have to put the work in, and my work stays in that wonderful hypothetical stage where it’ll be the greatest thing ever committed to paper… if only I had time to write it down.

Rewrite until it’s perfect– The last and deadliest of the traps in our showroom. For some folks, rewriting turns into an endless loop. There’s always another opinion to listen to, more feedback to get, and revisions which need to be done because of them. Just thought of a new way to do those action scenes? That calls for another draft. Maybe last night’s Agents of SHIELDinspired a new opening? Perhaps my old college beau is visiting and s/he thought the ending needed a touch more romance, and any decent writer knows changing the end means changing everything that leads up to the end.

There are two ways people fall into this trap. One is a combination of bad advice and bad judgment. So many gurus tell people to rewrite and rewrite and rewrite. How many times have you heard “writing is rewriting” parroted in classes or on message boards? There’s some truth to that, yeah, but eventually, a writer just needs to call it done and move on or they’re going to be trapped in one manuscript forever.

The other way people fall into this trap is on purpose. A bit like with research, constant rewrites are an excuse not to actually produce anything. You don’t expect me to show you an incomplete or old draft, do you? I was going to send it to some agents or publishers, but I think it needs one more polish to make it perfect. Maybe one more after I go through and clean up a few loose threads. Rewrites are a way some writers–again, consciously or not– can avoid possible failure yet still keep up the illusion of forward motion.

Are all of these traps deadly? No, but getting snagged in one can definitely cost me some time. Yeah, I’ve fallen into one or three of them over the years. Fortunately, one of those things only has to slam on your ankle once and you’ll rarely let it happen again.

Assuming, of course, that I get out of it the first time.

Next time, I’d like to talk with you real quick about my buddy Marc, who I was stationed with in Kuwait six years ago…

Until then, go write.

And watch your step.

drafts first golden rule honest read research writing

November 14, 2014

Introduction to Orientation

Running a tiny bit late. Trying to get a bunch of stuff done before the weekend and dealing with many disruptions and distractions.
Anyway…
I’d like to start this week by talking about college. It’s something I bet most of us here experienced, so it’s a great analogy for my real topic. I’m sneaky like that. Sometimes.

If you’ve been reading these rants for a while, you know I grew up in a very small town in Maine. For high school, my dad got a new job and we moved to a somewhat large town (arguably a small city) in southern Massachusetts for four years. And then I went to a giant state school for college. No joke, my freshman dorm almost had more students in it than the entire school system I attended in Maine. And I wasn’t even living in one of the larger dorms. The college had a larger population than my hometown.

It was, needless to say, a bit overwhelming.

There were lots of orientations, of course. Then I was introduced to tons of people in my dorm, and then people on my hall (we won’t even get into classes). We all talked about ourselves a bit. I think so, anyway. It was all a bit of a blur. For a while there were just the two skinny guys across the hall, the woman with the short hair who smiled a lot, the big guy with the glasses further down the hall. But after a while details and names accumulated, these people became clear in my mind, and they became Mike, Jon, Karen, Henry, and so on.

Most of us can relate to something like this, yes?

When I’m introducing characters in my story, it’s a lot like this. Sometimes things are a whirl of action. Other times, everyone’s just sitting around studying each other. Some people stand out—either on their own or because of my own interests—and other people just warrant rough placeholder descriptions for now.

Context is everything when I introduce a character. In the middle of a firefight, Wakko may not notice much about the person who dives in to join him behind the barricade. They’re wearing body armor and they have a rifle—score! If he’s dealing with a job applicant, though, he’s got time to notice how sharp the creases are in the slacks, how the tie is knotted and the hair is combed, not to mention the smell of shampoo and the state of fingernails.

Likewise, during that firefight, there’s not much personal info Wakko needs to know past “you’re on my side, right?” In the middle of the interview, he can ask “what are the three worst jobs you’ve ever had?”

And in either case, he might not learn about that tattoo or the special shirt or the naughty story behind her nickname. Some things are only seen or discussed in more intimate situations. These are all details that come out with booze or debriefing or sex or some combination of all three.
Y’see, Timmy, there isn’t a certain way or time to introduce characters. It’s all a matter of context. Context, and a bit of relevance. I need to think of it in terms of my narrative and my main character (or the character I’m focused on at the moment).

At this point in the story, is there time to notice more than a few basic physical attributes about this new character? Is there any one or two things about him or her that my point-of-view character might focus on for the moment? Is there even time to trade names? If there’s a lot going on, I don’t want to bring things to a crashing halt with a page of description or exposition.

I think one of the problems some writers have is they keep seeing examples of bad storytelling and character introductions in television and movies. There’s an all-too common belief that things need to be frontloaded, that the audience needs to know everything about someone up front. How many stories have you seen that begin with the “let’s all introduce ourselves” scene? We learn their names and how they talk and their likes and dislikes and usually some clumsy anecdote about them or a blatant example of I’M THE UNSTABLE ONE!!! GAHHHHH!!!

These scenes almost always feel unnatural because this isn’t how we meet people in real life. Most of the time, we learn things about them in bits and pieces. A little here, a little there. Sometimes we never learn a character’s name, sometimes it’s the first thing we learn. Some characters are willing to spill everything about themselves, others don’t want to know anything about you because it makes the job simpler.

Now, I mentioned relevance up above. It’s a close companion to context. My story may end up in a place where we can take the time to get to know someone, but that doesn’t mean I need to say everything there is to be said about them. Yes, everything in a character’s life helps define them, rich tapestry, all that, but if it really isn’t relevant to the moment at hand, or the story as a whole, there’s a good chance it doesn’t need to be there. Bob explaining that he had to slit the throats of sheep growing up on a farm is important when we’re choosing who has to fight in the wolverine pit, not so cool during speed dating. And someone telling you their sexual fantasies might be very exciting on a third date, but it can be a bit creepy during a job interview (no matter who’s talking). When someone does this in real life, it’s called oversharing, and it tends to make us uncomfortable because… well, we don’t need to know these things in this particular situation.

This can also help me weed out characters that… well, might not need to be characters. If their introduction doesn’t fit in context, and the facts about them aren’t relevant… maybe I should question why they’re in my story here and now. Maybe their introduction—or the full extent of it—should be pushed back or pulled forward. Or maybe they’re just delivering the pizza and don’t have anything to do with the story at all.

It all depends on context. And relevance.

And speaking of introductions, next time I’d like to go one step further and talk about dating.

Until then, go write.

character dialogue first flow introductions point of view relevance

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