Category: golden rule

So, a few weeks back Rhyen asked three (supposedly) unrelated questions…

1. Have you ever used index cards for plotting?

2. Have you tried Scrivener?

3. (Stealing from the Colbert Questionnaire) What is the best sandwich?

I shall now answer these in reverse order. Just because.

First (or 3.) the best sandwich is clearly a turkey club with bacon. Once you move away from childhood classics like PB&J or baloney and cheese, the club is the bedrock on which all “adult” sandwiches are built. Multiple meats, multiple veg, multiple condiments, works with almost any type of bread. There’s a reason it’s in the Criterion Collection of sandwiches. Sure, people will offer you more elaborate sandwich creations all the time—different meats, stranger veg, unusual condiments, is that even technically a bread? But that’s just it– they’re all trying to make more elaborate, overcomplicated versions of the classic.

I am, of course, open to hearing counterarguments on this, as long as you understand up front that you’re wrong.

Now, if you’re still with me after that…

Second, I haven’t tried Scrivener. I tend to just work in whatever my current word processing program is and have never been a fan of software that “helps” me do things. This goes back to my (attempted) screenwriting days. My current book and the one I finished earlier this year were both written in Open Office. Everything for about twenty years before that was plain old Word. Before that I was using a program called AmiPro.

Why? Well, I get uneasy whenever a piece of software (or a writing course, or a book) starts offering options or suggestions. F’r example, I’ve never once considered breaking all my chapters into individual files/documents. But it’s an option in Scrivener. Is that good or bad? Who knows? Up to you. Reference photos for locations? You can add those, too. Oh, you don’t have any reference photos…?

See, I think for a lot of folks, once an option like this is put out there—especially put out there by a vetted authority like this piece of writing software—it makes us think “huh, should I be doing that?” And because we tend to see books or machines as the voice of authority, I think some folks keep doing the thing the software suggested they do. Even when it doesn’t work for them. The computer wouldn’t lie to me, right?

To be clear, I’m not saying Scrivener is bad. My partner uses it and she loves it. I’m just saying folks should approach any piece of writing software—and all the bells and whistles they offer—as possibilities, not necessities. If you think it might help you, cool. Try it out. But if you ultimately feel like it doesn’t help, then just stop. It doesn’t matter if it works for a dozen writers you follow, it just matters that it works for you.

There’s probably a whole post about this sort of thing. Maybe in the new year…

Anyway, third (or 1.), no, I haven’t used index cards for plotting. I think I tried once (back in high school, maybe?) just as a character-notes thing, but even that didn’t sit right with me for some reason. When it comes to plotting, I tend to work right on the page, moving sentences back and forth in my outline (or just drawing arrows if I’m using a legal pad)

But that’s just me. And a few other folks I know. But I do know writers who use index cards and swear by them. Some go so far as to color-code the cards for different plots and subplots and story threads. I also know some folks who just pull them out to work through problems. And there are folks who use index card software, whiteboards, and look there’s a bunch of ways to do plot stuff out. I can tell you what’s worked for me, but it might not work for you.

I will say this, though—if I’m using index cards to plot out a book (or screenplay or whatever), I want to make sure the cards are plot beats, not details. “Miles fights all the alternate versions of Spider-Man” is a beat. “The fight spills out of headquarters and into the city” is a beat. “One of the alternate Spider-folks is a Tyrannosaurus” is a detail. Just remember, beats move the story along, but details stack up on beats.

This also might into that early-new year post. Or maybe I’ll just do a whole post about plotting? We’ll see…

Anyway, that’s three questions answered. See? Posting comments does do something!

Also, last week I signed a bunch of books at Dark Delicacies in Burbank. I believe they’ve still got a few copies of The Broken Room, Paradox Bound, The Fold, and Ex-Isle. If you’re looking for Christmas gifts, it’s probably too late to ship anything without ridiculous charges, but if you’re in the LA area… they’re right there in Burbank. Just saying…

Next time… let’s talk about all those Hallmark-y Christmas movies. You know the ones I’m talking about.

Until then, go write.

How did I miss blog posts for all of September? What the hell? And how is it already October?

Well, okay… September was a bit of chaos for me. I was working on that Rashomon idea I mentioned last time, but I couldn’t quite get it to work the way I wanted it to, and it’s a delicate topic so I really wanted to stick the landing on that one. Then there was some work chaos and life chaos and then more work chaos (but this time on the better end of things).

Anyway, I’ve been working through all of this, but a few things slipped through the cracks. And this was one of the things. Sorry about that.

Of course, I just saw another author I’m acquainted with mention how she hasn’t sent out a newsletter in over a year. And another one I know writes more newsletters in a month that I do newsletters and blog post combined. And all of that on top of all of us juggling a few different writing projects.

It all comes down to what you can do, and what system lets you do it.

Which, hey, is a cool thing to talk about.

Look, even in our crumbling age of social media, there’s a lot of folks out there offering writing advice. And probably even more who—one way or another—are setting examples. Posting about today’s word count or their method for blocking out action scenes or plotting character arcs or whatever. And on one level, this is great. It’s wonderful to get a peek behind the curtain and get a glimpse of the artist’s process, right? I mean, that’s pretty much what I try to do here with the ranty writing blog and my newsletter.

At the same time, though…

I think it’s not always made clear that my process—the schedules and tricks and methods that work for me—is probably not going to be your process. Sometimes it seems like I’m saying everybody has to start the day with a two mile jog or three cups of coffee and if you haven’t written four pages before lunch, well, I guess it’s sort of cute that you treat this as a hobby. I mean, I’m successful and it’s what I do, but I mean, sure, do whatever you want….

Truth is, we’re all individual people with our own brain chemistries and life-situations. And we’re writing our own individual books. Every one of them is a little different and requiring a slightly different approach, a new angle, more of this, less of that. As I’ve said here many, many times before, what works for me won’t always work for you. And it definitely won’t work for that guy. He’s doing his own thing in his own way and… look, it’s his thing. He’s happy. We can leave him alone over there.

A big part of writing is figuring out how you like to write. What level of outlining works best for you. What level of output. What timeframe. What time of day. What location. What environment. What’s going to let you write the most, the best, the most painlessly. And it’s all unique. For each of us, and for each project.

I wrote one book, –14-, with almost no outline. I scribbled down a lot my pages late at night while my partner was conked out in the other room. But I wrote a good chunk of Paradox Bound in a coffee shop with my pods in. And big swaths of my current book– TOS if you subscribe to the newsletter—were written out on the deck in a yellow pad with a cold drink, a huge outline, and a grumpy black cat glaring at me.

But a year or two back I tried to do a comic pitch. And I’d never done one before, so I talked to a friend with a lot of comics experience about how they usually did it and followed all their tips and advice. But their method wasn’t really… me. My pitch ended up being a really stilted, awkward thing that didn’t get across half of the excitement and creepiness and awe I wanted it to. And fortunately the editor I sent it to was pretty good-natured and we had a laugh at a con later about how it wasn’t the worst comic pitch they’d ever gotten…

(fun fact– said editor later did a series of posts about what they liked to see in a comics pitch and it was much closer to what I probably would’ve done on my own if I hadn’t asked my friend how they did it)

What I’m trying to say is, every writer has their own way of doing things. How they start the day, the tricks they use to stay motivated, their daily goals, their overall strategies. Don’t get obsessed with how other people do it. Figure out how you’re going to do it. Which method works best for you? What tricks and schedules let you do the most, best work? Because that’s a huge part of getting good at this whole writing thing. Figuring out what works for you. We all do it. We stumble across methods and tips and ideas, try them out for a while, and then decide which ones work for us and which ones don’t.

And yeah… it’s going to take time to figure this out. Maybe lots of time. Sorry. There’s just no way around it. It’s not like trying on a shirt where I can immediately go “whoa, this is waaaaay too tight across my broad, muscular chest.” Think of it more like dating. Sometimes, yeah, it’s obvious ten minutes into the first date this isn’t a good match. But sometimes it might take two dates or three weeks or four months to realize what works doesn’t outweigh what, well, doesn’t work and this just isn’t sustainable.

But the plus side is you’ve still been writing and you’ve still learned something from this. And that’s something you can carry over to the next thing you work on. And the next handful of tips you happen across.

So don’t be worried about trying something new. And don’t be afraid to say “this isn’t working for me,” no matter who said it works for them. Find what works for you.

Next time, I’d like to talk about driving waaaaay past the speed limit.

Unless there’s something different you’d like me to blather on about? The comments section is so lonely…

Until then, go write.

I’d already planned this week’s topic and then the writing discourse, as some call it, veered toward length anyway. So call it happy coincidence. Or serendipity.

Like, we’ve talked before about how long it takes to write a book. Some folks consider the starting point when they started outlining. Some consider it when the idea first struck them. And others say they started writing when they typed Chapter One.

And when did I start writing? When I was eight and blocking out original Star Wars stories in my Kenner Death Star playset? When I started using my mom’s massive electric typewriter? When I first started submitting stuff? When I started writing the first novel I actually finished? When I quit my film job to start writing full time? When I quit that job to start writing fiction full time? Any of these is a valid starting point, but they cover about thirty years.

Actually, before I talk about next time—if you happen to be of the reviewing type and have access to NetGalley, my new novel The Broken Room is now there and can be requested. For the rest of you… holy crap, only eighteen more days!

And what is this, you ask?

In the past, the majority of the posts were writing advice. Not publishing, but writing as the art of stringing words together into a narrative that will connect with an audience. That was the original point of this, to make up for the lack of basic writing advice out there. But over the past two years, with everything going on, people have asked questions about the business side of things and the greater writing meta-verse, so to speak, and I’ve been trying to help out by answering those.

The ranty blog’s also about a little bit about motivation. Helping you to sit down and get those words out. Maybe suggesting some easier ways to do something. Maybe giving you a little challenge or a tip or a trick to play with when your brain’s stuck on whatever. I’ve tried to do this a few times and a few different ways. For a lot of folks, the biggest, toughest part of writing is actually sitting down and writing, so I’m here to give you the occasional firm kick in the butt. Or a gentle one. Whatever works best for you.

Finally, if I’m doing this right, I’m giving you a little reassurance. There’s so much information flying around out there. We can go looking for it or just get smacked in the face with it on social media. How fast and productive this person is. What a great deal they got. How easy this was for them. It’s easy to see something like this and feel like I must be doing something wrong. I mean, if I’m not writing 3000 words a day and I struggle with dialogue and I don’t understand structure at all… maybe this just isn’t for me? Hell, I only wrote 15,000 words for NaNoWriMo last year, so I must be screwing this up somehow…

If any of this sounds familiar… don’t worry about it. Seriously. Hopefully I can convince you you’re not wrong, you haven’t screwed up, and you should definitely keep at this. Again, everybody approaches this a little differently, and just because somebody’s faster or finds this part easier or accomplished that quicker doesn’t necessarily mean we need to change how we’re doing things.

I suppose at this point it’s also fair to say I use this space for self promotion. Not a lot–I don’t want to be that guy shoving a book in your face every five minutes–but when the time comes, we do what we need to do. And, y’know, I do have a new book coming out in a few weeks so…. be prepared for that.

(The Broken Room, available this spring at your favorite local bookstore, chain bookstore, or monolithic online retailer)

And if you’ve made it this far, a couple changes in the weeks ahead. I’m probably going to be posting a bit more… well, erratically. Still at least once a week, but it won’t always be on Thursday. That was just kind of an arbitrary day and more than a few times I’ve felt kind of stuck and that a few things stumbled because of it. So watch for posts, y’know, whenever. Still probably a lot on Thursday, but other days, too.

Also… I may finally be migrating the ranty blog over to my own webpage– PeterClines.Com . It’s just kind of been sitting there for years and I want to get better about keeping it updated and making it somewhere for people to actually visit, y’know. Plus, that way the ranty blog’s a little more under my own control and not subject to the whim of some corporation. I’ll make sure you all know if it happens.

And I think that’s everything. Any questions? Comments? Requests?

Next time I’m probably going to talk about the people driving this thing.

Until then… go write.