Category: werewolf

And here we are once again. Or maybe we never left. Maybe we’ve been here all along, obsessively reading news articles and checking on friends in hotspots.

No? Just me? Really?

I find that hard to believe…

Anyway, it’s back to the A2Q, this rambly, sprawling series about how to write a book from bare-bones idea to finished manuscript. And it’s the day you’ve all been waiting for. We’re going to start writing. Finally! I mean, this is what the whole A2Q thing was supposed to be about, right? Writing a book. And yet, for some reason, we’re not getting to “writing the book” until part eight. EIGHT? What the freakin’ hell?

Hang on, though.

There’s a reason we took the long path. Well, I took the long path and just sort of led you along with little bread crumbs and Reece’s Pieces and maybe shots of whiskeys. Trust me, I lured you out this way for a reason.

Remember how I compared outlining to road trips? We can make a very loose, bare-bones plan or we can map out the whole thing and schedule every stop along the way. There’s plusses and minuses to both of these, but for the moment I want to flip this idea a bit and compare it to something else.

Have you ever needed to go somewhere you’ve never been before? Not wanted to go—needed to go? Maybe a doctor’s office or a job interview or a bar where that person is waiting for you and you really want to be there and make a good impression? And that place is… six or seven miles away? Maybe ten? Google gives two or three routes and it doesn’t seem quite sure where you’re going but you’ve memorized the names of a couple cross streets and maybe two stores that are supposedly nearby.

What’s that drive usually like? Overly-focused? Watching the clock a lot? Maybe a bit nerve-wracking because you thought you left early enough but you still haven’t found it and you’re watching the clock tick closer and closer to the time you’re supposed to be there and now you’re doing mental calculations about how far you think you’ve still got to go and find parking and… look, you know this feeling, right?

Compare that to the last time you drove to your significant other’s place. Or the grocery store. Or the mall. Did you think about street names? Did you even notice any of the stores along the way. No, of course not. It was familiar and easy and you barely thought about it at all. You just did it.

That’s why we’ve been talking about all this stuff up front. So you’ll have the characters and the setting and the plot and the story solidly in your mind. Heck, maybe you’ve got some bare-bones thoughts about theme. And because we talked about outlines and you moved things around a bit on paper—or even just in your head—you’ve got an idea how all these things fit together. Most importantly, you know what happens next. You’ve got an endpoint you’re aiming for, which means you can always keep going.

So, let’s get writing.

No, seriously. That’s it. Dive in. You’ve got the story in your head, so start writing.

Okay, fine. Here’s some more advice. Just because I like you.

First, dump any idea you have about art. Throw out all those books. Don’t even mention your muse. We’re not making excuses, we’re writing. The only way this happens is you pick up a pen or sit down at the keyboard. That’s the biggest thing. You just need  to do it.

Second, think of this a lot like NaNoWriMo, just without the time limit. If it takes you six weeks or three months or half a year to do this… so what? You work at your own pace. You’ve probably got other stuff going on in your life and sweet jeebus there’s a lot going on in the world. Right now you’re under no time limit and nobody’s expecting anything from you.

More importantly, just like NaNoWriMo, absolutely nobody’s going to see this. Seriously. It’s a first draft. It’s going to be messy, you’re going to change a bunch of stuff as you go, and it’s definitely going to need editing. So much editing. Don’t worry, we’ll be getting to that point soon enough.

If it makes this easier, I forbid you to show it to anyone. Just like that. Forbidden. It’s going to be awkward to explain to your friends, I know, but it’s a little bit of a relief, too, isn’t it? Now you don’t have to worry about it being perfect. You can just put a bunch of words down on the page. And then do it again the next day. And the day after that. Are they all the right words? Probably not. Good thing you’ve been forbidden from showing it to anybody.

Third, don’t judge your process off anybody else’s. Some people can do a first draft in weeks, some need a few months, but like I just said up above—none of them are you moving at your speed. Don’t worry that he turns out great first drafts or that she claims she doesn’t even do drafts(that’s usually a bit misleading anyway). This is your book. It’s just about you. I absolutely, hand-on-my-copy-of-On Writing swear your editor or readers will not care in the slightest how long you did or didn’t spend on this. Unless I tell them I wrote my six-hundred page masterpiece in a week, in which case… they’re going to go into it a little leery.

Fourth, because it bears repeating, please remember nobody’s going to see this. You can’t disappoint anyone. No one will know about those typos. That big plot hole is going to go unseen. You can’t even disappoint yourself. It’s all my fault. I forbade you from showing anyone, remember?

So for now, forward motion. Just get it done. We’ll clean up that other stuff next time. Honest.

I’ve got nothing to back it up past my own gut, but I think readers can tell when the writer is bored. If I’m not enjoying writing it, they’re not going to enjoy reading it. My lack of energy for a character or a point of view or a sequence is going to be clear. Again, just my opinion, no hard research behind it, and there are always exceptions to the rule. But I really think it’s true.

So for now, just write. You’ve got the story in your head. Put it on the page “good enough” for now, we’ll make it better later.

That’s a rough, first-draft, off-the-top-of-my-head page and a half. It’s not great, I’m probably going to tweak the dialogue, and I already have some thoughts on word-choice. But the point was just to get it out.

I’m a big fan of exploring and learning stuff in a first draft. But I think a lot of people get caught up because they don’t have a good sense of their characters or the world, and they don’t know where they’re going. They’ve got too much to explore, and so a lot of their first draft gets eaten up dealing with… well, all that stuff we’ve been  going over for the past few weeks.

But when you’ve got enough of it in your head, you can just go.

Will it be perfect? Definitely not. But that’s okay, because we’re just doing a first draft.

So get to it.

Next time… should I keep going with the A2Q? Or should we take a break and I could talk about something else for a bit? Let me know what you’re thinking.

Until then… go write.

Write like nobody’s going to see it.

Hey, everybody. Hope you’re all safe and, y’know, not bored out of your mind. Social distancing can be a pain, but it’s better for everyone in the long run.

Time for the A2Q again. Thanks for following along so far. At this point, we’ve talked about plot, story, characters, and setting. I want to go over one last thing before we dive in.

And that thing is theme.

Yeah, you just felt a chill, didn’t you? I think we all have a kinda instinctive revulsion to theme because of high school classes where it was sort of parroted out to us and not really explained. Or explained very poorly.

I’ll also be honest—I almost didn’t include theme in this little series or workshop or whatever we’re calling this. Theme is tough. It can be hard to grasp. It’s also one of those things that sometimes happens even if we’re not thinking about it. Likewise, some folks think about it too much and end up driving their story into the ground.

So… how to explain theme?

Okay, look at it this way. You know how I’ve talked about plot versus story? It’s a topic that’s come up here once or thrice before, and I’ve discussed both of them in earlier parts of the A2Q. Plot is outside your characters, story is inside.

Simply put, in the Venn diagram of plot vs story, theme is where they overlap. It’s the common bond between external and internal that ties things together in my manuscript. If you asked me what my story’s really about, my theme would be the answer that covers the most bases.

F’r example… some of you may have heard of Solomon Kane, an old Robert Howard character who’s been in books, comics, poems, and even a pretty solid live action movie—which is what I’ll talk about here. Kane’s a bloodthirsty pirate who finds out he’s actually damned to hell, repents, and ends up becoming a devout Puritan with a vow of pacifism. Problem is… he keeps finding himself in situations where the good guys really need somebody nightmarishly violent and ruthless on their side. So he has to go back to his old ways to try to stop assorted bandits, warlords, evil sorcerers, and even full-on demons.

So we can say the theme of Solomon Kane (the movie) is “fighting evil,” or maybe a better way to say it would be “fighting against the darkness.” Kane is constantly battling evil in the world, in all its many forms. But he’s also battling the evil within himself, trying to redeem himself and not fall back into old habits and attitudes.

Of course, it’s easy to identify themes in things that already exist. Trying to make them from scratch, to weave them into this story I’ve been planning… that’s a lot tougher. I mean, this is serious writing stuff now.

But it really isn’t. Honestly, I think one of the reasons we all kinda fear theme is because it’s been made into this sort of literary boogeyman—this thing that looms over the story , and also over the author. What themes is the writer trying to explore? Does this book have a simplistic, common theme? Should we discuss the novel’s theme? At length?

Deep breath. It’s not that bad. Really. In fact, it’s a lot easier than your sixth grade English teacher made it seem.

(yeah , that’s right Mrs. Goodell—I’m calling you out)

Here’s a couple things I think we should keep in mind while we’re talking about theme.

First, at this early stage, it’s okay to only have a general idea what my theme—or themes—are going to be in this book. It shouldn’t be too hard to come up with one or two. Just look at a lot of the elements we’ve been gathering up so far and see what the connections are between them.

In fact, doing this as an exercise can be kind of a test. Or maybe an early warning system. I might have a bunch of really cool elements, but if I can’t find any connections between any of them… well, that means I’ve got a bunch of unconnected elements. Which is, y’know, sort of the opposite of a book. So I might want to reconsider some things.

Second, I should be aware my manuscript might have multiple themes. Not a problem. I mentioned before that there may be multiple stories within my book, so it only stands to reason they’d all intersect the plot in slightly different places on that Venn diagram.

Look at Solomon Kane again. It has the theme of fighting against darkness, but there’s a good argument to be made that it also involves the theme of redemption. It’s an active plot element as Kane tries to make up for his past, and it’s also a story element as he realizes that A) he needs to redeem himself to save his soul and 2) his redemption may need to take a more aggressive form then normal. And that plot-story overlap is a theme, so… hey, there it is.

Third is kinda the flipside of that first one.  Again, just my opinion, but… don’t worry about theme too much right now. Definitely have it in mind. Don’t willfully ignore it. But also don’t stress over it. Just write your first draft. Worry about balancing the plot and story you want to write. When I put a lot of advance work into my theme, I run the risk of structuring things to the theme. The plot and story stop being neck and neck out front and the theme becomes the priority. Which is when my theme starts turning into more of a message. And messages can get awkward and heavy-handed really fast.

Again, just my personal opinion, your mileage may vary.

Once that first draft’s done, guess what? The manuscript exists now. And it’s easy to identify themes in things that already exist, remember? I can look back over my first draft and I’ll probably see a theme or three poking out.

Now, again, I don’t like to do too much beforehand, but… let’s look at our werewolf book.

I can probably guess survival is going to be a major theme in the book, or perhaps “what are we willing to do to survive.” After all our main character, Phoebe, hunts werewolves for a living. And her little sister Luna is a werewolf, a fact she’s trying to hide from Phoebe and their lodge on the off chance they, y’know, kill her. And there’s also survival in the larger sense, that both of them have been doing a lot of things to try to hold their lives together, as individuals and as a little family. And we’re probably going to find out that the lodge is thinking about what they’ll do to survive, too—in the sense of both humanity’s ongoing struggle against werewolves but also the lodge itself as an institution.

Phoebe and Luna are also both going to be dealing with the idea of family a lot. It’s a motivation for them and a regular thing they’re dealing with—something they’re acting on that’s also acting on them. There’s also this family legacy hanging over them, and the fact they the two of them are the broken remains of a family since their parents’ death.

Which leads me to one last possible theme. The idea of moving on with your life, of getting past things. Both of my main characters want their lives to progress—Luna wants to head off to college and Phoebe wants to get her own life back on track. As I’ve mentioned before, Phoebe’s struggling with a lot of repressed resentment, too. And they’re also going to need to get past a lot of the baggage and preconception their parents left them with if they’re going to deal with Luna’s ahem condition and how it affects both of them.

Again, though… I’m not going to worry about this too much up front. I’m just making the observations now for the A2Q. I’m probably going to worry more about plot and story on my first draft, and later I may come back, look at these early thoughts, and see how they may shape later drafts.

And if you want to think more about these things now, that’s cool, too. As I’ve often said, we all have our own way of working, and what works for me may not work for you. The important thing, for now, is just to be aware of it and have it in that pile of ingredients in your mind before we start cooking.

Speaking of which… it’s probably time we start arranging all these ingredients and get ready to start cooking. So that’s what we’ll do next time. Yeah, next time—let’s just go straight to the next part of the A2Q (unless somebody has serious objections and wants to see something else first)

We’re still in the early days of creation. I know that seems weird. We’re five parts in, but I’m still saying it ‘s early days. Not quite halfway through, going off my rough outline for this whole thing.

One of the things I’m trying to do with this A2Q thing, especially with these first few parts, is point out a lot of elements we need to think about before we sit down and get going. I really think the reason a lot of writing projects hit a wall is ‘cause people get one or two cool ideas, start writing, and then hit that first big gulf those ideas don’t cover. And that gulf will always appear, because one or two cool ideas don’t make a book.

Like I mentioned last time, it’s a lot like trying to cook. I want to make sure right up front I’ve got everything the recipe needs, because I don’t want to get halfway through and find out I don’t have that half-cup of brown sugar. We’ve all been there, right? Suddenly I’m wasting time digging through the cabinets or looking online for brown sugar substitutes and going through the cabinets for those. Now the oven’s smoking because it’s been preheated for a while and the dough’s been sitting half-mixed for fifteen minutes while I’m trying to figure out if I really need the brown sugar and wow cookies were a bad idea and jeeeeez I shouldn’t’ve tried this.

I don’t want any of you to go through this with your writing. So that’s why we’re going to make sure we’ve got everything we need before we sit down and start with the serious writing. And why I want to continue this gathering-up-of-elements by talking about settings a bit.

I know at first glance, the setting might not seem like a big deal. I mean, if I’m writing something super-sci-fi set on another planet or a fantasy in some alternate world… well, sure. Setting’s important then. People are going to be blue with orange hair and swords will talk and everything’s going to be different.

Thing is though, almost every fictional world is going to be slightly different from the real world. Especially the real world of the reader. Maybe I’m writing about spy thrillers in Europe or werewolf hunters in northern California or a galactic hit man who just crashed on an unnamed alien world. There’s going to be big, obvious differences and small subtle ones, too.

Charlie Jane Anders made a wonderful observation a while back. To paraphrase, if my setting is “a world just like ours, except…” then it’s not really a world just like ours. Like that butterfly effect I mentioned last time, any change worth noting is probably going to have a ton of repercussions across all levels of society.

And if I don’t see those repercussions in the manuscript… it’s going to ring false. In a world where anyone can turn invisible and everyone knows this, why wouldn’t I have better safeguards in my home? Why would I assume “the wind must’ve knocked it over” or those footsteps upstairs are “Just the house settling in for the night.” That kind of thing makes my characters (and me) look dumb. They should understand the world they live in and not be shocked or surprised or caught off guard by it.

Another key thing to remember here is that a lot of the setting is my character’s view of the world. So even if they’re in the “real” world, their day to day experiences may not be just like mine. Odds are really good they’re not. Simple truth, I don’t live in the same world as somebody who lives in Egypt. There are so many elements that make our day-to-day experiences–our thought processes—different. The climate. The economy. The history. The government. The society. And all of these little differences—these excepts— make for a very different world.

Heck, my world’s radically different than someone living in Canada. Just the simple fact that they don’t worry as much about healthcare. Or childcare. Seriously, just take those two items off your plate right now and how is it going to change your view of your job? Does it matter as much that you didn’t get that two dollar raise? Or the extra overtime shift? And if you’re not working overtime, how does that affect your life?

And just what a character knows can change their view of the world. Maybe they learned an ugly truth or got the veil peeled back, and now the world is a very different place for them. The best example I can think of this is that old-timey flick of yesteryear, The Matrix. For the first third of the film, Neo thinks he knows and understands the world. But later, after learning some ugly truths, he goes back and is shocked just to see a noodle shop he used to go to a lot. Because now he sees the world as a very different place.

Let’s talk about Phoebe’s world for a little bit and flesh some things out.

We’ve established she doesn’t make a ton of money, and she’s responsible for her teenage sister. These two things are going to be big factors in a lot of her decision making throughout the book. For example, we know she’s not living in a mansion, and even though she’s renting a house, it’s not going to be a great house. Not too big, probably some faults here and there. Maybe crap plumbing or an old, too-small water heater. And the wiring’s from the ‘50s so don’t try to run your laptop and a hairdryer while the lights are on. Plus, this lack of money’s going to be reflected in her diet, her wardrobe, and probably—to some level—her self esteem.

Of course, this isn’t the big element. Phoebe lives in a world where werewolves are real. We already know some of the changes this implies—there are professional werewolf hunters, with lots of related jobs and organizations.

But one of the other things we’ve kinda been dancing around is… who knows? Is the werewolf-hunting world hidden away from prying eyes? Or is it commonly known and you can buy werewolf-repellant spray at every Home Depot?

(seriously, don’t buy that stuff—it’s a scam and it never works)

See, this is really going to change the book depending on which way we go. It’s going to affect who Phoebe can talk with about different things. It’s going to affect her day job. Heck–it’s going to affect how she dresses at different times. If people don’t know werewolves are real, it’s going to be tough explaining why every four weeks or so she goes out wearing a heavy leather trenchcoat, heavy boots, a quiver of crossbow bolts on her belt, a bandolier of silver-plated knives.

Again, it’s a world just like ours, except…

I’ve gone back and forth on this while talking about plot and story and character, and I’m going to say people in general don’t know about the werewolves. They exist, they’re 100% real, but to the vast majority of the population, they’re just fiction and folklore. These folks all believe they’re living in the regular real world you and I are living in right now.

Why am I going this way?

First, the more I played around with it, the more it felt like making werewolves something everybody knew about would make my book lean a little more into comedy. Not a full fledged comedy, probably a lot of gallows humor, but it’s still just not the direction I want this to be going. If we’re going to talk about lycanthropy as a global problem, it just seems like we’re going to be very serious (which I don’t want) or pretty goofy (which I also don’t want). Making it so most people don’t know gives me two worlds, essentially, that Phoebe can move back and forth between. This will give me some nice, believable transitions when I want to shift tone a bit one way or the other.

Second is that if everybody know werewolves are real, it’s logical to assume the lodge would be publicly subsidized somehow. Maybe even fall under a state or federal government office. The CDC or maybe the DOD, depending on how I approached it. Heck, maybe the Department of the Interior. This’d put a different tone to the underpaid/undersupplied aspect of Phoebe’s story that I don’t want to deal with.

Also, kind of a third thing, somewhat related to the above point. If we follow the logic that the lodge is connected to the government, then like it or not this story’s becoming a bit of a metaphor. The government having licensed contractors eliminate “undesirables” or the underfunded government office that’s woefully unprepared for a major outbreak. Hahahaa, yeah, no way any of that could seem political in this day and age. I’m not at all against political elements in work, but—for what I want to do with this story—it just feels like it could easily be a little too much right now.

Plus—on a more positive side—I kinda like that werewolves being unknown will add a little more conflict in Phoebe and Luna’s lives. It’s a big aspect of both their lives they have to keep hidden from people, like a good old-fashioned secret identity.

Worth mentioning that thinking about all this solved another small issue and added a little more depth. Why would Phoebe be using a crossbow in this day and age? Well, to be honest, I just said crossbow a couple of times at first because it’s kind of a werewolf-hunter standard. But thinking of the setting and financing made me think of something else. Silver’s expensive, even for the lodge. Oh, sure, if there’s a major outbreak there’s going to be boxes of silver 9mm and buckshot for everybody, but nowadays, on regular patrols, crossbow bolts are reusable, which means they’re cheaper.

Heck, they could be heirlooms you leave to your daughter for when she takes over the family business.

This is also a good place to point out something I see crop up. Some of you might be seeing a contradiction here. I said earlier that characters need to understand the world they live in, but now I’m saying most people don’t know there are werewolves. This really isn’t a contradiction, though. If most people don’t know werewolves are real, then their world is built around the idea that werewolves aren’t real. As I also mentioned above, their day to day experiences tell them they live in a normal, werewolf-free world, and they’re going to act and react to things accordingly.

I know this seems silly to point out, but it’s amazing how often I’ve seen this kind of thing pop up in manuscripts (or geekery movies). Characters are confused/ surprised by/ completely ignorant of the world they live in, and behave in unbelievable ways because of it. I can’t say everybody in the world can read minds, than have one of my characters surprised that somebody read his mind, followed by “Oh, of course—you read my mind. Hahahaa.”

Again… I’ve seen this exact sort of thing.

So play around with your setting a bit. Figure out what it is and how your characters see it. Try to work on a couple of those sharper corners now so we don’t get snagged on things later.

I’ve got one other thing I want to talk about in the A2Q before we (finally) start putting stuff together. But that’ll be in two weeks.

(unless you’re all seriously loving this and just want me to focus on the A2Q for a while. The comments have been kinda dead so I have no idea)

Next time, I’d like to talk a little bit about information and noise.

Until then, go write.