Category: Who

February 26, 2026 / 1 Comment

Exacerbating the Problem

I had half a thought about networking I was going to expand on, but as I started to write it out I remembered I just ranted about networking, well… not that long ago, relatively speaking. And I don’t want you all thinking I’ve only got three or four pieces of writing advice. So I’m skipping ahead to talk about zombies. Sort of.

Honestly, I’ve ripped this one apart and put it back together three times now.

I’ve talked once or thrice here on the ranty writing blog about using obscure words and overly-elaborate language. Usually in the negative sense, because this kind of stuff often throws up barriers between me and my readers. Best-case scenario is they have no idea what I’m trying to say. Worst-case is they get frustrated, maybe because they realize I’m just doing this to try to look clever, and they stop reading.

Well, they stop reading my work, anyway.

This doesn’t mean I should never use obscure or specialist words. It just means I need to be better about how and where I deploy them. Over the years I’ve come up with two simple rules-of-thumb for using obscure words or jargon in my books.

First, have there be an actual reason to use an obscure word. And no, showing off my vocabulary isn’t an actual reason. These words should fit the character, the situation, the world I’m trying to build. It should make sense and sound natural (within these guidelines).

Second, define it in the story. There’s a bunch of reasons something might need to be explained in a story. Plot reasons. Character reasons. If there’s a real reason to use this word or term my reader probably isn’t going to know, there’s a good chance someone in my story doesn’t know it either. Which means I have a believable reason to explain it. Keep in mind, that explanation can come in a number of ways, but it should get explained in a believable way.

ProTip on that last bit. I don’t want to fall back on “as you know” to explain things. Or a thinly-veiled version of it.

Anyway, that’s it. That’s how I do it, and I’ve seen other folks do it, too. Again, just a rule of thumb, but if I’ve used glabrous to describe a character… maybe I should see if these two rules apply.

Want some examples?

Okay, well, this is where the zombies come in.

Shaun of the Dead begins in Shaun’s favorite pub where his (very-soon-to-be-ex) girlfriend Liz is explaining why things aren’t working out between them. One of her big reasons is that they don’t ever get to do anything alone because Shaun rarely goes anywhere without his best friend Ed (who Liz insists she likes), which leads to her often inviting her flatmates along (who Shaun insists he likes) which only exacerbates things. Which then leads Shaun to ask… what does exacerbate mean?

Look at that. First, we’ve got the added subtext that Liz is a bit out of Shaun’s league, casually using a word she thinks s pretty straightforward and he admits he doesn’t know. Then we have the explanation, because Liz is trying hard to be gentle here, and, you know, let’s stay on track with the breakup talk, okay?

Or how about this one– remember when Doctor Who introduced the word petrichor to millions of sci-fi fans? Short version, Amy and Rory were trapped in a TARDIS gone mad and had to unlock a door with a telepathic lock. And one of the “keys” was the word Petrichor.

So here we are again. First, it makes sense this would be a slightly obscure word (and a scientific one) because it’s essentially a password in the Doctor’s time machine. And it makes sense that Amy and Rory have to be told exactly what the word means because they’re dealing with a telepathic lock—it’s not just looking at the word on a screen, it’s looking at the word in their minds, at their understanding of it.

Y’see, Timmy, there’s nothing wrong with rarely-used, obscure words in my manuscript. I just want to use them in ways that strengthen my story, not one that pushes my readers away. Because pushing readers away is… well, it kind of defeats the whole purpose of this, doesn’t it?

Oh, and one last thing. I hate to be that guy, but… well, it is award nomination season for things that came out in 2025. Nebulas, Locus, Hugos. If you were they type of person who nominated things and wanted to put up God’s Junk Drawer, the Combat Monsters anthology, or even just my specific story from it “The Night Crew”… well, I’d be grateful.

Next time… okay, look, next time you’re just going to have to trust me and go with this next one, okay?

Until then, go write.

dialoguevocabularyWhozombies
June 7, 2024

Ultimate Networking Tip

I almost didn’t do this one because I couldn’t figure out the exact way to phrase it, and it’s obviously an important one. Wouldn’t want someone to miss out because I used the wrong word. Plus, to be honest, I’m waaaaaaaay behind this week between a birthday weekend combined with StokerCon weekend and friends in town and a shingles vaccine that made me kind of useless for a day, so I almost didn’t do this at all.

But here I am. And here you are. So let’s do this.

Are you ready for the ultimate networking tip? You should probably get ready to write this down. It’s going to change everything for you. Bookmark this page, at the very least. Right now, before we go any further.

Damn. I could’ve had t-shirts made up. Finally an excuse for a merch store…

Anyway, ready? Here it is. My ultimate networking tip that’s going to make your attempts at networking so much easier, more efficient, and much, much more effective. Ready?

Stop trying to network.

Seriously.

Just stop.

I got to see a bunch of writer friends this past week, and—especially with StokerCon as the backdrop—I thought a bit about how we’d met. How we connected. And so often it was really mundane, non-writery things. My first real conversation with two writers I’m friends with was about Doctor Who (and weirdly enough, now that I think about it, both were Dalek-related). Another one was about fencing (the with-swords type). One time I was talking with someone and discovered we both had a connection to the weird little amusement park in my hometown. Plus so many chats about the film industry and different aspects of it.

And yeah, sometimes we’d talk books. Rarely our own, but other people’s we’d enjoyed or loved or perhaps even quietly been, y’know, less than impressed with. Or publishing. Many long talks about publishing, sales, marketing, social media, all that sort of stuff.

But the key thing is, I wasn’t trying to bond with them over any of this. It wasn’t a calculated ploy. It was just stuff that came up. Things we were interested in. They were the kind of casual conversations you’d have at someone’s cookout or a party or a random bar meet-up.

I know I’ve said this before but active networking is dead. It’s been dead for decades. Seriously, people were pushing it as the big secret to Hollywood success thirty years ago and you might notice that Hollywood’s still just as difficult to break in to. And then this belief slipped over into publishing circles and… well, I’m sure most of you know how easy it is to succeed in publishing these days.

Simple truth is active networking has never worked and never will. It just comes off an weird, intrusive, pushy, and sometimes just flat-out creepy. And I know some folks would respond by saying hey, if there’s only a one in a million chance of it happening, that’s still a chance! Someone just told me recently that’s how it was explained to them.

But here’s the thing. It’s also a 999,999 in a million chance of being labeled as weird, intrusive, pushy, or maybe creepy. So what do you think’ll happen when that one in a million editor/agent talks to any of their colleagues about this writer who just showed up in their mailbox…?

So stop networking. Right now. No more handing out business cards to every single person you meet. Please, please, please stop showing up places or randomly mailing things. Don’t seek people out just so they’ll carry you further along the path you want to walk. And I’m begging you not to give some guru money for their very exclusive networking event that will take your career to the next level.

Y’see, Timmy, don’t worry about networking. Just make friends. Friends you actually care about and respect and share interests with and like being with.

Believe me, we all need friends in this industry.

Next time, I’d like to talk about what happened last time.

Until then, go write.

gurunetworkingtipsWho
September 27, 2018 / 1 Comment

Elementary

            Many thanks to all of you who tossed some new topic ideas at me (here and on Twitter).  I think this might fill up all the slots I had for the rest of the year.  I may even take some time to rethink my upcoming plans.

            Anyway, for now, the potential Sherlock Holmes idea stuck in my head, so let me babble about that for a minute or three.

            There’s a pair of terms that have been floating around for a bit now—Watsonian and Doylist.  On the off chance you don’t get the reference, the terms come from Dr. John (or Joan) Watson, constant companion to Sherlock Holmes, and also to their creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  When we use these terms, we’re saying there’s two ways to look at any story element.  The in-story reason for this happening, and the author’s reason for this happening.  They’re often very different, but they’re both very important.

            For example…
            Why did Sherlock Holmes die in “The Final Problem,” plunging to his death at Reichenbach Falls?  Well, from Watson’s point of view, Holmes sacrificed himself because it was the only way to stop Moriarty.  The two evenly-matched men fight, and while Holmes dies, Moriarty’s now-leaderless criminal empire will crumble.  A net win for society. 
            From Doyle’s point of view, though, he was just sick of writing Sherlock Holmes stories.  He was making money off them, yeah, but he wanted to move on and start writing more serious, important stuff about, well… ghosts and fairies.  No, seriously.  So he killed Holmes off and tried (unsuccessfully) to move on.
            Yeah, don’t be the person pointing out Doyle later retconned the death.  When he wrote this story, Holmes was dead.  Toast.  Joined the choir invisible.
            Of course, this principal doesn’t just apply to Sherlock Holmes stories.  If you look at most stories, the elements break down into these two categories.
            –Whydid Han Solo get frozen in carbonite?  The Watsonian reason is that Vader wanted to test the carbon-freezing process and Boba Fett wanted to collect on Solo’s sizeable bounty.  The Doylist reason is that Harrison Ford wasn’t sure he wanted to come back to play Solo again, so George Lucas needed an ending that could explain Solo’s potential absence but also contain the possibility of bringing him back.
            –Whydid the Twelfth Doctor regenerate?  Watsonian reason—he was shot by the Cybermen and managed to hold off his regeneration briefly before transforming into the Thirteenth Doctor.  Doylist—Peter Capaldi was leaving the series, as was showrunner Stephen Moffat, and the new team decided to cast Jodie Whittaker.
            Here’s one of my own—Whydoes Ex-Patriots begin with a Fourth of July fireworks show?  Well, from a Watsonian point of view, the citizens of the Mount are celebrating.  It’s the Fourth, but it’s also one of their first major holidays since things have (for them) kinda stabilized after the zombocalypse.  So they’re partying hard.
            From a Doylist point of view, though… this opening lets me start with action.  There’s a lot going on.  It gives me a chance to re-introduce our four main heroes. It also lets be immediately bring up the idea of nations and patriotism, which are key themes in the book.  Heck, because this was one of those very rare times where I knewthere’d be another book in the series, this was also a setup for a plot thread in Ex-Communication.
            This all makes sense, yes?
            Why are we talking about it?
            I think it’s really important to remember these distinctions when we’re talking about writing.  To be more specific, when we’re talking about aspects of writing.  If we’re discussing dialogue or characters or settings, we should be clear if this is an in-world discussion or an authorial discussion.  Are we talking about things as they relate to the characters, or as they relate to the author (and the audience)?
            “Authorial”?   Ooooh, don’t I sound all clever…
            For example, once or thrice I’ve mentioned my belief that all good, successful characters have three common traits—they’re believable, they’re relatable, and they’re likable.  But I’ve seen some pushback on this.  I’ve had people online and in person argue that characters don’t need to be likable.  Characters just need to be fascinating or compelling or… well, look.  They don’t need to be likable.
            Here’s the thing.  In a Watsonian sense—I agree with this.  I mean, I’ve said this myself lots of times (pretty much every time I talk about these traits).  Likable doesn’t mean we want a character to marry into our family and they always have a kind word to say.  Within the story, there are tons of popular protagonists who aren’t remotely likable.  Who are kind of awful, really.  There’s not a version of Hannibal Lecter—books, movies, or television—that most of us would want to have a private dinner with.  We probably couldn’t count the number of books and movies that have hit men or assassins as their main characters.  And to bring us back around, most modern interpretations of Sherlock Holmes rightly point out that the guy’s an abrasive, condescending ass. 
            (…and that’s with the people he likes.)
            But in a Doylist sense, viewed from outside… we kinda like these people.  We admire Lecter’s twisted ethics.  We envy the ultra-competent man or woman of action.  And it’s kind of pleasant to watch Holmes point out what’s sitting right in front of everyone’s face.  That separation of fiction, the thin sheath that keeps us from absolutely immersing into the story, lets us enjoy these characters in ways we couldn’t in real life.
            I mean if we didn’t like them as readers, why would we keep reading about them?  Who’d torture themselves like that.  Hell, why would we keep writingabout them if we didn’t like them?  I can’t imagine sitting down and working for months on a story about a character I didn’t enjoy on some level.

            This holds for so a lot of aspects of writing.  I’ve mentioned before that realistic dialogue in fiction is different from the actual conversations we have with each other in the real world.  Other characters might not get my protagonist, but the reader should be able to relate to them.  And I’m never going to be able build any sort of tension if I don’t understand the difference between what my readers know and what my character knows.

            Y’see, Timmy, when I’m taking in advice I need to be clear if we’re talking about things in a Watsonian or Doylist sense.  And when I see advice from other writers, I should stop and think about how they mean it.  Are they talking about the actual pace of events in the timeline of the story, or the pacing in the narrative?  Are they talking about the motives of the characters or the writer?
            In the future, I’m going to try to be better about this, too.
            Next time…
            Well, thanks to some of you, I’ve got next time all planed out in advance.
            Until then… go write.
advicecharacterDoyleEx-PatriotsStar WarstipsWatsonWho
February 17, 2018

Getting Our Story Straight

            Running a little late this week.  Again.  Crazy busy these past few days.  Craig DiLouie was here in southern California, so we hung out for a day. Then there was Valentine’s Day.  And if you haven’t seen Black Pantheryet I highly recommend it.  Fantastic movie.
            Oh, plus a couple of outlines for new projects, too…
            Anyway…
            This past week at the Writers Coffeehouse I babbled on about different forms of structure and how they work together.  I haven’t really gone into that here in a couple of years, so I figured now might be a good time.  While it’s all fresh in my mind.
            Fair warning—this is kind of a sprawling topic so it’s going to spread out over the next two posts as well as this one.  I also may use a few terms in ways of which your MFA writing professor would not approve.  But I’ll do my best to be clear, despite all that.
            Speaking of professors…
            Structureis one of those terms that gets thrown around a lot when we’re talking about writing.  Sometimes in a generic sense, like that last sentence, other times in much more specific ways. You may have heard gurus talk about narrative structure, dramatic structure, three-act structure, or maybe even four- and five-act structure (if you’ve been dabbling with screenwriting a bit).
            An important thing to be clear about before we go too far—all of these are very different things.  I think this is why people get confused about structure sometimes.  A lot of things fall into this general category, and while some of them are vital to the storytelling process… some aren’t.  And it doesn’t help when “expert” gurus try to conflate them.  I read an article once where one guy was trying to use the five-act structure of television shows to demonstrate that three-act structure was an obsolete form (ProTip–it’s not).
            When we talk about structure, we’re talking about the underlying framework of a story.  The skeletal system, or maybe the nervous system, depending on how you want to look at it.  And, just like with anatomy (or architecture or programming) there can be more than one underlying system. And they all work together to make a functioning person. Or house.  Or story.
            It’s key to note that all these systems (or structures) are not the same. Sometimes things will overlap and serve multiple purposes. Sometimes they won’t. And, as I mentioned above, just because something worked in that story doesn’t mean it’ll work in my story.
            Okay.  Got all that?
            Good.  Get ready to take a few notes
           The three main structures in a story, for our purposes these next few weeks, are linearstructure, narrative structure, and dramatic structure.  They all interact and work with each other.  Just like with anatomy, if two elements are strong and one is weak, a story won’t be able to support itself.  So it’s important that I have a good grasp of all three and understand how they work.
            The one we’re going to deal with this week is linear structure.  Simply put, it’s how my characters experience the story.  There’s a Russian literary term for this called fabula.  Another term you may have heard for this is continuity.  Thursday leads to Friday which leads to Saturday.  Breakfast, coffee break, lunch, dinner.  Birth, childhood, college years, adulthood, middle age, old age, death.
            There’s a simple reason linear structure is so important.  Almost all of us are experts with it.  That’s because linear order is how we experience things all the time, every day.  We notice when effect comes before cause, even if the story gives them to us out of order.  A good way to think of linear structure, as I mentioned above, is a timeline.  When detectives break down the clues of a crime, them may discover them out of order, but it doesn’t change the order the events actually happened in.  If I’m writing a story—even if I’m telling the story in a non-linear fashion—there still needs to be a linear structure. 
            A good way to test the linear structure of my story (a method I’ve mentioned before) is to arrange all the flashbacks, flash-forwards, recollections, frames, and other devices in chronological order.  My story should still make logical sense like this, even if it’s lost some dramatic weight this way (more on that later).  If my story elements don’t work like this (if effect comes before cause, or if people know things before they learn them), it means I’ve messed up my linear structure.
            Now, I want to mention a specific example where linear structure gets messed up a lot– time travel.
            In a time travel story, it’s very likely there’ll be multiple linear structures.  My time traveler might be experiencing Thursday, Friday, then Wednesday, and then Thursday again.  They’re still experiencing four days in a row, though—even if their friends and coworkers are only having three. And their three are Wednesday-Thursday-Friday.
            I mentioned this diagram at the Coffeehouse on Sunday. It’s a pair of timelines featuring two characters from Doctor Who—Jack Harkness and the Doctor himself.  I’ve marked a few key, mutual events in their lives.
            Jack’s life is pretty straightforward, for our purposes here.  A is when young Jack first meets the Ninth Doctor and decides to travel with him for a while.  B is when he later encounters the Tenth Doctor and Martha.  C is when they all briefly meet again a year or so later to stop Davros and the Daleks.  They meet again (D) much, much later in Jack’s life.  And Eis when the Doctor’s there for Jack’s death at the ripe old age of twenty billion or so (mild spoilers, sorry). 
            That’s a pretty normal, linear timeline.  Young to old.  The one most of us have (just slightly exaggerated in his case).
            Now… look at the Doctor’s.  This is the linear structure of the show because we (the audience) are following the Doctor around (more on this next week).  He travels in time, though, so he meets Jack in kind of an odd order.  First time for him isn’t the first time for Jack, and vice-versa.  But it’s still a logical, linear order for the Doctor—he’s living his own timeline, A-B-C-D-E, just like Jack.  A and B are the Ninth Doctor, C through E are the Tenth.
            Make sense?
           Y’see, Timmy, no matter what order I decide to tell things in, the characters are experiencing the story in linear order.  If halfway through my book one of my character flashes back to what happened a week ago, this isn’t new information for him or her—it happened a week ago.  So all of their actions and reactions up until that flashback should take that information into account.
            It sounds pretty straightforward and it really is.  Linear structure is going to be the easiest of the three forms I blab about over the next few weeks because it’s logical and objective.  But, alas, people still mess it up all the time.  And the mistakes are usually because of… narrative structure.
            But we’ll talk about that next week.
            Until then, go write.
Coffeehouseflashbackslinear structurestructureWho

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