The Writer Next Door

What I Learned In The Last Five Weeks

2012-03-06T13:14:00.000-08:00

(Originally, this spot was a horror story about a guy who sent my old mentor a bottle of bourbon, porn and a kitten in order to get published. The story was about a paragraph long. In short, my mentor and I drank the bourbon, gave the porn to me and he kept the cat. The cat died in 2007, long after my mentor did.)

What's here instead is me being honest. I hope you don't mind.

It's been a great five weeks for me. My calendar is extra loaded with fun work projects, and depending on where you look in some niches and circles, you'll see the first bits of my work coming out. It's an exciting time for me professionally.

Personally, it's also been good, but that's not for this blog.

Here now are some things I've learned in the last five weeks. I will effort to keep this list all-business related.

1. Be honest. Not 'whenever possible', not 'whenever convenient', ALWAYS. I can point to a few people as being big springboards for my success, and I should probably point to a few more than I normally do, but if I had to point at one thing I'm doing that's helping it's being honest. This isn't to say I wasn't honest before, but that I didn't make it a priority. I had some weird hurdle that I made situations and people climb before they got to know me, and it gave them an impression I was a jerk or difficult or mean or something. Whatever they thought, I'm glad they don't think it now. It's still hard work making sure my tone is how I want and that I'm coming across how I want, but it's easier now. Every day the new successes help.

2. There's no substitute for outright loving your work. I am so fortunate to have the job I do. All the people I work for are GREAT, easily accessible, friendly, helpful and absolutely committed to putting out great products. My clients are incredibly hard-working people, who manage and juggle a thousand things I couldn't even conceive of and still find time to scribble out books I'm lucky enough to read and help make better. If I didn't love this job, if I didn't want to wake up every day and do this, I'd..probably be working a job completely beneath me or have sunken into years-deep depression by now. People can tout high-paying glamor jobs all they want, but for me, I love what I do, and I won't replace it for anything or anyone.

3. I don't need to be a Lorax, or carry around a soapbox. Over the weekend, there was a little battle on the interwebs about some writers not getting paid and some other people spoke on their behalf about it. Now, admittedly, I am biased in this fight - I know and work with/for a lot of people who participated in that discussion, as well as with the company being spoken at. And because they're my employer(s), I'm not going to get into who-said-what-to-who, because I do not know the particulars and because to the best of my knowledge it's a non-issue by now. But it made me aware of just how far I've come in working on my tone. I would have SO been the guy on the soapbox spitting fire and drawing heat for other people, because I used to need that cause, I used to need a fuse lit under me to give a damn. But I don't need that to make my life better any more. There's enough on my plate and I'm happy with it all so that I don't need to go stirring things up on the internet for either attention or sport. My days as a professional shit-stirrer are over.

4. Those skills I take for granted are often those for which I am praised, admired and loved. I do a lot of things differently than others. For a long time I felt like those were hindrances or signs of my worthlessness and inferiority, because honestly, who reads at least eight books a week and memorizes whole chunks of game mechanics, canon and material for fun? And who answers emails within minutes of their transmission to the depths I do? These are not the skills typically found in people. These are skills I just sort of assumed everyone has, because when I was developing them (read: young), it was no big deal that in elementary school I was reading so much or that in junior high I was writing speeches for people and working on college-level material. While this did create a blindspot for me that I'm occasionally smacking into (you mean you can't describe the whole day in first grade where your teacher explained how to spell the word 'miniature'? Or that you don't remember what you wore the day you stood in a foreign airport and had a hot coed blow smoke in your face almost twenty years ago?) - Those are not the skills of the cave troll of Moria, Frodo, these are the skills that I can contribute and offer to those around me. Realizing I actually have the ability to matter to others has been huge.

5. I get listened to. For much of my life, professional and otherwise, either because of my tone or whatever, I didn't think that what I say mattered. I'd make recommendations or give advice or write out reports and messages and then see the material totally ignored. But lately, and this is probably because I'm talking to/with a better class of people and working in ways that are positive and healthful, I'm getting listened to. I have actual evidence that what I'm saying translates into real-world stuff. Whether that's a project taking shape based on my ideas or having my contributions to a Google document not just get deleted out...I thrill at seeing things I say actually mattering to other people to the point where something positive comes out of it.

6. It's not about boundaries, it's about budget. I once got told I have trouble building boundaries, that I don't appropriate separate or afford things adequate distance. But they I also got told that I keep too distant from things, too objective and too cold. It's hard to rectify that. Instead, what I did, because I am forever finding new routes between Point A and Point B, was look at the problem from a management issue - am I giving issue 1/issue 2 enough time or too much time? Are there tools I can use to make this more concrete? It turns out that given enough material and a good objective, I can manage a lot and do a lot effectively. This isn't me bragging, because I'm NOT saying I can do more than you can, this is me saying that I don't have a problem with boundaries. I have a problem with budgeting time and staying motivated and interested. Do you know why it's been less of a problem lately? Because I'm doing more things that actually interest me. It's quite cool.

I've learned a lot in the last five weeks. I look forward to what the next five teach me.

Happy writing.

Question Asked & Answered - How can I help you help me?

2012-03-06T12:11:00.000-08:00

I occasionally get asked questions with answers that should be shared with other people. This is one of those times.

Andy asked, "I'm writing a manuscript (disclosure - I will one day have it done and send it to you), until it's done, what are the best things I can do (editing, preparation, etc) to make your future job easier?"

This is a common question. And I know a lot people who edit-as-they-write, either over the course of each sentence as they write it, or at the end of a spurt of writing when they can sit down and go through the day's pages. I'm not always sure which is "better", since both can be either helpful (in catching simple mistakes) or detrimental (they're stall tactics to keep you from finishing or they're just ways to heap a sense of failure onto your shoulders), but assuming that whatever you're doing is working for you, there are other things you can do to make my life (and whatever editor you work with) easier.

Behold, a list.

1. Check your spelling. This is the easiest step, and probably the one most avoided. The majority of programs now provide you with very happy red squiggles under a word for a reason, and even if the dictionary is inaccurate, take the time to make it accurate. It's one less obstacle to overcome and one more 'check mark' in the professional column for you.

2. Ask questions. If you're going to blind-submit to me (which is totally an option, but I can almost guarantee you it will be an exercise in patience for you), or if you're planning on submitting work, make sure you've asked some questions. What questions? These:

What format would you (the editor) like to receive the manuscript in?
How would you (the editor) like to be paid?
In what format will I (the author) receive feedback?
When can I (the author) expect that feedback?
What sort of comments should I expect to see as feedback?
Is there some sort of contract or agreement we make/sign for this?

Yes there are loads more questions, I just gave you the first 6 that popped into my head as the first 6 I usually see or reply to. By asking these questions, and actually paying attention to the answers (more on that in a minute) a relationship between author and editor is built and the product of that relationship will be (hopefully) an improved manuscript.

3. Follow instructions. The majority of rejections and ignored manuscripts occur not because the work wasn't any good, but because the submitter didn't follow whatever directions necessary when sending the submission wherever they sent it. If you can't follow directions, then the editor/author relationship is not going to go well. This is not said so that you think all editors are dictators bent on ruining your work, but so that you're aware that the reason there are submission guidelines is often NOT arbitrary and often VERY important.

Now if you don't know what you need to do or need to send for a submission, ask. It may take extra time (an extra email, for example), but it will be worth it.

For example, here are my guidelines:

Digital submissions preferred, older Word formats especially welcomed.
No Mac .pages or similar. Also, no PDFs.
If you have to print it out, DO NOT bind your manuscripts.
If you have to print it out, DO NOT expect your printed manuscript returned to you in the pristine state you send it.
When you send your manuscript, include in your email at least 2 ways to contact you (phone, social media).
When you send your manuscript, include also the word count, title and genre.

That's it. Why do I ask those things? Here's why.

1. I have several old computers that I work from. They do not all have the newest version of Word installed.
2. I no longer own a Mac (it's on the list to-be-bought)
3. On a print manuscript, I go through and write on/all over the pages. I need access to the individual pages.
4. I write on things. A lot.
5. I need to know how to reach you, and don't like playing just email or phone tag.
6. I need to know what you're planning to do with the manuscript, because that helps me know how to help you improve it.

(Fred Hicks really turned me onto this idea of transparency, and I'm really making an effort to be better at that, in addition to my on going efforts to mind my tone and be a good representative of myself, my business and my clients. It's an addictive, positive thing.)

4. Pay. There are bills to pay. This is my job. Writing your book may not be your only full-time job, but editing IS my only job. Prompt payment is appreciated. (Note: I know times are tough, if money is tight or could become tight, the best policy is to TALK ABOUT IT, and make it a non-issue. I personally am a lot happier and more comfortable knowing that it might be an extra week or two for that check to arrive if I know in advance.)

5. Respect is a two-way street. When I take you on as a client, even if we disagree over something in the manuscript (like I think you should change a verb or flip something around and you think I should go lick an outlet), I'm not going to jump online and air our problems out for people to hear. Likewise, in the event that the money gets tight, or it's been a while since you cut me a check, I'm not using this blog to out you as some kind of non-paying ne'er-do-well. I respect you, and protect our relationship. Do the same for me.

6. Understand that I am going to talk about our successes. When things are rocking and good, I'm going to talk about it. I'll hop on Twitter and talk about the great day or how much I enjoy the work we're doing. And when the manuscript becomes a book and people can go buy it, I'm definitely going to talk about it.

Example: See this? I worked on this. It's awesome. And you should buy it, because I know of no other story where a spunky heroine waps a raptor with a wrench.

The same is true for any promotional work you do, or any crowd-sourcing efforts. I will back your Kickstarter, tell my friends and family about the project(s), and generally drum up good buzz. It's a good thing. I'm not doing this to call you out or put you on the spot, it's what I do to help OUR project succeed.

7. Do your best. A lot of people think an editor's job is to take whatever tangle of words you put on paper, in whatever form, and build a successful book/game/website/presentation/whatever from it. True, yes, I can do that, given enough time and with enough planning. But that's not what my job is - if it was, I'd just be writing FOR you, which I'm so not doing. Now, I'm not going to be petty and say "If you don't do a good job, I won't either", because that's exactly the behavior I'm looking to avoid, but I cannot stress that if you want me to take you seriously and professionally, then you need to do your best. Write your best, even if that's not perfect. Put together the best story you can. If there are imperfections or holes or problems, admit them up front so we can work on them. Don't half-ass this. Don't quit either.

If you do those seven things, the editor/author relationship thrives. And I agree with the prevailing sentiment that the relationship should be a collaborative one, not one where the editor goes for the jugular and breaks the writer down no matter who they are. That's not healthy. That's not writing. That's power-tripping. And it smacks of not-actually-knowing-what-the-craft-and-point-of-writing-and-editing-is-ness.

What Not To Send An Editor, Part 3

2012-02-29T05:05:00.001-08:00

Previously (here and here) I've talked about what you should not send an editor or an agent. That list continues today. Let's rock this list like it was organized by a rock star librarian.

1. Please DO NOT send a query letter or manuscript written by hand. This has two effects: If your handwriting is tiny and scratchy, you may look somewhat crazy. Also, this makes you appear like you're afraid of technology. The problem is that if you've sent me a hard-copy (for example) we would have had to correspond, and that's usually by email.

2. Please DO NOT send a printed/bound softcover version of your book. Yes I know there are GREAT services out there that allow you to produce a book with minimal investment. And I'm glad you made use of them. The problem is that you didn't send me a manuscript (which I work on), you sent me a book, which is not the same thing.

3. Please DO NOT send photos of your children/pets holding signs saying I should read your work or take you on as a client. When I get a stack of photos in the mail, I usually look for the ransom demands or the photo that includes the line, "Or else I'll be beaten" and then consider calling the police. Do not play on sympathies to get your work advanced.

4. Please DO NOT include rejection letters with your work. Okay, you've been rejected. But sending your emotional baggage along with your work is not the best way to start a relationship if you want the relationship to be healthful and helpful. And for the record, I shred those letters, especially if you've added commentary like "Stupid bitch" or "Damn faggot" in the margins after I write the original sender a note.

5. Please DO NOT offer me favors that are in fact threats on other people. Do not tell me you're "going to take care of X person or Y person" for me if I take you on. I might not like X or Y person, they may not like me...but that's not really for you to worry about (this is especially troubling if you happen to mention people I've dated, who I KNOW don't like me now). Basically, threatening others to incent to me work with you is not happening. I just call the police.

6. Please DO NOT include hateful things about my friends along with your manuscript. (This is not me reverse bragging, I do have a point here) I know a lot of celebrities and semi-celebrities. Yes, many of those people may have different sexual, racial, religious, political or alcoholic preferences than you do. You don't have to disparage them (or their opinions, lifestyles or beliefs) to prove you're a tough person. It won't encourage me to respond.

NOTE - If you're going to question my sexuality or habits (insisting that I must enjoy the company of same sex partners or that I am in fact a person who has sex with female parents or that I lack 'racial purity' if I don't take you on as a client) you're absolutely not getting a response.

7. Please DO NOT include "things you think I might like" along with your submission. I am a nerd. I do not hide this fact. Lately, I've stopped hiding the fact I enjoy really good food. And I remain an ardent Xbox enthusiast. If you want me to work with you, just send the work. You do not need to go out of your way to include new Xbox games, thumb drives, pens, mugs, catalogs for bathrobes, sex toys or whatever else "you saw and it made you think of me". Let's just talk about work, shall we?

NOTE - I will likely not send the thumb drives or pens back.

8. Please DO NOT send daily follow-ups. I receive mail everyday. I do my best to take about 2 hours to go through my mail and sort from it packages and manuscripts and all kinds of not-bills from it. After paying the bills, everything else gets prioritized and either delegated or answered. I do this DAILY. The mail here locally is known to be slow. I cannot predict when I'm going to get your package, let alone what specific time of that day I'm going to have time to sit down and respond to it. Calling me EVERY DAY after you've sent it is NOT going to encourage me to move faster towards your material. (You should though follow up about 3 to 4 days later with anyone you've sent material to but not heard back from).

9. Please DO NOT send "art" along with your manuscript. I put art in quotes because I'm not talking about book covers or graphic files. I mean the map of your fantasy world made out of cheese or the sausage shaped like your protagonist. If you want to hook me into the "feel" of your work, let your pitch, query and manuscript do the talking.

10. Please DO NOT send feces, urine or other bodily fluids. Seriously. Just don't. Ew. (This did not happen to me, but rather to an industry friend of mine, and she will be closing up shop for a few months because of it).

The moral of the story? When someone (an editor, a publisher, an agent, somebody) says "Send me X", that's all you send them. And if you're confused what 'X' is....ask.

Happy writing.

By request - Query and Summary Letters

2012-02-28T11:20:00.000-08:00

Dee Solberg asked about query letters and summary letters, in terms of their construction and how to navigate the apparently bizarre demands from one publisher to the next.

A word first about those demands - they've never struck me as bizarre. Just like going from one store in the mall to another has never bothered me about where they put the registers or whether or not they wear name tags. Every place is different, and entitled to make up their own methods for accomplishing the same end goal - which in this case is getting your work published.

Now, a tangent: Do you know why those needs are so different? Mostly for two reasons - First, to see if you follow directions (you'd be shocked by the number of people who don't) and second to see if following directions discourages you from going forward. Publishing on the whole, is a test of endurance, (writing is the test of skill) and there are many stages of hurry-up-and-wait as well as stages of I-cannot-believe-I-have-to-rewrite-this that turn publishing into a very intense pursuit. I would also like to point out that you (the author to-be-published) should avoid taking this time to start developing the philosophy that you're competing with other writers. This is not about scarcity or about some game of book-musical-chairs. There are PLENTY of chairs and the music NEVER stops playing.

So what's step one? Where do I begin?

Step one is something that doesn't go down easily, but if you commit to it, life gets exponentially better. Step one is 'make sure the project is complete'. I know, some people reading this are going to grab this magazine or that website over there and point to examples that say flat-out you can query a partially completed 'thing'. Yes, you can. You possess the ability to package pages together and get it sent to a destination. That is an option.

But doing that, moving ahead to acquire all the bells and whistles of publishing (the elements often thought to bring legitimacy: an agent, a publisher, a partridge in a fruit bush) without finishing your work puts you on someone else's schedule. And that new schedule likely is unaware that your children may have sick days, school plays and sports practices. Or that your spouse might decide to rewire the house and leave you powerless on a Saturday afternoon. Or that you have two jobs and a mortgage and the phone bill and the credit card and you want a vacation and what about the grocery shopping.....etc etc.

By finishing your work ON your schedule, you make their schedule INFINITELY easier, no matter who the "their" is. Take the extra time (which shouldn't be a problem if you've disciplined yourself to a good writing schedule, right?) to make the project the best it can be before it leaves you, and everything thereafter is much simpler.

Okay, I did that, but what's up with queries?

I do a lot of workshops about queries. Here are the basics.

Start where the action of the story is. I don't mean action like where the first emotion is felt or where the first verb is, I mean start telling me the story at the good parts. The parts that are going to make me want to hear more about it. Practice this - summarize your favorite movie. Now out loud, talk about it. Those scenes and facts you're saying? Those are the things that show where the action/meat of the story is.
Find out how many words the whole thing has. Put that number and the title (which you'll put in ALL CAPS) in one of the last two or three sentences at the bottom of the page.
You have between 200 and 300 words (I aim for around 225-240 max) to seduce the person into reading the manuscript. That's the job of a query - to entice the reader to go to the manuscript. Not give away the story. Not bore people to tears. Just excite the person into wanting more information.
Do not give away the ending. If you tell the whole arc of the story, there's no reason to read the manuscript. Remember, you're supposed to be seductive. Telling the reader how this is going to end is not seductive.
This query is about your story NOT you. I'm now beating a dead horse, but the query letter is not the place to list all your great publishing or personal successes. (The document for that is called a resume) The query letter is about this story, and its merits, not the struggle you went through to put it together. I'm sure it's a very harrowing tale, but it's completely irrelevant to the quality of the story or a reader's interest in making the jump from query to manuscript.

That's the basic template. You get those pieces set in your query, whatever other demands come down the road at you are cake.

And what about story summaries?

That's a different animal. Here you want to treat the page like a candy bar or a cake - and that having one piece (the summary) makes you want to have other pieces later. Like ten seconds later. Or at midnight. Or for breakfast the next morning.

You still start where the action is, you still need to know how long the whole manuscript is, but now you have about DOUBLE THE WORD COUNT (400 to 600, I like a cap of 550) to demonstrate in tiny version what happens in the big version.

Think about movie trailers. That's a small piece of a larger cake. You now get to do that by writing. Look at your outlines, your notecards, your bullet points. Identify the big action beats, the funny beats, whatever beats make you proud of your creation, and find a way to string them together. The magic here lies in how you make use of the words and ideas available to you.

And in non-fiction?

For the love all that you hold dear, DO NOT drown the document in headings. Not everything needs to be broken out and explained. Do you know how that comes across? Like the sniffly desperate kid in your class who used to eat paste and who just had to keep yapping and explaining. (In my elementary school, his name was Chas or Charlie or Chuck or something)

Likewise don't go the other way and have two or three headings and then big blocks of text underneath them. That looks more like you just don't know what you're doing and you're desperate.

Instead, try this. 5 headings.

About the book (the length, the genre, etc)
The Characters
The Plot
The Author (that's you!)
How You Plan To Market This

If you're writing a book that lacks characters or plot (hi cookbook authors!), then change into "Reasons For This Book" and "Recipes". The point is that you don't need a TON of headings. You just need organization. Critical here are items 1, 4, and 5. Especially 5.

Why is 5 important? Because the more you know about how you're going to get that book into other people's hands, the easier that will happen and the better it will be for everyone involved. If that means you need to educate yourself on how to market or publicize, do it (Here's a starting point, come ask me questions! Email or Twitter). Also, the heady days of disposable income are for the moment gone. So take the initiative and make something happen with your work.

Any other advice?

Yes. Two things.

I. There's no one road to this goal of yours. Even if you and I do the same research about the same topic and go to the same people to ask the same questions and query the same book, we're going to get different results. There is no one way to get published. There is no "right" way, there is no "wrong" way. One way is NOT better than another. What matters here is the answer to the binary question - Published? Yes/No. Having said that though, remember that publishing is NOT legitimacy. Getting published does not make you a better person or a superior one or smarter or kinder or more loved or anything like that. It's just something you did, like yesterday when I did laundry. There are lots of ways to accomplish it.

II. There comes a point where you have to stop asking for help and start doing it. Lots of people and books and websites offer great advice. And you can spend many many days/weeks/months/years searching through them all - but NONE of them have the one magic bullet answer for you. It's the sum total of what they say, what you choose to take with you and choose to leave behind that shapes you.

Yes it's great to ask for help. But there is such a thing as asking for help about a thing IN PLACE of doing that actual thing. This industry, this craft, this art, is PACKED with people who bloat the lanes and passages with poor habits, wrong intentions, poor writing and unhelpful attitudes and advice. This industry is thick with people who aren't going to ever get past the "talk about writing" phase.

What separates the successful from the unsuccessful is yes, in part talent. But also the fact that the successful actually wrote. And got edited. And re-wrote. And published. And repeated this whole process.

If you're doing this to be successful, that's the path.

If you're doing this to prove other people wrong, you're going to be disappointed.

If you're doing this to prove your own self-worth, you're going to be SUPER disappointed.

If you're doing this to be rich, you're going to be doing this a long time.

If you're doing this to be more famous than other people, you're going to be disappointed AND doing this for a long time.

Dee, I hope this answers your question somewhat.

Happy writing

By request - Cliffhangers, Endings and "Tying It All Together"

2012-02-28T08:21:00.001-08:00

Today's post come from a request made on Twitter by @AprilBrownWrite. Her site is here, and worth a look (also she's really nice, and you should say hi.)

If there's something you'd like to talk about, or want to know more about, you can email me a suggestion or send me a tweet - I'm always looking for new content and new ways help you write better.

April had a question about cliffhangers and how to end things. She wrote me a rather nice email about it, with some pretty good examples, but I think it's easier if we just start with broad topics and then work towards specifics.

So let's lay some groundwork.

What is a cliffhanger?

1. A 'cliffhanger' is caused when you break up an action beat and deny immediate resolution. 'Immediate' here means that in sentence A, you set up the situation and then in Sentence B, you resolve it. These are most often very visual or evocative beats (beats are scenes or moments, I'm going to use that word a lot), and other media (like television) has taught us that cliffhangers are great moments to go to commercial. Books, to date, lack commercials, so often people tend to put cliffhangers at the end of chapters (we'll talk more about that in a minute).

2. A 'cliffhanger' is only as good as the setup BEFORE the action, and the intensity of the resolution AFTER. This might be unclear, but there are ways to illustrate it. The thinking behind a cliffhanger is that you want the reader wondering how the character(s) will get out of whatever situation they've entered. Will Mace Hunter escape being kidnapped by Red Shark's goons? Will the damsel in distress ever get off those damned railroad tracks?

But that's the cut-away-to-commercial moment. That's the cliffhanger itself. It doesn't have any meaning as a cliffhanger until we see it in context. We worry about that damsel on the railroad tracks because prior to that, she was kidnapped in the dead of night by the bad guy. We feel tension for Mace because we watched him get overwhelmed by goons and saw him get sapped from behind. The setup to the cliffhanger moment is critical, if you want us to believe the danger is real.

That's half of it.

The other half is what happens when the character acts to get out of the predicament. If all the damsel has to do is roll to her knees and stand up, the danger isn't so great. If all Mace has to do is jump out of the car in order to make good his escape, then it's less perilous than previously indicated. If the resolution to danger/cliffhanger is not well-developed, then the danger wasn't clearly stated, and the reader isn't going to think it's worth getting scared over.

There is an exercise I recommend. You'll need a note card.
1. Turn the notecard vertically (longways)
2. Divide it into thirds (draw horizontal lines)
3. In the middle third, write the cliffhanger
4. In the bottom third, write the resolution
5. In the top third, write the setup.

So, a cliffhanger for a scene with a damsel tied to railroad track looks like this:

I. Woman is kidnapped
----
II. Woman tied to tracks
----
III. Woman escapes (rope use)

This isn't where you detail it all out, this is where you give yourself a little note of reminder to make sure the setup leads naturally to the danger which segues to the resolution. I tend to find it easier to go from danger to resolution and then reverse-engineer (or hack) the setup to make it sufficiently intense or emotional or whatever the scene needs.

Now, if that's what a cliffhanger is, what do we do with it?

The first rule of cliffhangers is - Not everything is going to be a cliffhanger. It just...can't be that intense all the time. Remember this - "When everything is special, nothing is". You do not need a cliffhanger at the end of every chapter, or at the break in every action. Poor is the reader who believes that your story would be made better by doing this. Find them, shake a fist at them, and tell them they've watched too much TV and probably read too much poor writing.

The second rule of cliffhangers is - They're supposed to be risky. There are no "little" cliffhangers. Just like no one is ever "a little bit pregnant" or "the teensiest bit murderous", little actions do not warrant cliffhangers. Cliffhangers should make you gasp and worry and turn the page excitedly to see what happens next. (Note: I learned this rule as "No one gives a shit about Timmy making toast.") Go big or go home on your cliffhangers.

The third rule of cliffhangers is - There should be a cost. To get out of a risky and dangerous situation, the character should be tested. It should exhaust them to have to climb up a sheer mountainside, it should drain them to have to run as fast as they can to save the other character, it should hurt when they got shot, taking the bullet for their loved ones. A cliffhanger without a cost is just another action beat.

If those are the rules, where do we put cliffhangers?

The short version - put them where they best serve the story. For most (90%) of cases, that's usually at the end of Act 2 or just before the highest point of climax.

The longer version - put them where they matter. NOT at the end of every chapter, or every third chapter when you switch narrators. Use them too much, and they lose impact. Use the cliffhanger as a tool to make the story matter, and to test the characters, not as a way to force the story along or make/force the reader to keep going in the story.

So what does that make all those other endings? If they're not cliffhangers, what are they?

They're endings. Things can just end. It's okay. I promise. What matters is how you daisy-chain these endings into the startings of whatever comes next (I mean otherwise, what, you're writing 4th edition D&D? - gamer joke) so that you're not writing a series of "bubble scenes" but rather a contiguous stream of actions, reactions, and development to make a single complete big bubble of your story.

If you feel that your endings (the physical ones, the emotional ones, etc) HAVE TO BE cliffhangers in order for them to matter in your work, then, honestly you've failed them. You've let them down as scenes in your story and you're not doing your job as the best writer you can be in telling the best story you can.

A well-crafted story should have lots of things that matter, but not all those things are going to be cliffhangers.

So how many cliffhangers should I have in my story?

I don't know, author. Why don't you tell me how many breaths I should take today? There is no magic number. In some stories, you only need one. In some stories you can have one per character arc. In other stories there's one for every character arc, one of the plot and one for theme (I'm looking at you, hundreds-of-pages-long-fantasy-novel-series).

If you've mapped out the story (not the same as outlining it), then you should be able to see where the arc(s) move(s) should take you and the reader from beginning to end of book. Tying it all together is NOT the job of the cliffhanger, but the cliffhanger should signal that SOME element(s) of the story is/are about to change.

I hope this has explained cliffhangers a little bit, April and all those other people who don't know what to do with them. If you need more information, just ask.

Happy writing.

What Dreamation Taught Me About Writing, Editing and Business

2012-02-27T07:09:00.000-08:00

This weekend, I attended Dreamation. Similar in some regards to Metatopia, this was a much bigger and broader-themed event, tending to be more about playing games and LARPing, rather than designing them, improving them or making an industry rock.

But it was a good experience on the whole, and I come back to the blog a little dehydrated and sleep-deprived, but a little more savvy than when I was last here. I'd like to share some observations I made.

1. I am 100,000% doing the right thing by shifting my focus more and more into helping game designers and moving out of less-than-satisfying "traditional" novel-editing experiences. Yes, the game industry pays about half (or less) than the usual editing rate, but the upside of it is a far better experience and better turnaround. I know that I can expect quality and commitment from the jump in gaming (I might just be lucky and be surrounded by the greatest people and have the best experiences), and that there's very little to none of the "throw-the-editor-under-the-bus syndrome" I see in traditional publishing. I'm still getting my feet under me as an industry editor, and working on my tone has SUPER helped, (as have many other changes), but I really feel good about this move. The lesson here - It's totally awesome to pursue what you love to do (editing for me) in a field you love to be a part of (gaming).

2. Even at midnight, with very little buzz, I can turn out one hell of a seminar. If I were to speak ill of Dreamation, it's that I shuffled off to one side. I'm not saying I need or warrant celebrity status, and this is not me playing the don't-you-know-who-I-am card, this is me saying that I deserve the same opportunity, and the same publicity as anyone else who's put together a presentation or a game or a whatever. A midnight to 3am slot Friday night into Saturday is great if we're all hopped up on Red Bulls and we're seventeen and the world is our oyster. But that's not the case.

I understand the issue - that people shouldn't have to choose between a passive sit-in-a-chair panel and an active game experience, and I respect that, but...what about the people who actually wanted a panel? I don't teach...basket-weaving, I help people write better, and that's not a very passive experience for them when I take questions throughout the seminar and give people really (well, I think) practical advice in a palatable way.

So ok, I had to jump on Twitter and do some in-person leg work to get people in seats. Yeah it was super late and people were super tired. But I had quite a few people (a lot of them shocked I was actually doing something both at the hour and about the topic) who I think really benefited from it.

The lesson here - I don't mind doing the legwork to promote myself (I'm always happy to talk about myself, even if I have to work on my tone while I do it), but more important is the idea and actions to back up that I deserve the fair shake. I am good "enough"/ capable "enough" to do what I do, regardless of hour or audience.

3. When I feel passionate about something, I should commit fully to it. I have a deep love affair with a game called "Night's Black Agents" that runs about as deep for my love of superheroes, Doctor Who, the Dresden Files and peanut butter. I did my best to squeeze a 4-hour game into a 2-hour slot with a group about 3 players too large...and the results were not (in my opinion) the best. Yes, people had fun, but my concern is that they walked away from it with entirely the wrong sort of feeling for the tone of the game. Oh, and I'm way rusty on running a game. The plus side here? The brownies we ate were delicious. The lesson here - Had I just had trusted myself to do a better job, had I been a little more confident in something not-editing/writing, I could have asked for a slot to play the game, and really made a good show of it. Confidence and passion are going to carry me far, when I admit them and let them help rather than hold me back.

4. When in doubt, I need to go back to "fun". I can, at times, take myself way too seriously. (See the above item where I just bitched that perhaps people didn't play a game the way I thought they would). Sure, sometimes the world is all serious-and-business-face, but other times the world is all goofy fun with loud obnoxious barking laughs and imagination and helping each other have a good time. I didn't play many games this weekend, both because I didn't want to expose myself to "con crud" (happy to report that aside from tiredness and dehydration, I'm healthy) and also because nothing really jumped out at me - because I was taking myself WAY too seriously. The games I did play (Champions of Midralon, Technoir) were AMAZINGLY FUN TIMES, once I lightened up. The lesson - Stopping and laughing and enjoying myself is NOT an indication that I'm incapable of hard work, or somehow showing disrespect to the people who pay me to help them. I'm allowed to take days off and relax.

Okay, I've got about 70 pages left to edit today, so I'm wrapping up this post here.

Tomorrow, we'll talk about cliffhangers, ribbon endings and how to tie pieces together.

Happy writing.

PS - I've started using a new hashtag on Twitter lately "#helpushelpyou" aimed at freelancers to give advice to future clients/employers on how we can all make our lives easier working together. I strongly recommend it.

John's at Dreamation...blogging resumes Monday

2012-02-23T22:37:00.001-08:00

This weekend is a big gaming one for me. Dreamation 2012 is this weekend (I'm writing this post at the end of Day 1), so I don't know for certain exactly how much time I'll get in front of a PC for hours on end.

Just wanted to point out that blogging resumes on Monday, with some Dreamation wrap-up and then more writing theory.

Tone: What John Is Working On

2012-02-20T07:32:00.000-08:00

I'm dedicating today's post to three people, all of them have been incredibly, unbelievably and entirely nice, awesome and I am so fortunate to know them, work with them and talk to them. To Fred Hicks, Amanda Valentine and Chuck Wendig, thank you all so much for the support, encouragement and ass-kicking-when-necessary.

Today's post is a big personal admission. I'm doing this because I want to be transparent, and because I want to get better at something I really struggle with. And because I know if I say it here, people I know can then call me out on it when I have problems.

I struggle with my tone. And tone is incredibly important. I should explain what that is before this goes on....

Tone is how you sound to other people.

I don't want to say I suck at it, but let's agree to say that I need to work on it.

There are times when you want to sound professional. There are times when you want to sound casual. There are times when you want to sound superior to the people you're interacting with. There are times when you want to sound like the smartest person in the room. These are all, generally, separate times.

My problem is that I all too often fail to separate them. So there will be times when I'm talking to people I deeply respect, and I sound like a jerk. Or times when I am supposed to actually be the guy in charge and I sound like I just strolled in from the hammock in the back yard.

This comes from a few things, which I'll now detail. [Note: If you're looking for a place to escape this post, this would be the moment to bail. From here until the end, this gets personal, emotional and possibly raw.]

I am not used to being seen as 'professional'. Yes, I've been doing what I do for more than a decade. Yes, I possess quite a few skills and talents in the fields I work in. But to me 'professional' has been a term I sought to avoid being tagged with, because it conjured images of suits and ties and hating your job and coming home tired. I wanted to avoid all that. I still want to avoid all that - I love what I do and love that I can help people. But there is a way to be professional about it without being 'professional' in comportment.
I'm used to being the very smart fish in a very small isolated pond. Part of this is fear. I was afraid until very recently (read: last year) to step out of my little pond and check out other waters available to me. The problem with staying in the little pond is that I got to thinking I was the only smart fish. Anywhere. In all the waters. Forever. This fish's head GOT HUGE, so by the time I found out there were other waters, I thought I was god's gift to ichthyology. I was in fact not super-fish, just one more good fish. And more critically, there are in fact lots of other good fish in a lot of waters.
My self-esteem fluctuates like the national voting sentiment. Yes, I know, it's shocking: A writer whose emotions and confidence aren't the most regulated. Some days I feel great, and I can weather any storms, and other days, I just want to hang back and eat Oreos and goof off. Lots of people go through this, you say. Lots of people have it way worse, you say. And I totally know this, and I am thankful to be better off than most, believe me, I'm just admitting that my faith and belief in myself aren't always rock-solid. (Wearing the bathrobe does help, seriously, it's like a superhero cape)
I have not always had (or listened to) any supporters I may have. Funny life lesson: When you have a huge ego, it's really hard to see if anyone is supporting you. Not so funny life lesson: When you have a huge ego, it's really hard to get anyone to support you. So when that deflated a little (both through some failings and really uncomfortable but vital moments of 'hey-get-your-head-out-of-your-ass') into the created vacuum rushed supporters, as if they were just waiting for me to make one adjustment. I like to think they were just waiting, it sounds cheerier than the alternative.
I do not socialize easily. I can be social. I can even be mirthful and outgoing, but without some sort of context (like work) to bridge the gap, I often prefer not to socialize with new people, usually for the reasons mentioned above, but also because at times I come across poorly (read: bored, boring, distracted). If you know me, if we've broken that ice (even awkwardly or uncomfortably), I'm happy to fraternize with you, and even look forward to it. I think this comes from working essentially alone for 12+ hours a day, even with assistants and a dog, I don't see a lot of people, even if I dash out dozens of emails and hundreds of tweets. I need to do something about that.

So, I'm working on sounding better, sounding situationally-appropriate. Professional when I need to be (like mid-draft when I don't need to try so hard to make an impression - I already have the job), and comfortable when I should be (like in actual person-to-person conversation where I can/should do more than just being quiet and waiting for my turn to speak)

I am getting better at this, but oh man this is NOT easy and NOT fast. This isn't something to be corrected in one conversation one afternoon, I realize that now. (I mean I sort of understood that from the outset, I just thought I'd be better at it faster.) This is an on-going effort to break the old habits and drill into my head some new experiences and new perspectives so that I don't have to fall back on the "be the smartest guy in the room, be superior...or else" attitude.

What I'm asking you, yes you reader of my blog, is to help me out. When you and I get together, when we work together, when we meet and chat, help me be better. Let's have that conversation, let's talk about working together or laugh about that funny thing. I'm not saying push my tone to the limit, but I am saying, please, give me the opportunity to practice. And be patient. If I get all lecture-y or egoic, you likely don't have to jump down my throat and point a finger at me - I'm getting way better at catching myself (except in written comments, still have to work on how I come across on paper/screen), and when I apologize, I mean it sincerely. I am committed to getting better at this. Because you deserve better, and because I deserve better.

Dreamation approaches at the end of the week. I think it'll be an excellent road test of what I've learned so far, don't you?

Happy writing.

PS Later this week (Wednesday) I'm announcing the contest I should have announced last Friday.

PPS I promise we'll go back to talking about writing theory and practice this week. Thanks for reading this though.

What Not To Send An Editor Part 2

2012-02-16T22:28:00.000-08:00

As someone you can hire to help you write better, get published, get edited, improve your sales and get things done, I get a lot of strange requests and offers for help.

Previously, I started a list of what not to send me (or people like me) to get to help you. This is a continuation of that list.

REMEMBER - You can avoid making these mistakes by starting conversations and making things WAY less awkward. You can avoid ending up on lists like this one.

1. Please DO NOT send food OR food for any pets. This is not elementary school, I am totally not going to be swept off my feet because you made me rice krispie treats with peanut butter and bacon on them. And no, it's very likely you don't know the brand of dog food my dog prefers. And even if you send me these food items wrapped in cellophane and duct tape, I have no idea if there's a juicy bubonic / Dengue fever core in your baked goods. Any food I get is immediately trashed, unless I happen to know you and have eaten your cooking at least once before.

2. Please DO NOT send drugs. I don't care if your story is best read/edited after a few good bong hits and three tabs of acid. I don't care if you have a sweet connection for some Bolivian Marching Powder. DO NOT send me drugs along with your manuscript. Two things will happen - I call the police and I tell every agent/editor I can find not to talk to you.

3. Please DO NOT imply death threats or violence against individuals, families or pets. I'm really sorry that your writing career isn't taking off the way you hoped. I'm really sorry that you haven't bought that island with the royalties of your thirtieth novel. I'm really sorry that five agents rejected you in January, and that you have come to me as your last resort, and that if I don't some how miracle you a best-seller one of us "is going to have trouble in the near future". Or "that barking dog isn't going to bother you anymore". Just as with #2 above, should that happen, the police get called, my lawyer gets called and everyone I know hears about it.

4. Please DO NOT send "unrated" editions of your manuscript as a "bonus". It's so totally not a bonus to know that you have alternate versions of chapters 11-14 where the two protagonists engage in a steamy incestuous relationship involving mustard greens, decorative soaps and safe words with more than ten letters. If the agent or editor likes your work and wants to see it, send them what they're asking for.

5. Please DO NOT send encoded materials. Okay, it's cute, your manuscript has like a Da Vinci Code cipher going on. Great, there's a whole second act with anagrams and puns. Nifty. But if the agent/editor wants to see the work, they shouldn't have to break out their Little Orphan Annie decoder ring in order to read your work. Be sure to drink your Ovaltine and send them what they're asking for, not Roman ciphers and cryptogram paragraphs.

6. Please DO NOT think you're 'doing anyone a favor' by submitting your work. Okay, your query/pitch was intriguing, someone has asked to see more of your work. This is our job, this is what we do -- we're not singling you out from the human race and taking you aboard our space craft, nor are you the next great supreme chancellor of the galaxy. It's our job to look at work, and your job to send it.

7. Please DO NOT include extra material "for when there's down time" or "when you're bored". I'm not sure if you know this, but my editorial schedule is now booked through LABOR DAY 2012. I mean yes, I have a few days off here and there so I can do things like laundry and grocery shopping and maybe, if I'm lucky go out to dinner with friends or family, but huge chunks of each month have been booked (And some months, booked completely). When I get bored, I have loads of other things to do that aren't editing. Ask yourself - when you get bored at your job, do you do more work to get less bored? Didn't think so. If I say send me a chapter or a manuscript or whatever, that's all I want.

8. Please DO NOT sign me up for magazine subscriptions. If you are going to send me a package in the mail or via UPS or Fed Ex, please do not make use of whatever address I provide and sign me up for magazines, periodicals and random porn catalogs. I can use Google too, you're not showing me too much I haven't seen already.

9. Please DO NOT send a DVD along with your manuscript. If you send your manuscript and enclose with it a personalized DVD thanking me for reading your manuscript and/or considering taking you on as a client or student, do you want to know my first thought? That 90% of the time, these videos turn out like bad ransom demands from overseas. It's extra creepy, even if you use all the cool wipes and effects Adobe has to offer. Just send the manuscript. A thank you note/card/e-mail is totally appreciated after the fact, even if you get rejected.

10. Please DO NOT assume we're in some weird relationship. Okay, so someone in a position of authority has wanted to read your manuscript, that very intimate creation of yours where you risk your heart and soul to make it work. Yes, someone is paying attention to you, and is maybe even praising your skills. Don't freak out and confuse "working together" for "loving you". I love my clients the same way I love peanut butter, good NBA games, new dice and caffeine. But in none of those cases am I getting into a bed with them or whispering sweet nothings in their ear at 3am while we listen to the rain and wish we could dance for hours under the moon. You're a client. Not a spouse. Not a lover. Not a fling. Not even a masturbatory fantasy. DO NOT send your agent or editor love letters, intimate photos, locks of hair (of any kind) or detailed emails about what you did in the shower. Seriously. DO NOT DO THIS. IT WILL LEAD TO PEOPLE NOT WANTING TO BE ANYWHERE NEAR YOU. Not cool.

The weekend is coming. Hope you're going to be writing. Rock on.

I Fight For Gwen, and You Should Too.

2012-02-16T12:59:00.000-08:00

I'm writing this when I'm supposed to be running out the door to a workshop. And it's the verb in that sentence, the 'running' one, that makes me stop and think.

Time for a personal story:

I was born three months premature in the late 1970s, and I weighed less than a gallon of milk. I was kept warm with doll clothes and tin foil under heat lamps. My parents were regularly told I was not going to make it. Like several times a day for several months. Several local churches in my hometown area started blood drives so that I could keep living.

I grew up, eventually, I mean, I got bigger, I lived. But I didn't live easily. There were doctors and therapists and specialists and all different kinds of meetings I remember going to and sitting in awkward rooms with awkward people and I'd have to do the dumbest things before my mom or dad heard terrible terms like "no gross motor skills" "no fine motor skills" "neurologically impaired".

Oh, did I mention the cerebral palsy? I should probably throw that into the story here too.

So, my parents did the best they could to let me have a regular childhood. I had friends, I went trick-or-treating, I had birthday parties. But it came at a cost. A sniffle would send me home for weeks on end and when I did get sick, I got SICK. A 24-hour stomach bug became a 2-week stomach bug. (This may be where I developed my love of bathrobes though) And oh man, all those kid events (riding a bike, playing sports), well it was nice to watch other people do them. (I did always want a varsity jacket though, they looked soft and warm.)

My parents also wanted me to have the best education possible. And I was lucky enough to have the advantages of going to school where I did, and getting an IEP (Individualized Education Plan) that actually got followed. Sure, it was way embarassing to spend days after school learning how to use scissors or spend classes working on penmanship, but I was lucky.

I'm a grown-up now (Yeah, blows my mind too), and while I don't say much about my personal life anymore, the events of my childhood absolutely stuck with me. And when I find out about other kids, kids who maybe aren't so fortunate, or kids who need help the way I needed help, I'm going to do anything, everything, all the things possible to see that they get help.

This is why I'm fighting for Gwen. This is why when a state decides to act illegally and prevents a child from getting the opportunities she deserves, someone who can't even fight for themselves in the proper arena, those of us who can fight, who can speak up and speak out and help, have an obligation to do so greater than any dogma or social obligation.

This is someone's daughter, she needs help. When I needed help, people helped. It may not have been glorious or a financial windfall, but dammit, they helped.

Check out the website. Help in any and every way you can. Because this one time, it was for a little boy in New Jersey who just wanted to grow up so that one day he could have friends and go play and feel like he could belong somewhere and maybe be happy.

And now it's a beautiful little girl. Who loves punctuation. Who smiles and means the world to her parents.

And maybe next time, it's someone else's boy or girl, someone else's princess or little buddy and seriously, what's more important than helping a child be happy?

I'm late for my workshop. This post was totally worth it though.

Writing/Gaming - Character 101 - Part 6 - The Relationships

2012-02-14T06:44:00.000-08:00

This is Part 6 of the Character 101 Series. The previous parts can be found here.

Here's a brief summary:

Characters exist within a world that defines possibilities and suggest challenges
Characters have a set of abilities that distinguish them within the world and makes the reader want to inject themselves into the story
Characters are on a path that leads them through more than the book-plot.
Characters are more than a physical description, they also have mental and emotional attributes worth depiction.
Characters have a defined morality and philosophy that influences actions and decision-making, in more than just the plot.

Today, we could end Character 101 with this post. And it may end, if the recent traffic is any indication (either what I wrote was too deep or too boring), but let's give today a fair shake.

The last element of Character 101 can be expressed like this:

The character has relationships of varying depths, complexities and degrees so that the reader can see the created-person in a more complete context, and can sympathize/empathize.

It's a little appropriate that it's Valentine's Day as I write this bit about relationships. Today is the day for making mention of your relationships, even though I am of the part of the population that believes that if you're happy with your relationship, every day is/can be Valentine's Day in a new and different way, and that to commercialize love is the lowest form of obnoxious sales tactics and money hungry manipulation. But that's coming from me, so consider your sources......

Characters don't exist in a vacuum, they aren't adrift in some Void-space, they aren't just blobs of ink on the page. (Even if you did hurtle your character into the Void, it's likely you'd still make them think or feel stuff, so there would be some kind of bridge built to other characters). It's about those bridges that I want to focus today.

I am notorious for burning bridges and salting the earth. In the last few weeks, I've been launching an aggressive program to clean that up, because a lot of it comes from this horrifically insecure place and it's all misdirected anger and fear blah blah blah.....but it's really made me take a look at my relationships to other people and see just how I built those connections. (Yes, I did make a chart, shut up. They help).

Some of those connections are great, and I do not want to burn them. Some of these connections are awful, and I should do all that I can to put the past behind me and get some Grand Canyons between me and them. I say this not to bitch about my personal life, but to point out that through these relationships, you can get a sense of who I am and/or what I do and how I do it.

Characters are no different. You can look at their relationships and get a sense of who and what they are. Go get a legal pad, let's make a chart.

The Character Relationship Chart

note: Yes, you can do this more visually in a web, but I'm just blogging here, so I'll work linearly

1. At the top of the page, put the character's name (we'll call him A)

2. Write the name of the other character in the relationship (we'll call him B)with them (then in parentheses, write down the type of relationship next to the name)

3. List then a few phrases, adjectives, quotes or ideas that demonstrate how the character (A) feels about the other. (B)

Skip a line and repeat steps 2 and 3 until you have the character's relationships mapped out. Here's an example:

Character: Gordon Jeremiah Nevins

Bryan Alfred Nevins (brother)

* "What the hell trouble has he gotten himself into this time?"

* "Stupid dumb naive kid, but he's all I got."

* Begrudingly over-protective

* Only acts tired of the relationship.

Wynona (woman he sleeps with)

* Loves her, can't commit to her

* Would take a bullet for her, but wouldn't tell her that, in case someone has a gun handy

* "You look good" = "I love you"

By mapping out the relationships characters have with each other, you're able to also test their philosophies and see their paths play out over the course of the work. If your characters' relationships don't undergo growth from beginning to end (at least ONE of the parties involved has to change a little, otherwise readers are going to feel like they've wasted time and effort getting invested), then the sandbox they play in isn't testing them sufficiently.

Here's an example from my life:

When I was feeling very down, disputatious and grumpy I treated other people poorly, and gave many others the impression that I was in fact, a melo-dramatic asshole with delusions of grandeur. (Or something, I don't know, but it wasn't good). After a few rather intense conversations with people who actually gave a damn about me (rather than just giving a damn about the work I could do, or the benefits I could give them), I started to rehab my image and after some rather big-deal admissions of apology and truth, quite a few people came around. So, because I had a particular philosophy, the world I inhabited tested me a certain way, which lead me down a particular path, that brought me to certain experiences and plots. Only when I made an effort to change, to push myself and change my thinking, did I discover and occupy a new path, that led me to new experiences and plots.

It is through your characters' relationships that readers/players/consumers/others are able to draw a complete picture of the character. Just giving them a description and abilities is nice, but very bland and generic. Even if you throw in a moral code and a path, it's amorphous without a set of relationships to see it explored and strengthened/altered.

The point I'm making here is that all the elements of Character 101 are INTER-RELATED. To make those strong characters for people to gravitate towards, you need lay out all the pieces and get your Frankenstein on (put.the.candle.back.)

There's no doubt in mind that if you take care to go through each step in Character 101, your characters, big and small will exponentially intensify and be far more satisfying to both create and use.

Enjoy your Valentine's Day. Happy writing.

Writing/Gaming - Character 101 - Part 5 - The Path

2012-02-06T10:22:00.000-08:00

Good afternoon everyone, I hope you're enjoying the post-Super Bowl glut of breakdowns of commercials and the halftime show. And for the record, I don't know why they did that thing with the thing on that commercial. Yeah, it was unbelievable.

Shall we do some writing today? We're continuing Character 101, you can catch up with Part 4 here.
This is more a "Writing" post. The "Gaming" version will go up later, I'm still putting it together.

Today we're going to look at "The Path", which is the course for the character is on before, during, and after this particular plot of this particular book.

The rule can be expressed like this:

A path, that when started, will lead through the designated plot and result in change (either positive or negative) from his starting state

Characters need to do things. Without actions, characters are formless humps, full of potential, but without the ambition, focus or interest to do anything. Often, people draw up wonderful concepts of characters and fail to deliver on that potential, chiefly because they either set the bar too high (making the character into a superhero, without elevating the plot) or they ignore the plot’s linear motion in an effort to show just how flawed the character is.

There has to be a progression for these characters that starts either on page 1 or even before page 1, and lead them until the last word on the last page, or even beyond. (You can imply or infer that people either began or will continue something when appropriate). I am not suggesting you place the character “on rails”, narrowly limiting the scope of the character growth to a particular strain – a character that only grows through the specific actions you shows is boring, no matter what those actions are, and is also unrealistic.

This path is NOT the plot, as in; it is NOT ONLY the specific actions of the plot (it’s not about ONLY defusing the bomb, saving the woman from the burning building or discovering that he loves babies) but the path of the character must at times join with the plot.

Key words there? “AT TIMES”.

If you rigidly and inflexibly adhere to the plot as the only tool that gives a character growth, then your book is going to be lean, because if you only need a main plot, then absent are the character arcs (which are the native tool for growth) and the sub or secondary plots (which are the native tool for connection between characters and the world). Also, without any deviation or wiggle-room, this main plot better be absolutely riveting, and can NEVER let me go. That’s a great deal of pressure to put on one set of actions. Don’t do it.

Characters in any story are not only limited to the plot, we (the reader) are only meeting/seeing/interacting with the character when they MEET this plot. It’s a snapshot of their life, and we get to tag along for however long or crazy this ride is. This idea that a character is on a particular path greater than the plot is critical for firming up the idea that the character is INDEPENDENT of the plot, and exists, fully-formed in dimension and detail large and small.

Where the character and plot intersect, there has to be an impact, like two items colliding. The plot has to have an effect on the character; otherwise the character has no reason to be invested in it (and neither will the audience). The plot, for all the twists and turns and new scenes it brings to the character is going to change the character. And maybe yes, the plot is going to change that already-started path (redemption is good for this, for example) but for the most part, the plot and this particular book is just a slice or section of the character’s overall path.

Now, to speak more pointedly of the plot, the plot has to matter to the character, because the two form a cycle:

Character Acts to Impact the Plot -->> The Plot Evolves and Presents New Challenges -->> And the Character Acts to Impact the Plot Anew

And the character has to matter to the plot, because if the plot is beyond the scope of the character, then there can be no investment or hope to make a difference. Without the help of the plot, remember, it is just a snapshot of the overall growth, then the character’s growth is stunted.

The path is never fixed, and no end result is guaranteed. But the path contains the plot, and a limitless number of similar conflicts (in terms of emotional or psychological weight, not necessarily the physical events – how many times can terrorists threaten the globe?) If we were to chart it, it would be this:

|| Character at start of the story >> Actions that define who/what the character is based on experiences seen and unseen to date >> Plots that challenge and expand definition >> Continued maturity and resolution of problems >> Character Conclusion ||

The acts that define the character are not necessarily those given at an early age, or through flashback. This is where the developed philosophy of the character is interwoven with the character description and the boundaries of the world to create a character-in-context. Events transpire some large (like the possible plot of this story) and some small (plot of another story) that lead to the evolution of the character in philosophy, action and description. Eventually, the character reaches a point of maturity, having been presented with all manner of challenge and overcome all level of odds. It is at this point, the writer may move on from the character, retiring or killing it off as warranted.

Remember: The path does not have to be positive. Negative traits are as compelling as positive traits (or moreso) depending on how they’re told.

Remember: The path is NOT ONLY the plot.

Remember: All elements of Character 101 work together and regularly intersect. So yes, the Path can be shaped by Morality, Abilities, Description and the character's Sandbox.

How have you found your experience with Character 101 to be? I'd love to hear about it. Leave me a comment or find me online.

Happy writing.

Writing/Gaming - Character 101 - Part 4 - Morality

2012-02-03T08:03:00.000-08:00

Good morning everyone. We're continuing Character 101 today, so if you need to catch up on the previous posts, go here and here and here.

Today's a little crunchy, so you might want to get a glass of water and read this a few times.

We've so far looked at what can best be described as external qualities. We've talked about the world, some character description and some character abilities. Let's get into this though, let's be serious about our craft and our characters and make these creations live and breathe. I mean, you don't have to, but I think it'll help you out.

Today's Character 101 rule can be expressed like this:

A clear and distinct morality, set of principles and philosophy that an audience can see tested and explained throughout the story

Keywords:

clear and distinct morality
set of principles and philosophy
audience sees it tested and explained THROUGHOUT the story

When I was a young writer, I was mentored and taught by a great man, fiercely brilliant, absolutely not governed at all by anything other than his own rules and one of the most encouraging teachers I've ever experienced. He's long dead now, but this lesson, and most of Character 101 is my homage to him.

We start with a quote of his.
"Characters have beliefs; even if they are not expressed by the author or conceived of in great detail there exists within each character a philosophy, even if that character is built with a single purpose or for a single instance. "

What I didn't understand about that quote, where the magic trick is in that quote is the idea that characters have beliefs even if I (the guy who wrote the character) didn't flesh them out.

Hearing that as a punk kid, that sounded stupid. Characters are things I made up, right? They occupy the spaces I give them, do what I tell them? Sure, they can do that. They can be puppets who follow scripts and linear actions like stiff automatons. And when you're a bit of a control freak, or scared to do anything other than express control, that's great for characters.

Move your chess pieces. Watch them dance on your strings.

Over time, with practice, with experience, with heartache, with passion, you don't have to control them. They're more than just extensions of a single part of your personality or just creations who follow some simple program. They are partly fueled by your imagination, and when you take that off the leash, you'll be amazed by what you can discover characters do.

I didn't get that when I younger. It sounded florid and spacy and I probably said it was "kinda gay". And then I grew up and learned that there's more to writing than sitting in place and typing for six hours, but also that there's nothing less than that too.

That quote clicked for me when I was reading a comic book. I was upset, I was alone, I was pissed off, and I was reading Batman. And for whatever reason, perhaps because it was a visual medium, there was more said in a look between characters than you can ever do in a block of text.

It was like the story was occurring even when I wasn't reading the comics. Like the characters had things happening while I was reading Superman, watching TV or wishing I was anywhere other than where I was.

Big click.

When that quote says“explained” it certainly does NOT mean that the simple statement of beliefs is given in exposition, although there are times when it can be advantageous, depending on style or nuance -- But you don't have to have some big block of text saying "THIS IS WHAT I BELIEVE IN" because you're supposed to be better than that.

Leave it for dialogue; leave it for the emotions and subtext. Making it too clear, too visible, when the story by nature does not support it, cheapens it. It turns characters, who you create to be as close or better than humans you co-exist with, into caricatures and parody. And in gaming for example, it makes you sound like one of those bad RPGs where people only can say things like "It is nice day here yes in City?" and other Engrish.

No genre is spared the necessity of characters with morals. Not even in the most lowbrow crude comedy is there a character devoid of ambition based on a belief, even if that belief is something as small and finite as “I’m going to lose my virginity before the end of the school year.”

Everyone believes in something. Figure out what, and you'll also discover how to express that belief to the audience.

So, the question then becomes, how do you create that morality? How do we develop philosophies for characters?

Here are two methods, described below:

Actions -> Reasons for Actions -> Philosophy

(What) (Why Do The What) (What Gets Believed)

Stated belief > Action in defense of position

(Say It) (Do Something About It)

First we have an action-oriented approach, something that works best for characters of small purpose or minimal import. By looking at their actions, we can develop reasons for the actions, and from those reasons, create a philosophy.

The guy/NPC/background mook who cheers on the heroes during a fight, does it because it shows that the heroes have support. The random person who tells the detective something in passing that resonates seven chapters later. That's an action provoked by a reason that in turn becomes a philosophy.

This is a clear, causal relationship that we can understand especially when not all characters have more than one or two things to do or say.

However, as we add complexity and depth to the characters and situations those characters find themselves in, we must shift from the clear A to B progression and try the reverse: that a stated belief leads to an action.

While this is more complex in a writing capacity, it is more intuitive as people, because we interact with people based on their statements and pursuant to their actions.

You go out with the guy because he makes you laugh because he does what he says he does. You married your spouse because she made you feel something positive on a consistent basis. You hang out with those people because you all share a hobby or believe in the same principles. You think that librarian is great because they helped you when no one else would even give you ten seconds of attention.

You decide what you believe in, then you go do something about it. (Here again, we see Rule #1 - Writing Is The Act of Making Decisions) If you do it, the character(s) can do it.

To reach these decisions, you must BE the character, giving them full faculties and capabilities independent of the story and the context of the story. Yes, you can argue that it is the story that shapes them, therefore you must put them into context, HOWEVER you must divorce the character from the story and the plot when you create the character. The proximity to the current story, and the temptation to use current-story material is too great a risk for the writer: how easily our characters become malleable when viewed only in the current plot.

Because our characters are our reflections, shadows and desires put into text, we must make all efforts to see them as living breathing beings that only happen to exist in our minds. I am not advocating schizophrenia, but rather a full-fledged imaginative experience, creating an idea so complex and rich with detail that it exists for more reasons than a single plot warrants.

Remember: This is a cooperative process, a great contract you’ve entered into with your reader, so please, do your part and make your end as interesting and exciting as possible.

Gamers embody this in the most obvious of ways, assuming to even ACT as the characters to drive the interactions. I do think writers would be well-served to try a little role-play now and then...and if not, at least go talk to people who excite you about whatever you love. It's a lot easier to do this when you're fired up than when you're dreading it.

So what can you do about it? Have you ever tried writing down what you believe in? Get that legal pad, get to writing. Do the same thing for the big characters. Try to do it for the small characters, even if it's just one line (the politician wants to win the election at all costs, the grocer wants to retire happy) related to the plot. The more you can list, the richer that character becomes and the less 'like a character' they are.

I end today with another quote (Sid had great quotes)

"Characters, John, are what we have when we're not thinking about what WE can do but what WE want to make happen."

Happy writing. Enjoy your weekends.

Fiction Tuesday #2

2012-01-30T21:22:00.000-08:00

Only one piece today....a longer one.

We went back to our hotel room, cleaned ourselves thoroughly and spent the rest of the day not more than ten feet apart. I told Claire all that I saw upon my return to the ledge, of the man-beast with white teeth and how the body lay out as if a meal. We sat in the room for a while, considered ordering stiff drinks and leaving for home immediately, but we had arranged to meet Stanley and Elizabeth Tortlebank, and agreed that seeing our friends would help allay our states.

Dinner with Stanley and Elizabeth was filled with lively conversation. Stanley recently returned from Ceylon, having served with some distinction in some manner of military campaign, and Elizabeth was eager to discuss her plans for her father-in-law’s, the Lord Tortlebank, approaching birthday. Over our second bottle of wine, they came to ask us if we enjoyed our day. I had prepared a blanched set of lies to tell them but Claire, having emptied her glass in a smooth motion spoke first.

“We came to find a tunnel, with a creature in it.”

I could scarcely deny her and blame the wine when the pair pressed me for confirmation and details. Claire was animated and I felt sufficient pressure as to detail the whole experience. Stanley barely bristled at my depiction, but Elizabeth curled against her husband’s side and seemed to clench him tightly upon my description of the teeth in particular.

Tired now, we retired to our room but not before Stanley quietly mentioned to me how that in the morning, he would like to see this tunnel and the creature, and he would bring with him his 1895 Winchester and his Farquharson, of which I am intimately familiar.

Upon the next morning, we sent Claire and Elizabeth into town with a sizeable amount of money, and instructions to ‘shop and be splendid’. They departed from us with kisses and smiles, only after we assured them we’d not look for trouble directly.

Stanley was dressed in dark browns and denim, and I in my white shirt and work pants. Both of us had shaved and looked particularly smart, as if without the guns we would be two gentlemen at the snooker table or attending a matinee. Out in the rowboat before 10 on my pocket watch, we reached the small island quickly. We pulled the small craft onto the shore and were to the small stone building in moments.

I walked into the room and opened the trapdoor. Before entering, we sat a moment in the room and Stanley draped a medallion over his neck. It was not a crucifix proper, rather a large crucifix with a round disc behind it. He wore his on a leather thong, and handed one to me, instructing me not to take this off until we were back with Claire and Elizabeth. I found the instruction odd, but complied. The guns were then loaded and I handled the Farquharson with ease, before slinging it over my shoulder. Thinking we were ready to go, I stood, but Stanley bade me sit and began the conversation that I relate to you here.

Writing/Gaming - Character 101 - Part 3: Abilities

2012-01-30T10:01:00.000-08:00

We continue our look at Characters today. If you need to catch up - Part 1 and Part 2.

So far we've built a world with challenges for our characters, and we've given our characters some descriptive elements and attributes. Today we're going to start diving into the meat of characters. Today's component usually comes later in the series, but I've moved it ahead because it's a nice springboard into the more detail material.

Component 3 of Character 101 is Abilities, and can be expressed like this:

Ability or abilities that differ from audience experience, such that an audience will desire to be like (or against) the hero.

Put more simply, this means distinguishing themselves from "the crowd" by doing different things than "the crowd".

For superheroes, the answer is obvious - they can fly around and lift buildings. For detectives, they solve crimes. Every character, has some trait marking them as unique...even if that uniqueness is unto themselves. Generally, if you're going to name a character, they've got something worth knowing about. Maybe not on that first page we see them, maybe not even in this plot, but somewhere, you had a thought that a particular character had something to offer.

Gamers, this is where mechanics can tie in - those things characters do, those things that make them unique - there should be mechanics to support them. Even if the mechanics are story telling opportunities or narrative concepts, there should be SOME kind of mechanics making it possible for the players to do it too (because, if you've not figured this out, the players want THEIR characters to be in the spotlight the way a novel's characters are)

When we write these abilities, since we're writing characters that are going to do something, and likely that's something other people won't have a chance to do (otherwise you wouldn't be singling out this character for this story, would you?) the audience has to have a little envy - it adds to appeal.

We read about wizards because we are not wizards. We read about the genius billionaire crime fighter because we don't have a cave and a secret identity. While these characters are like us, they aren't exactly us - their deviance from our norm is what makes them memorable and attractive.

The same can said for villains. The reason we dislike the evil criminal is because he acts in a way we don't and more specifically a way that evokes a reaction from us.

You want to create abilities that evoke reaction from the audience. Ideally, you've also expressed HOW those abilities operate and given good context to express any "rules" for them. (Does flying require sprouting wings? Does the detective use technology to solve his crime? Does the wizard have to shout in a foreign language when obliterating his opponents?).

Sometimes the plot and character will do something and elicit from the audience a strong response. Sometimes it's celebratory (Yay, he blew up the Death Star) sometimes though it's shock (What do you mean he killed himself to save his friends?). When you're able to create a character that evokes that type of response, you know the character is strong in the minds of the reader/audience.

We don't always want to root for the hero. We want the hero to win, we want to be along for the ride, but we need not agree with them every step of the way - and I would go so far as to say we shouldn't always agree.

Just like in television and movies when you yell at the screen, "Of course he's not the father, Maury!" or "Don't go out into the barn to have sex you anonymous attractive teenagers, the killer is out there!" the act of disagreeing with the actions of the hero (on more than a this-is-just-crappy-writing level) shows that the audience is invested.

Gamers, you create investment by offering options. This is not to say you need to offer then a bazillion options, or even the same options as your more successful competitor, but you do need to make the player aware that they can do....stuff. And it's not always the amount of stuff that's important, but more the impact of those options. Anyone can roll a die or move a miniature, but the player who feels that what they do and can do matters to the world they participate in, is invested. That's your goal.

So when crafting the experiences of your readers, players and consumers, look at what the characters do that empowers them to be different and distinguishing. And put the spotlight on it. Everyone will thank you for it.

Later in the week we dive into the much deeper waters of character philosophy (and I'll even talk about alignment for my gaming friends).

Happy writing.

Writing/Gaming - Character 101 Part 2 - Character Description

2012-01-27T10:50:00.000-08:00

This is part two of the Character 101 series. The first part is available here.

Earlier this week, we talked about the importance of defining a world and having limitations within that world so that a particular character can be tested, and hopefully overcome those challenges.

While that's great advice, I'm sure many of you have said (and judging by my inbox, some did) "That's great but what about the character? How can the first step in character building be about anything other than characters?"

I point here, as I did to those who asked that for better defined characters, their world is as much a part of them as their clothes or eye color. Batman has Gotham and the Batcave. Superman has Metropolis and Krypton, Harry Dresden has Chicago, Coburn has his apocalypse.

If you can find me a well-crafted character where their world is not a part of them in an intrinsic way, please let me know, I'm curious.

Today, we look at something very concrete and very directly tethered to character.

The rule for part 2 can be summarized like this:

A description that contains audience-relatable elements of either a physical or emotional/mental nature

Your keywords here:

audience-relatable
physical
emotional
mental

We have all read poor character descriptions. I don't mean descriptions that are intentionally undone (where the author chooses not to give details so that the audience can paint their own pictures), I mean descriptions where they give all the components poorly.

Like here:

Terry worked long hours at the dock. He was a blond, although dirty in both hair and skin. He was tall, but no bigger than the others he worked with. He was strong but not weighed down with muscle.

Yes, I made those sentences up, and yes, they're really bad, but they're bad on purpose. Notice how the description starts with Terry's occupation...an all too-common notion is that if we (readers) know what a person does, we can pigeonhole them. (We make blanket statements that someone of X job looks a certain way, or that by describing someone by their profession, we eliminate a lot of other allegedly relevant descriptors -- and by extension, when you mash a profession onto a set of descriptors that seems inappropriate, you create dissonance and a disconnect for readers)

From there, we move into a messy attempt at double-meanings, trying to tie 'dirty blonde' with dirty-from-work. We end with two ruinous sentences where the respective second halves cancel out the first halves. If a character is no taller than others, then they're not tall. 'Tall' is only capable if you have something not-'Tall' for comparison.

When describing something, the majority of the words used can create perspective. And the use of that word creates a proposition that an opposite concept also occurs. (You cannot understand up if you don't know down, or wet without dry). The character doesn't need to exist in both states, but they do need to exist in whatever states you say they do, and consistency is key. If Terry is tall, then he's tall compared to something-to-be-named-later that is "short". Don't trust that the reader will intuit their own perspectives (I'm talking to you game people -- there are mechanics and dice to resolve these issues) and come to the same ideas you have.

If you want the character to be a certain way, be decisive and clear about it. Game people, if you want the players to act a certain way, then you need to be a little obvious that the particular situation you're putting players into has clear options (even if there are many many options, make that clear).

Returning to the specifics of description, readers look for 3 types of description. These don't need to be successive, they're not hierarchical and you don't need to do them all at once, but you do need to do them at some point before you get too far into your work.

I. Physical - This is everything tangible and directly observable about the character. The goal is not to drown the reader in broad information too quickly (then statements get lost and it detracts from importance) but rather provide for them multiple concepts for them to attach to (this is a variation of Velcro theory - you supply them concrete details that they affix their edduced aspirations onto).

II. Emotional - This is a subcutaneous level of description, wherein you describe how the character feels at whatever moment they're being witnessed. If we're on page 30, and the character has just discovered their best friend's wife murdered (hours after sleeping with her), then you can provide us the sum total of emotions up to and including page 30. Yes, this whole story might be resolved by page 340, but here on page 30, we can only work with what we have to date.

Gamers, do not overlook this level of detail - as your NPC emotions are most often impacted by interaction with PCs and all manner of circumstances around pre-existing agendas. (The megalomaniac going to blow up the city is going to have an emotional reaction to the players diffusing his bomb, for example)

III. Mental - This is a harder nut to crack, unless you're writing in the first-person and can use your exposition to develop this. Mental description is a sense of how more than what specifically a character is thinking. Yes, in the immediate sense, the what should be apparent (it's relevant to the scene/moment), but because sometimes characters aren't actually powered with cogs and drive-belts, you only get a secondhand sense of "gears turning".

Mental description is a chance to see the character's planning skills, their intelligence and their understanding of motivations and consequences in action. This is commonly expressed in mysteries as the moment when the sleuth gathers all the suspects together and explains who the killer is. Or the final moments of a heist when the mastermind reveals the plot has been on-going since page one, sentence one.

The composite of these three factors builds a full character. To get you started, here are some questions to fire up your character forges:

I. Physical

Aside from the obvious details of what the character looks like, what traits are they proud of? Ashamed of? Effort to hide? Effort to show off?
What things would this character change about their appearance if the circumstances allowed it?
How important to the character are the aspects of his physical description? Does he value his height? Does he identify himself by his physique? Does she draw pride from her eyes?

II. Emotional

What gets this character out of bed in the morning? What would send them running back beneath the blankets for a do-over?
Can you identify your character's three most frequent emotional states? What causes each one?
Imagine a fight between this character and their nemesis. What buttons are getting pressed, and whose doing the pressing? Now imagine this same fight between this character and someone they loved.

III. Mental

Is this the sort of character others go to for help and guidance, or is this a character who seeks out others? (Or are they only seeking others out for approval of their own plans?)
How far ahead does this character plan? Does that plan include contingencies? If you had to sum up the character's planning ability in a word, what word would you use?
Does this character overthink? Does this character fly by the seat of their pants?

I hope these questions help you, I have others if you're curious.

Next week we'll add more to characters, and I'll revisit our sample character Timmy. Enjoy your weekend.

Happy writing.

Fiction Tuesday #1

2012-01-24T06:55:00.000-08:00

I'm going to try something new today. Every Tuesday I'll post two prompts and two short pieces of fiction. My hope is that this will keep my writing chops flexed as well as be an interesting chronicle of where my brain goes when I'm bored.

Prompt 1 - An Experience You Don't Understand

The café stank of stale sweat and staler beans. It was not a crowded place, which Charles liked, but it was a place of regulars and locals for him to disappear into.
    And he wanted to hide. After all the running he did, hiding seemed like a natural progression. So here, tens of thousands of miles away from that little town with its little school and little people, Charles got lost, with some vain hop that this is how he’d be found.
    Tonight was night twenty-three, and he was starting to think that maybe people stopped looking. His hair had gone shaggy, his beard wild, and the furnace of daytime sun scorched him to almost mocha.
    He could pass for a local if he didn’t make eye contact or open his mouth. He’d be just another Yank otherwise, a pasty tourist with a ridiculous camera who put on too much sunscreen and worried about missing a tour bus.
    When he was that Yank, and the bus stopped down the road from the café for gas, he did trot out his camera and embarrass himself. But he though he found home in those photos, so to there he would return one day, even if he could not understand the pull he felt deep in his gut.
    That day, he decided, was 3 weeks ago, just after he quit that waste of a job mowing lawns and flicked his last cigarette into Mrs. Mirkin’s dead rosebush.
    Night twenty-three and the coffee didn’t taste exotic anymore. Maybe he needed a woman, or a cigarette or one of the two-dozen beers the restaurant below his apartment offered.
    He wasn’t lonely; he wasn’t sad, but he was empty. As empty here as when he was back ‘home’. Maybe it was time to run. He had some money – enough for a train ticket or a boat ride. If he left now he could be somewhere new by morning, eating something new by lunch and sleeping somewhere new by dinner. Charles felt like such a tourist.
    And a coward. He didn’t leave. He stayed there, in that stinky room in the old chair and watched dirty people smoke third-rate tobacco and complain of farming and goats and gas prices.
    Coward. Tourist. He finished his coffee. Day twenty-four would start soon.

Prompt 2 - A Childhood Attack

It was a cruel and horrible creature, staring me down at the all-too-tender age of three. Me: eager, excited, hand laden with popcorn. It: monstrous but cute in that I-won’t-harm-a-fly-while-I-attack-you-serial-killer way. That’s what they do to lure you in.
    Damn that pig.
    Granted, I knew better. I should have laid my hand flat rather than pinch my fingers together, but I was three, and rebellion was inherent in my nature.
    So when the pig gnashed its porcine maw at my small squirrelly fingers, I squealed. I don’t know and I don’t care what the pig did, if it sat there and plotted to eat the rest of me or if it went wee wee wee all the way home, but I bled. Great three-year-old-gouts of crimson.
    My mother, the saint, took me in her arms and brought me to the petting zoo (petting death camp more likely) aid station where two yokels with half a brain cell between them looked at my wound and did the best a collective two-digit IQ could – they handed my mother a single old yellowed band-aid, crusty from age, and let her tend to me. Top flight medical team they were.
    To the hospital we sped, away from that rotten place and toward modern medicine’s sterile embrace. Tiny stitches went into my tiny fingers, no crusty band-aids here, and I was on the mend in no time.
    We never went back to that zoo, nor do I eat pork now, but I am somewhat reassured that chain link fence went up into place after my accident, or as I call it, the time my tiny life was almost snuffed out by walking bacon.
    The fences probably aren’t high enough. Pigs are crafty, all curly tails and twisted hearts of mayhem.

Your thoughts are welcomed.

Happy writing.

Writing/Gaming: Character 101 - Part 1: Overview & 'The Sandbox'

2012-01-23T08:11:00.000-08:00

Good morning. On this particularly sleety and craptastic morning (the ground and the sky are the same color. I'm not sure if that counts as a Lovecraft moment or not), I want to start the new series on this blog, Character 101.

This series will be in up to 8 parts....(definitely 6, but there are two additional components we can bring in later). Now some of you have heard me talk about the first 6 steps when I taught this as a workshop 2 years ago - but a lot has changed since then, so update your notes. And unlike those previous workshops I'm not going to cover the whole list up front and reference it in every post. (So pay attention, and ask questions/leave comments if you get lost)

Character 101 is a series of posts aimed at ANYONE doing ANYTHING involving characters. This applies to novelists, short story writers, screenwriters, game designers, module creators...even somewhat to board and card game people, (though not all parts would apply there).

Much like my previous post about characters not being awful, this is more a walk-through on how to specifically do that - and although I don't present the components in order of magnitude, every piece is an equal facet in making the gemstone that is your character.

Granted, if you're only making some secondary characters or NPCs or background fluff, you don't need to do all these steps. Maybe apply one or two. But if you want your main characters: your protagonists, antagonists, chief NPCs, mentors, sidekicks, love interests, bullies, your fan favorite characters to stand out and get some attention (like eye-popping, 'Wow' attention), then this whole series will benefit you.

Now, let's go make your characters better.

Character 101 - Part 1 - The Sandbox

The Sandbox rule can be written out as follows:

A set of boundaries and a playground within those boundaries that is at times limiting or limited, causing the character to be tested.

If you had to highlight the key parts for this rule, look at the beginning and end of the sentence:

set of boundaries
a playground
at times limiting or limited
causing the character to be tested

No character should exist in a vacuum. They don't just float aimlessly in Void-space, nor should they. They need to have some sort of area where they exist. Sometimes, this is a whole world, or on a more localized sense, this could just be the place(s) where the action occurs.

If we're writing the classic Oscar the Grouch novel, then we're likely talking the trash can on Sesame Street and the surrounding areas. If you want to craft a game about masterless samurai in feudal Japan, then you'll probably want a province, a town or two and the surrounding forests.

Basically, the 'playground' I'm talking about here is the world of the character. Even if that means the whole world, don't freak out and think that you have to create this monstrous real-time updating construct and deal with every living thing and every event on it all the time - you don't. You only need to concern yourself with the world of the character.

If I'm the character, then right now, all you'd be writing about is me in my immediate surroundings (the office in the house), my immediate goals (to write this post then go do laundry) and maybe my plans for later in the day (go out and meet new clients). Notice that you don't have to consider...the fate of a Sierra Leone diamond mine or the traffic in Acapulco when you're working with me as a character. Yes those things exist, but they're not in the scope of THIS character, and therefore not part of what you need to add to the recipe.

Over time, you'll discover that the playground for a particular character doesn't have to be so large in order to be "good".

Note: As I've said elsewhere, you're really going to do yourself a disservice the more you hang on to notions of "good" "right" "best" or "is it okay if..." as all those thoughts are subjective and contextual. Kill that doubt and move forward. If you need help, ask.

So, to build the best world for your character, think about their routine. Think about where they live. Think about what they do. Your set up here is to be concrete initially. Facts and statements are ideal right now. Those basic Who/What/When/Where questions come in handy here (we leave off Why and How for the moment)

Yes, you can easily get a legal pad and make a chart.

Let's suppose I was going to make a character called....Timmy, so my chart starts like this:

Timmy the Character

Wakes up every morning at 8
Is currently a 'salad technician' at a restaurant
Is 18
Lives with his parents in a condo on 16th Street

No, I didn't prioritize those facts, I just listed the things that came to mind as I sat here. There really isn't a best order of magnitude, as this first column is just to list some of the pieces of Timmy's world.

So those are Timmy's facts, and in turn they are also boundaries. Timmy is 18, so he won't have the experiences of a 90 year old war veteran. He's male, so he won't know anything about the struggles of being a girl in middle school. He wakes up at 8, so he isn't going to have the same experiences as the crackhead who sleeps all day. Facts are good, and facts are boundaries. (Without these boundaries, Timmy is essentially an omnipotent, omnipresent, limitless deity).

Because Timmy is limited we've now planted the seeds for desire. Think of your own life here as well, you may be reading this at a job you no longer love, you may be reading this late at night because you're afraid what your spouse will say if you tell them you want to be a writer, you may be reading this thinking, "I could do a better job..." Whatever the reason you provide, there is a desire you can tether to the fact.

Let's go back to Timmy and see if we can find some desires for him based on the facts we gave. (If you're making a chart, these desires are a second column)

Timmy the Character

Wakes up every morning at 8 >> Wants to sleep in longer
Is currently a 'salad technician' at a restaurant >>Wants to be a professional sculptor
Is 18 >> hates that people think he's a 'dumb kid'
Lives with his parents in a condo on 16th Street >> wants to move into his own apartment downtown, nearer to where he's seen college-age girls

Whenever you create limits on a character, you also plant the seed to exceed or overcome those limits. And yes, the character should want to overcome those limits (those conflicts are plot points) and the method the character goes about moving from his limitation toward his goal is essentially a plot unto itself.

You could stop here with the chart, but you can also go one step further to see how each plot develops. (This would be a third column on your chart)

Timmy the Character

Wakes up every morning at 8 >> Wants to sleep in longer >> Starts setting his alarm later and later, angering his mother
Is currently a 'salad technician' at a restaurant >>Wants to be a professional sculptor >> Applies for a class in sculpting at night school
Is 18 >> hates that people think he's a 'dumb kid' >> Spends all his free time reading college textbooks and trying to sound like a grad student.
Lives with his parents in a condo on 16th Street >> wants to move into his own apartment downtown, nearer to where he's seen college-age girls >> Intentionally gets off at the wrong subway and bus stops so he can be around girls, hoping they notice him

We've built Timmy up pretty quickly, and given him a lot of different qualities and possibilities for our stories, games and wherever else we want to deploy him.

The key to that third column is that the plan the character undertakes to make the second column happen SHOULD NOT BE EASY. If it were easy, the character would have done it already, and they wouldn't be limited by it not-being-done. The challenge for the character is critical for the audience to emotionally invest in the character - we want to see him succeed (or not, if he's an antagonist), and we will only get to do that if we see the actions taking time and being done over the course of pages/chapters/sessions/etc.

If a character's desire (also called a motivation) goes untested, then it isn't important enough for us to hear about. Having said that, let me also say that you don't need to detail EVERY motivation and develop them all before advancing your story.

Remember Rule #1 of Writing - Writing is the act of making decisions. You decide what motivations to pursue, when, and to what degree. You decide how to express the desires and the plans and their consequences.

The short formula for today's lesson:

1. The world of the character is the immediate facts and desires they experience/want

2. The desires are goals they've not yet realized and they will have to work (change their current state) to achieve them.

3. The plan they develop and engage to sate these desires is material for plot.

Welcome to Character 101.

In part 2 (due out later this week) we'll talk about character descriptions.

Happy writing.

(If you have questions or comments about today's lesson, leave some comments below. I would love to hear from you.)

What NOT To Send An Editor

2012-01-21T18:01:00.000-08:00

As a consulting writer, I see a lot of submissions, either from people who send me their work and want an opinion, or people who send me their work hoping it will lead me to taking them on as a client.

Here's a small word of advice - If you'd like to be my client, talk to me a bit BEFORE you send your manuscript/masterpiece/board game/script/etc, if only for a few reasons:

1. It is entirely possible you won't like HOW I work.
2. It is entirely possible that you won't like how much I charge.
3. It is entirely possible I won't like how you comport yourself.
4. It is entirely possible that what you want to do/have done is not something I actually can assist you with. (Like website coding, managing your finances, making your ex realize the error of their ways or helping you figure out what to wear)

Talking to me first (send me an email or find me on Twitter if you want more immediate conversation) is a good idea. AND IT'S FREE. Take advantage of it.

Now, this evening, as I wait for things to be backed up online and people to reply to emails, I dig into my pile of "Things To Be Read" and grab a pen. This pile has already been vetted by TWO people by the time it reaches me, so usually, the contents of this pile are either things I need to follow up with, or fantastic teaching opportunities. Or they're stellar shining examples of great work that I don't shut up about.

But sometimes, things stay in the pile because they're so.......bad (let's be honest here) that, as the kids say, they're there for the "lulz".

Not "Oh wow this is comedy gold", but "Oh wait, no, no this has to stop, please, I beg you, no more". And it is to that point I speak tonight.

Please DO NOT SEND THE FOLLOWING THINGS TO AN EDITOR, EVER:

1. Please do not send your fan-fiction, relationship melodrama or "rewrites" of your favorite TV shows. Yes, I get it, you didn't like the whole Dawn-is-a-Key angle in Buffy, but that doesn't mean I want to read 300 pages about how you'd turn Dawn into a Slayer who kills with BDSM sex powers. Nor do I care that you think 'Huddy' was the ruination of House.

Chances are that what sinks your fan fiction isn't the premise but the execution. You may have some very valid perspectives and takes on an existing world. You may suggest some interesting plot variants. But the quality of your writing.....well, let's just say it should be professional. That means yes, check your spelling and grammar, and yes please oh please use paragraphs, complete sentences and punctuation.

2. Please do not beg that I take you on as a client. Yes, you may be the 99%. Yes, you may be deeply afflicted by terrible phobias and illnesses, and yes that is unfortunate. You may be the victim of abuses or neglect or short or tall or hungry or whatever you are -- but it is my job to make your work better and make you a better producer of that work, NOT get you over some therapeutic hump so that you can THEN get around to writing. I am not Freud, Jung, Rogers or Skinner. If you need help, get help. I'm here to help your work, and by extension, you - not the other way around.

3. Please do not send photos of the people "you'd like to prove wrong" by getting your book published. First, that's way creepy. Second, I would prefer not being an accessory to whatever plot you've cooked up late at night while you listen to Fleet Foxes in the dark.

4. Please do not send me information about my own life, to prove what you know about me. Great, you found me on the internet, and maybe you know who I dated, lived with, or what I did at this place or date. If you're doing that to coerce my working with you, that's creepy and mean. If you're doing that to create some sort of friendship...that's not how my friendships operate. Please don't do that.

5. Please do not send the same material under multiple names. (Names are made up in this example) If I don't reply back to "Erik", I would trust that "Erik" moves on and doesn't suddenly conscript "Erika" "Karen" "Skylar" "Darla" "Tim" and "Luigi" to send me the same email with the same attachment from new and exciting email accounts. Just like in life, NO means NO. Improve the pitch, improve the material, try again, yes, but don't think you're going to wear an editor into submission.

6. Please do not barter "favors". If you want me to work with you, it's easiest if you straight out ask, and make a good argument. Don't suggest that you'll wash my car, have your attractive friend sleep with me, offer to let me watch you sleep with someone else or, my personal favorite, "owe me one later." Really, it's not that hard to get me to work with you -- do a good job asking, work really hard, take my advice. Done.

7. Please do not do something 'above and beyond' what's asked. If I say, "Email me and we'll talk." I want you to....email me. If an editor says, "Send me a SASE", then they want an envelope. This is not code for "I'd like you to come to one of my workshops and sit in the back and stare at me for ten minutes before you speak" or "send a packing crate with hearts and glitter on it." An editor's job is exponentially easier if we can trust the writer(s) we work with to follow directions. If the directions are unclear, ASK.

8. Please do not push. I am known to be a quick and efficient email writer. If you send me a message, my reply is prompt and thorough. If for whatever reason it's taken me some time to reply to you (whether due to illness or busyness or business or the fact that I'm not in the office), sending multiple emails asking the same question is NOT going to help your cause. I do not respond well to being pushed. If the problem is urgent, yes, there are ways to reach me, but for the most part, you don't have to push if you want an answer.

9. Please do not make your editor your last resort. Just like I don't like being pushed, I don't like hearing that if I don't help you, you're killing yourself. I neither want the guilt or the knowledge. Don't.

10. Please do not send your editor dirt on other editors. So, you've come to me because Editors 1 - 6 weren't helpful? And you've decided to detail their flaws to me in an email, as if this will help persuade me? Interesting move. I should point out that it is very likely that the afternoon after you've sent me that email I will see Editors 1 - 6 some where and we'll have lunch or talk shop. Some of those people are my friends, I've been to their homes, played with their dogs and seen their babies. Yes I agree they can be irritating professionally, but you're not currying favor by telling me my friends suck and here's proof. Be professional, be adult, and as my mother says, "Suck it up, get a life, and move on."

Now, go enjoy your weekend. Character 101 begins on Monday.

Writing/Gaming: Making Your Characters Not Awful

2012-01-17T08:51:00.000-08:00

I don't know if you've been outside lately, but it's the worst time of year. Everything is gray and soggy and looks like Mordor. Also, it's the only time of year I get sick. So do please imagine this blog post punctuated with sniffles and occasional sneezes and coughs.

Let's get to it.

For today's lesson, you're going to need a piece of paper and a pen. It's much easier to do this by hand than in something like Word or Google Docs, since there's time spent/lost in making the formatting work, rather than just getting to heart of the issue. Of course, I'll always tell you to use a legal pad, because it's got the real estate to spare and because they're pretty cheap in bulk. So go get something to write on (and write with), and we'll proceed.

There are loads of ways to develop characters, I teach three or four different methods in workshops and seminars, depending on my audience. And those methods can get complex and even a little deep (there is a difference), but more and more I get feedback saying that people want a faster plunge into rich development.

Now part of that is laziness on their part - expecting and wanting a formula that will spit out masterfully crafted characters so that they can just put the pieces into play. And part of that is because for all the teaching I can provide, the truest and most natural 'spark' of life comes not from the recipe of creation, but from what the author invests in each character.

Said another way: I can teach you how to build characters, but YOU breathe life into them. Without that investiture of imagination and passion, all I'm giving you is a new way to sort words on paper. And while they may be very awesome words, if your goal is to make those words mean something and stick into the heads and hearts of readers/consumers/game players/humans/etc, then you're going to need to pour out a little mind-juice into these stacks of words and concepts to make them zip along.

What I'm showing you here today is another level, a deeper level, of creation. Being deeper, it does require a base of something. You're going to need to have done some manner of development already for this to work for you. It doesn't matter what you've done - hell it could just be a name and a description, but the goal here is to add depth and velcro to your creation, so they fit into the composite of the world you've built.

Note: My next series will be Character 101, exploring different foundational elements in characters and how to craft good ones. Consider this your glimpse towards new territory.

Our goal today is make your characters better, so today, here's what we do.

1. Divide the paper into quarters.
2. Label them: Occupation, Possession, Name, Intention

Into these boxes you're going to write down sentences, phrases and words that describe, detail and develop what the particular quadrant is about. (Game people may recognize some of these things as 'Aspects', Novel people will see 'traits'). But this is NOT just a simple laundry list, this is designed to get you thinking about the arc your character is on when readers/players/people meet them, and how that arc progresses over the course of whatever material you're creating.

Let's look at each box in detail and I think you'll see what I mean.

I. Occupation - This is what the character does. In it's most basic form, it's a job title, but you can extrapolate out to describe why or how it gets done (the specifics of "why" go into Intention - you can be broad in box 1) Since no one else is going to see this, feel free to make heavy use of cliches and tropes if they help paint the picture. 2) This is the realistic side of the coin, so if this box is a little on the dry side, you're on the right track.

II. Possession - These are the things the character has that helps make the character who and what they are (in box 1). (If you didn't qualify it, this would just be inventory) We want specificity here, as possessions define and give context to a character (Batman's utility belt, Lone Ranger's mask, Superman's S on his chest). Yes, socialists, buddhists and hippies, we are totally shaped by the stuff we own. And while I really want to spiral us off into a discussion about how we leave as large an impression on what we own as it leaves on us, this isn't the place for that. Ideally in this box you've listed not just the item, but what it stands for or how it specifically aids the character's nature/skill/abilities/presence. (Batman's utility belt provides him access to supplies that make him prepared. The Doctor's sonic screwdriver is the physical surrogate for his intellect, etc)

Note: Yes, you can prioritize the items in Box 2 by frequency of use or importance or whatever figure you like, but it's not critical. It is, however, a great idea.

III. Name - This is not so much a rote entry of Dr/Mr/Mrs NAME HERE, this is how the character wants/has their name viewed by their peers. Optionally, divide this box in half and do half friends and half foes. For 'friends' this is how the character wants the specific other person (NPC, secondary character, love interest, etc) to view them. For 'foes' this is how the character sees the foe.

Yes you can work this backwards and do a whole sheet (2 columns, friend and foe) of how these other people view the character, and we may well explore that exercise later this week.#notsosubtlehint

Intention - This is WHY the character does whatever they do, and only that. The specifics of how got answered up in Occupation, so here we effort to ascribe a reason to the action. And I cannot stress the importance of individual clarity enough. Boil it down as core as you like, concentrate it (tether it to a backstory event for maximum jaw droppage) but this intention is a tint on ALL things the character has done and will do.

This should in theory start earlier than Page 1, but the audience/people/players is only meeting this at Page 1...which may or may not early in this Intention's existence. That's up to you, authors, to figure out how time relates to intention (here's a hint - more time equals more opportunity for intention)

If you find that some boxes are more packed with material than others, or that you've entirely neglected some facets of creation in light of others, I strongly encourage you to figure out why. Ask yourself why you didn't think in these terms at some point and why you've possibly resisted doing it. (Maybe you're still resisting it...)

Sort through the feast and famine first before you tackle the material in terms of 'boring' or 'I don't agree with it anymore, I'm changing it'. Remember, writing is the act of making decisions, and if you're unhappy with what you wrote, decide to do something different.

The goal here is to expand your character-icebergs so that they'll sink (astound) reader-Titanics. I use icebergs here deliberately, as there should be so much beneath the surface, so much unseen but felt/feared/craved/desired that we're propelled forward into inescapable collision and beyond (minus any freezing DiCaprio we have laying around)

Some notes of interest:

1. Yes I'm aware that in the most recent episode of Leverage, this was a prominent story concept.
2. Yes I'm aware that I talk a lot about characters, because characters make plot matter.
3. Yes I realize you can do this chart for any character (a villain) perhaps, and reverse-engineer a way for a hero to undo the badguy.
4. Yes, some characters won't warrant this detail - but I tend now to say that if you can do this for even a minor character (and not use it) then the characters where this is important become all the more spectacular

Okay, I'm going to get some lunch, then take a nap. If you're looking for me, find me on Twitter today.

Last minute addition - A lot of you have emailed me asking about my rates, and more specifically why they're not posted on this blog. There are a few reasons:

a) I'm not sure where I'd host the pdf.
b) My rates aren't as simple as a single list of tasks with numbers - they're not a wine list.
c) I have a whole multi-page kit of rates and explanations that don't format well here in this blog space.

So, if you want the pdf, email me or find me online (here or here or here) and let me know.

Happy writing.

Pitch 101 - Part 5: Common Pitch Problems

2012-01-10T11:45:00.000-08:00

This is part 5 of an on-going series.

You've come far in this series. We started off learning about the mindset and the basic building block of pitches, the USP (Unique Selling Point), we learned about pitch styles, then the velcro theory and last week we autopsied a pitch to see how one is built from the ground up.

I could end the series now, call it the most popular thing I've ever put on a blog and move on to talking about something else. And, yes, as some of you emailed me, maybe I should. But there's one more stretch of road to talk about, and if I'm going to end this series on the high note I think it deserves, then we have to talk about problems commonly found in pitches.

Yes, I know, there are TONS of variations on the ideas I'm exploring here, but I'm asking you to distill your problems down, concentrate them and strip out the subjective circumstantial material and find the flaw-nugget at the heart of the problem.

I believe there are 6 core problems with pitches, and that the majority of rejections, critiques and thumbs-down all stem from them. I'll outline each, give an example, and a solution.(Yeah this could be a long post, buckle up.)

Note: These problems are not offered in any order of common to least common, or easiest to hardest, they're just....six possible problems.

I. Not getting to the action fast enough. A good pitch uses an economy of words (we'll revisit this idea a lot today), usually between a range 200 and 300 (I like to aim for a sweet spot between 250 and 280), but you can always use fewer if your phrasing is tight (I've seen great pitches done in 60 words). Even with that range, which sounds like a lot (it isn't, it's about a page worth of text, 4 paragraphs maybe), if you don't engage the audience (either evocatively or dynamically), they're not going to want to keep reading or listening to whatever you're saying.

Example: In 1984, Sarah was adopted by Louise and Greg, who lived on a small farm outside Wichita, where they raised cows and grew wheat and lived well. Louise and Greg were a happy couple, never fighting too loud or feeling trapped under some big terrible bills. The farm was successful without being prosperous, and Sarah was very loved and popular and a good student at school. Everything is just great about Sarah, except that she's really a time-traveling death robot sent back in time to prevent the next American Civil War.

Okay, so it's 1984, and these two people adopt a girl, and they live on a farm. I'm already yawning but I'll keep reading, just one more sentence. Oh, they're a happy couple without flaws? That pitch is better than Nyquil. Chances are, the audience checks out about half-way into that second sentence. The fact that she's a death robot is lost. The fact that there will be a second Civil War is also lost.

Solution - Lead with a strong punch. If you have a lot of USPs, this isn't difficult, as you have a lot of options to plug in throughout your pitch. If you're a little thin on USPs, and you can't generate any more, then make sure they're front and center in the pitch. Hit the audience with them, hook them, and get out quickly, before people realize you've only got the two good bullets.

II. Not getting the audience to a character/vibe/POV fast enough. It's not enough to have action (otherwise most pitches would be like those action-sound-effect words from campy Batman), you need to tether the action to something else to make it matter. Who's doing the action? What's the tone caused by the action? What's the tone caused by the consequences of the action? If it's unclear, and leaves the audience scratching their head more than shaking it along with you, then you're going to face rejection.

Example: War! Two raging clans battle in post-apocalyptic Ohio, salvaging whatever raw materials they can to survive the cold nights, radioactive animal attacks and the on-going blood feud between their families that has gone on since before the first mushroom cloud bloomed. No one remembers what started the feud, but people suspect it had something to do with love.

Yeah, that's the whole pitch. If I had to describe with a single word, I'd call it "vague", because even though it's got some racy language (there's a war and a blooming cloud and love), it doesn't actually say anything.

Solution - A two-part strategy - Engage & Lead. Using a combination of USP and evocative language, get the audience's attention and steer them along the path that leads them progressively deeper into your creation and closer to saying 'yes'. Provoke them into thinking and feeling, and tie your actions to characters (and motivations), and make the conflict or goal feel real. Make it interesting! Make the audience care and want to be a part of the experience you're proposing. You can even go one step further and treat the pitch like a movie camera, zooming and racking us into hard focus with a character or scene to immediately connect the audience with a character or idea.

III. Giving too much setup, not enough payoff. Pitches are a tricky balance between informing and intriguing the audience, no matter the media. And the more invested you might be in something, the harder it is for you to have a sense of what is or isn't working in a pitch.

Note: I did not say what's 'good' or 'right' in a pitch because you cannot think of a pitch in terms of the binary good/bad or acceptable/unacceptable or worst (and most vague) okay/not okay. Pitches are more variable and dynamic than that, and there are lots of ways to accomplish the goal - it's more a matter of efficacy and ease for the pitch-giver.

By giving a lot of extraneous detail, and not providing any hooks (remember your Velcro theory) gives the audience nothing to pay attention to or care about. The result is a lost audience.

Example - My board game, 57 Chances To Murder Your Spouse, is a collaborative story-telling game of alibis and plotting where players take turns crafting the best way to receive insurance money without the pesky court trial and corpse discovery. This game was created after my eleventh argument with my spouse, and if you're like me, you're probably wondering why they don't listen to a damned word I say either. I mean all the time, I just asked them for help. Would they swallow this pill and tell me what happens? Could they take this hair dryer into the bathroom with them? Where did they leave the keys? You know, spouse stuff. I've been trying for eight years to get this game produced and I'm sure my hard work has created a product that will absolutely revolutionize Family Game Night.

Solution - Stick to what matters. What matters are the USPs and the emotions you want to instill in your audience. The path you took to reach the point where you could pitch may make for interesting anecdotes or great personal revelations, but it is not a factor for an audience, as nearly everyone can/does spin their story to be the most emotional. What should be emotional is the game (or product) experience itself.

IV. Expecting the audience to "get it" If you've developed something, it's assumed that you're telling interested parties. If you've got a script to sell, you're probably not telling the clown at your son's birthday party. If you've written a novel, the guy who puts the price tag on the pork chops is not going to publish your book. You know who your audience is, but there is a further assumption underneath that - that they will understand what you're talking about.

Specifically, you're not giving them the details relevant to your pitch's concept, because you're assuming they've heard it all before.

Example - My novel is 95,000 words, and has to do with a man, a shovel and his desire to own all the Twinkies. The lonely guy is going to do this because of love. And stuff.

Solution - Now, yes, maybe they have, but the big problem here is that you're doing the thinking for them. Stop assuming the audience has enough information to make the conclusions you need or want them to make, and guarantee they'll connect the dots the way you want by giving them crystal-clear and precise details, without preamble, fluff or excessive sentiment.

V. Beating the dead horse. If you've got few USPs, and even one or two USPs that are much stronger than rest, it is very tempting to use them over and over again to make multiple points. Even by stretching or altering the language, you're still trotting out the same idea to serve many masters.

Example - In my movie, Fisheyes McSweeney 2: Make Easter My Bitch, our hero Fisheyes is released from jail, two years after trying to murder Santa Claus at the suggestion of his black adoptive grandmother. Now Fisheyes is out, and he has to save his buddy Stu from a horrible fate - Easter Dinner. Fisheye's rollicking quest launches him back into action, better than the time he tried to kill Santa. In the end, you'll say, "Fisheyes, I believe in you."

Solution - Remember that there's more than facts to a pitch. Yes, (Dragnet-style) just the facts is a good approach, up to a point, but without emotion to guide and intention to lead, facts are bland and easily worn out. Your facts plus how you want people to feel plus how you feel crafts a good body for your pitch. There's no wrong way to do what you're doing, so feel free to includes facts of all sizes great and small to serve your ends.

VI. Sounding desperate - Pitching is tough and scary, I know. It gets worse when you start thinking about how little speaking experience you may have or just how important this pitch is or how long you may have to wait to get another opportunity and the next thing you know you'reracingthroughallyourwordsandtryingnottosayum.

Example - My novel, Arrow To The Knee, is the story of a man's adventure cut tragically short after an archery accident. It's available in 10 parts on my blog and it's a prequel to my upcoming series 'Now I Guard a Jarl' and I really think you'll enjoy it because it touches on themes we all like, like guarding and Jarls and knees. This is my first attempt at publication, because normally, in my day job, I'm a professional data processor, I process professional data, and my librarian friend said that I should totally talk to you about my book and writing because I'm a writer and you're someone who works with writers and I think this is a great relationship to have.

Solution - Remember that you have more than one chance, ever. When trying to get things published or produced, or when trying to improve in whatever field you're in, you're going to face some adversity and get rejected. People are going to say no, not because you're a horrible person deserving punishment, but because your pitch didn't make them want to say yes. And if person A, B or C reject you, you still have D, E and F to talk to. Even if you run all the way through the list of people, you can always go back to your project, make changes and resubmit again. Remember Rule #3: You're never stuck/trapped, you always have options.

We've reached the end of Pitch 101, and if you go through this series and make good use of the material, you're prepared to tackle a lot of opportunities. Yes, for the curious, there is a Pitch 201, which will very likely end up on this blog eventually, but for now, I think I've drowned you in enough words. The real work begins now.

What are you going to do with this information? That's what matters. Will it help you? Will you shrug it off because it sounds complicated? Will you ignore it because ten other sources have said similar things?

I end today with a reminder of Rule #1 - Writing is the act of making decisions. That includes the decisions about whether to write or not or whether to pitch or not.

Make great decisions.

Happy writing.

The Beat Sheet Of Game Design

2012-01-06T13:53:00.000-08:00

Oh man is today ever a great day to read a blog post. Now this is a long one, and it's dedicated entirely to game design, but I swear to you, this post is a gold mine for you designers out there.

Today I'm going to show you a complete system of game development, so that you can take your game, whatever it is, and work it through what I'm describing below so you can see where your holes and gaps are...and then fill them.

Before we get started, we have to go over the three rules I'll be referencing.

The Rules

Rule 1: Writing is the act of making decisions
Rule 2: Be easy on yourself
Rule 3: You always have options, there is always a way out, you're never trapped.

Critical here are Rule #1 and Rule #3. Rule #2 is there to remind you that you're not a failure or bad or stupid or wrong for not being perfect the first time, every time.

(Side note: You're also amazing, if you didn't know)

Before we get into the meat of this system, I have a little questionnaire for you, to help sort out the finer points of your game. Answers to these questions will be USPs (Unique Selling Points) that you can immediately use in your pitches. If you can't answer the question, or if your answer isn't one of the options listed, that's okay, it just means that your game is a little more niche and/or atypical.

Yes, absolutely, you should be writing the answers to these questions down, perhaps on a legal pad or in your 'Game Development Notebook' or wherever you store your ideas.

Question 1: Is this game about Character or about Plot? (Are you creating a linear game where people go from one place to another and do a single task to 'win', or is this a game where you create a character and they're pretty free to do whatever, within the confines of the world, and this game is their biography?)

Question 2: Is this game a single serving or can this be a long-term game? (Is this a game I can get into for a few hours on a rainy evening with a few friends, or is this game something that I can play over the course of many weeks and months?)

Question 3: Does this game get easier/better/more enjoyable by using previous knowledge or can anyone pick this up? (Is this a game where I have to know about something else going in, or can someone whose never seen a particular show, read a certain book or had a certain game experience still get the same level of enjoyment as someone who is better read/experienced?)

Question 4: Do the characters matter in this world? (If players eliminate or disempower a major quest-giver or chain of events, do their actions resonate 'locally' or'globally' or not at all? Or are the characters fighting a Sisyphean battle, with huge odds stacked against them?)

Question 5: Is this game about the experience or about winning and losing? (Does this game have specific 'winning conditions' or is this game to be played just to play and enjoy the company of your friends and have a specific experience along the way?)

Got your answers? Lets go meet the driving force of this design system.

Beats!

Previously, I talked a little about "Beats", the moments and particular scenes that act as signposts from your project's Point A to wherever you end up at Point B or Q or F or whatever. Now, some types of beat-layout and even some beats are optional, but in game design, there are three unavoidable beats, and they act as large umbrellas for sections of the game.

The Opening
The Mid-Game
The End Game

The Opening introduces the players to their characters and the world, as well as gives them a baseline of mechanics to operate within the world. Near the end of the Opening, you introduce them to the plot, as you'll see and play intensifies from there.

The Mid-Game (or mid-Session, if your game is a long-play) develops and expands on what the players and
characters already know. They discover and use more mechanics, they receive more information about plot, and they advance themselves experientially. Near the end of the mid-game/session, they propel forward into end-game/session which is generally a moment of significance for them.

The End Game/Session is where the experience and development accomplished so far pays off. Armed with
material and knowledge, the characters and players are able to take significant actions and headway for or
against the plot, resolving it in some cases (situationally) and either concluding their development, or launching them forward toward another cycle of the same beats.

Now under those three big umbrellas sit a host of other smaller beats. Let's break them down, one umbrella at a time. I should point out that although I'm expressing these beats numerically, your game doesn't have to. You can adjust the order of these beats within these umbrellas as you like or need to. Further, you may omit
or relocate a beat to serve your purposes.

The Opening

I. The Introduction of Characters - Sometimes this includes character creation, sometimes this doesn't (and
therefore considers that creation to be separate from play), but this beat commences the minute the first character does something in-character in-game. In older games, this is the 'you all meet in a tavern' moment, where suddenly and randomly a fighter, a healer, a thief and a wizard just happen to sit together at their local
restaurant. In plot-driven games, the reason this is done is because the plot gets explained here. "You're sitting at the tavern, having answered the summons for adventurers..." In more open-ended plot games, possible plots are teased here, by way of what characters see (this is where flavor text helps develop and enrich the world, by showing the players what's possible).

II. The Introduction of Conflict - For the more structured (read: less flexible) gamer, this is the beat that answers, "Why are we doing this?" This beat comes most often as a box of prepared module-esque text that
somehow you've asked your GM to make interesting, without a lot of dice rolling or random inflection. Here the characters learn about the conflict they face within the world. It may be pretty straight forward (Mario, go rescue the princess) or it can be far more layered (resolve the conspiracy, defeat the terrorists, save the hostages).

Time and experience pass and the characters learn more about the conflict and themselves. There are a few simpler beats to hit in the Opening:

III. First Combat/Mechanical Trial - Thanks to a particular circumstance (bandits in the road, a locked
door, etc), the characters must make use of the mechanics to resolve problems. Key in this beat are the 'ease of play' (how straightforward the experience is) and 'depth of play' (how this trial and resolution feel...not so much in terms of accuracy, but in terms of enjoyment). In some games, this trial is expressed as a mini-game (game within a game) and other times as a series of contested rolls and expressed actions (you rolled a 15 against a 3, you hit).

IV. The Disbelief Point - Up until this moment, what the players have done is fairly elementary statistical exercise: roll some dice, record the numbers in little boxes on a sheet, tell a shared fairy tale. But there comes a point within the opening third of the game where the story and character(s) grabs them, and involves them. Going forward from this point, the player is immersed. Now, yes, every player has a different disbelief point, acting via free will to suspend their disbelief and engage their imagination at whatever point they like. Perhaps Player 3 got involved during combat when she totally shot that guy in the face, and perhaps player 8 really liked the way the setting was described when he sat down at the table. Every player has one, and while no game can specifically address every player, a game designer can put together the best components within the product and remember Rule #2.

The Opening Ends with...

V. Launch Into Mid-Game/Session - Here, the players have completed whatever basics need be done, and they have discovered some element(s) of the plot. They may be suitably armed (physically, mentally and otherwise) and they often are (thanks to flavor text) relocated from one place to another, a physical migration to start this movement (they leave the tavern, they board the train, they go somewhere else, etc). Further, the characters have a purpose, a mission to do and a reason to do it.

The Mid-Game/Session

The Mid-Game is characterized by expansion. Everything gets bigger here, quantifiably more than qualitatively. Characters advance in level(s), gain more material and knowledge and the playing "field" (perhaps a board or the collaborative environment) is impacted by their growth and decisions (yes, Rule #1 is in effect even for players)

The Mid Beats all focus on moving things (people/places/plot) forward.

VI. Setback/Obstacle, Smaller - At some point, as the characters advance, the GM will want to add a wrinkle to the best laid plans. This is done through obstacles. Granted, some obstacles are opponents in combat, but Obstacles are not only combat constructs. Any impediment to some type of advancement (combat, social, plot, in-party) counts here.

Obstacles are designed to improve the character(s) involved without sidelining them too long from the actual
objective. The locked door, the puzzle in the room, the guard that needs to be persuaded, these are at best speed bumps on the road.

Now this isn't to say the GM shouldn't take delight in letting players overthink, but from a design level,
remember Rule #3 and plan for what they do after the obstacle. An obstacle is only as good as the action that follows it. It means less if it's just a passing idea.

VII. Setback/Obstacle, Larger - These are the obstacles that will really teach two things: 1. Some character advancement or ability (in video games, these are the side quests that unlock new gear) 2. That the antagonists are bigger badasses than first realized. This is done because the larger setbacks run parallel and
concurrent to the main plot, without actually being the plot. Consider them practically sub-plots if you like, as
they can be involved and consume quite a lot of design/creation space.

A note about setbacks: They have to matter, and they have to provide knowledge. The bigger something is, the more steps involved and the more the pay-off should be.

Get out of the dungeon by picking a lock? Small success
Uncover the plot to smuggle a bomb in the fuel tanks of the plane before the peace treaty? Bigger success.

The bigger they are, the more open-ended they should be. If it's a subplot, or something that adds context to the game world (an RP seed), then it doesn't need anything more than a hook to snare players and a start of the path to head them on. Let the players resolve the issue in their own way, everyone will feel more rewarded.

VIII. Things In Danger - There comes a point in play where the characters are suitably powered and capable to defeat plenty of challenges, and the only way to up that scale is to raise the intensity of challenges. And while following a scalar model is a good thing in most games, sometimes you can't race the players forward too quickly (often for the sake of plot). So what can you do?

Just before you launch them forward towards the end-game, give them one more reason or reminder to help galvanize them towards resolution (because it's likely at this point they've spent a lot of time away from the reason that brought them this far).

Challenging the safety of something they care about shows the extent the antagonists/opposition will go, as well as remind the players that what they're doing matters.

IX. Reconfirmation - This beat can be as short as a shared group look and nod, or as long as a Normandy
invasion planning session. Here, the players apply what they've learned to date, with what they hope to
experience to create their strategy for the endgame. The benefit here is that they're not actually IN the endgame yet, and the GM is free to raid their ideas as well as ideas provided in the design to work with and against (a good measure of each) the players in the actual endgame.

Good design hinges on this beat by offering a lot of options that all converge towards resolution, in sort of
a "no matter how you got here, this is where things stand" moment.

From here we launch into the third act...End Game!

End Game

X. The Big Huge Setup and Execution - Carrying forward from the previous beat, here's where the planning of Act 2 goes forward and begins to be resolved. If there's a fight to be had, this is getting all the pieces in place before the fight begins. This is also the last chance for the game to make offerings outside the plot for a while, as what follows will be more strictly tied to the plot than at any other time in the game's progression.

XI. The Loss is a Gain - As things ramp up towards the Big Battle, along the way there can and should be casualties. It's difficult to avoid telegraphing this, but a good game can obfuscate it by creating options (which can be reinforced as being likely or unlikely in Act 2 with subplots). The goal here is to take away a key asset from the players but not deprive them of whatever knowledge or power it offered (Before you fight the guy in the black suit, your vaunted British actor has to get chopped in half by the lightsaber).

In one regard, the asset was just a tangible item or person, but as a teaching tool, RP element, magical device or wisdom, the asset can flourish to deeper levels (the wise teacher killed in Season 1 had a warehouse of material for Season 2....) and at this point, it's time you remove any and all crutches you've given the players to date.

Of course, removing too many crutches too quickly does not have the impact of a systematic and deliberately tense extinction of resources, but it does have the benefit of strongly marking lines between pro- and antagonists.

XII. The Big Huge Battle (Climax!) - So, at some point, the players have done all they can and the only bridge to advancement is battle. (We can look at this in a micro level as a battle on an immediate scale or in the macro as part of the overall campaign/game design)

Here, the players should have to risk everything to gain the largest rewards available at the moment. And likewise, the opposition should be as strong or even a hair stronger for the fight to feel satisfying to everyone involved.

When it's over, there should be quantifiable consequences and results.

XIV. Consequences! - If the climax was large enough, and the battle ferocious enough, and the danger great enough, the players should have really pushed themselves, the mechanics and their abilities to the limit here. But they're not off the hook just for defeating the opponent - now there are ramifications for what happened. Did they just blow up a building? Look at the victims. Did they just crash a ship into a spaceport? Won't someone go after them? Did one just use godlike powers to unmake something? I'm not sure a god would be pleased about that....

The point here is that in order to keep the players grounded, you have to provide consequences with tangible results that counterbalance the size and scale of the climax. Big tense climax? Big intense consequence. Don't judge this solely by the specifical literal action, do consider the impact on the created world. Since the characters don't live and operate in a vacuum, consequences should lead to a change in action, which springs us forward further...

XV. What's Next? - Following the consequences, players should have more questions than answers. Yes, they should have answers for what they asked initially (did the badguy kidnap the girl, did the supervillain almost blow up Time?) but there should be other questions being asked. You can plant these seeds as early as Act 2 subplots if you want, or more traditionally lace them into the framework leading up to and throughout Act 3.

This is a cycle, don't forget. Even at its most linear, this is a parabolic curve, arcing slightly towards more questions, more buildups and more payoffs.

In this system, even if the book ends, play and potential play shouldn't. At worst the book is a self-contained experience, at best, it is a launching point for further cycles of development and character expression.

* * *

Now what I want you to do is take your game, and lay it out over this template. Adjust both until you get a snug fit (move some beats around, fatten up your game as needed, etc) and then tell me about it. Leave a comment below, send me an email...but let's talk about your game. Nothing fancy, nothing forcibly professional, just some conversation.

You can do this, you're awesome, and I most definitely wish you,

Happy writing.

Pitch 101 - Part 4: Pitch Autopsy

2012-01-02T11:34:00.000-08:00

This was actually part of Part 3, which you can read here. It got its own section when I realized how long that post would be.

Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of this series are also worth your time.

Note: What follows are sample pitches I created for this post - they ARE NOT actual client pitches.
Note 2: They may be pitches I wished actual clients had used.
Note 3: Yes, I got their permission.

If you've been following along, you should be aware of and comfortable with USPs (Unique Selling Points), pitch styles and Velcro Theory (which was just introduced in the last section, but operates on the idea that a pitch hooks into particular interests of the audience).

Previously, we talked about our Eskimo Tim (Assassin who has to kill a senator) property. Let's look at a sample pitch for the novel. (You may recognize this as a query letter, which is a pitch, written down.)

The corrupt senator Aloysius Fedora is about to engineer his largest political coup to date - an oil pipeline from Alaska all the way to Arizona, with all the contracts going to his company, EvilDoucheCorp. This pipe will run from the frozen north to the scorching desert, bringing black liquid wealth thousands of miles.

But that pipe ran into a problem. A small village of Eskimos sits where a critical part of the pipe goes. And in the village, there is one Eskimo not ready to move.

Eskimo Assassin Tim is about to run muckluck first into EvilDoucheCorp and slice it to ribbons.

Yeah, that's a rotten pitch. Let's make it not suck. Drag that bloated word-corpse to the table, and get ready to learn how to dissect your pitch.

Step 1: Write your pitch down. In full sentences. And paragraphs. As if it counted.
Step 2: Don't judge it, just write it down.

I combine these two steps because you're not going anywhere until you can get them both accomplished. You may need to refer back to Step 2 often to get Step 1 done, which is okay. This isn't the part where you edit the pitch as you write, this is where you just lay it out, all messy and not-how-you-want-it, so that we can in subsequent steps, make it better.

Bring our pitch back. And hand me a knife.

The corrupt senator Aloysius Fedora is about to engineer his largest political coup to date - an oil pipeline from Alaska all the way to Arizona, with all the contracts going to his company, EvilDoucheCorp. This is a great establishing, expositive sentence.

This pipe will run from the frozen north to the scorching desert, bringing black liquid wealth thousands of miles. This is still good, and even has a little cute turn of phrase.

But that pipe ran into a problem. Red flag #1 - This is a cliche. And it's a poor bridge to whatever comes next, as most cliches are.

A small village of Eskimos sits where a critical part of the pipe goes. And in the village, there is one Eskimo not ready to move. While these two statements are true, and good, they're also incredibly boring ways to relay this information. If I wanted to sleep, I'd go watch War Horse or listen to parade commentary. Boring sentences, especially when words count, the way they do in a query, will kill your pitch.

Eskimo Assassin Tim is about to run muckluck first into EvilDoucheCorp and slice it to ribbons. I like this sentence. I also like the idea about running muckluck first. Not happy with the dull 'slice it to ribbons' bit, but we can rewrite it.

I know, I'm basically asking you to be objective about your own work so as to dissect it. And I know you're going to be blind to a lot of the red flags, errors, weak spots and loose connections in your pitch. This is why we get step 3.

Step 3: Get someone else to read your pitch. Get someone who knows pitches. Sales professionals, consultants, editors, writers...people in the industry you're pitching to - that's who you need to chat with for step 3.

If you can't find anyone, email me. Put 'Pitch 101' in the subject of the email, and we'll talk your pitch through. Seriously.

Now, wait, maybe you're going to tell me that you did find people who knew pitches, but they didn't help you. And I'll ask you, who did you talk to about your novel (for example), and you'll tell me you talked to a librarian.

And when I'm done laughing, I'll say that a librarian knows books the way a consumer knows books - via popularity or similarity. They don't know how to take your idea and make it excel or how to amplify it so that it can then become popular or super-successful.

Oh, and then you'll say you've taken your script and given it to your three friends who go to the movies all the time, and that one time about fifteen years ago they all wanted to be Kevin Smith, so they know. Oh sure they know. They know what not to do, they know where the potholes were in the road forward. But if you want to get past the potholes, find the people who found the potholes, patched them (or are patching them) and kept driving. Yes, such people exist. And you should go seek them out.

Step 4: Rebuild/Rewrite your pitch to make the USPs stand out, while remembering your velcro.

The success of your pitch isn't only the charisma you have, you need to back it up with substance. That substance is your USPs. If you're more formula minded, try this:

Good pitch = USPs + Charisma + Hooks + Receptive Awareness

We'll talk more about that formula in Part 5 of the series, but for now, understand that you can immediately control what the USPs are and how they're presented to the audience. Do you build tension in your voice when talking about the tense parts? Do you race through way too quickly because you're nervous? Do you skip around all over the place because, 'you're so ADD, lol'? (Please don't ever write a professional email and use 'lol' in it. PLEASE.)

Let's rebuild Eskimo Tim's pitch:

In two days, EvilDoucheCorp will run a pipeline right through Eskimo Tim's village. In two days, the ancient Eskimo ways will be gone, replaced by gallons of liquid wealth, fattening the pockets of Senator Aloysius Fedora.

All that culture, gone. And it's not just mucklucks and seal clubbing. Eskimos are also Assassins. And Tim is one of a long line of proud killers for hire.

In two days, the village will be destroyed. In three days, EvilDoucheCorp will come to know that Eskimos have 40 words for snow and 41 words for murder.

BLOOD OF THE SNOWMAN is a novel of 92,000 words.

See how much more compelling that is? We added a time element (the two/three days bit), toyed with Eskimo knowledge (40 words for snow) and kept the mucklucks.

We made the product matter for our audience. We gave them a reason to keep their eyes moving down through the pitch. We made the story engage them, not just lie flat on its back like a bad date.

Pitches aren't just for novels. Your game pitch (here's a great one from Rob Donoghue) is built the same way, and can benefit from the same reconstruction. The same is true for your script.

But it all starts with writing SOMETHING, some kind of pitch down. And then getting eyes on it. And hopefully those are objective eyes. Then the rebuilding can begin.

Once the pitch is rebuilt, trust me, you won't want to wait to show it off.

In Part 5 of the series, we'll talk about that formula for making a good pitch.

Happy writing.

Pitch 101: Part 3 - Velcro Theory and the Audience

2012-01-02T10:22:00.000-08:00

This is part 3 of an on-going series on how to pitch your product. Part 1 and 2 are available here and here.

Happy Year of Our Alleged Impending Apocalypse! If there was ever a catalyst for you to be productive and successful, it has to be the chance that suddenly all life as we know it could wink out of existence. It's practically a Doctor Who plot. In fact, I think it was.....

So, let's move right along to Part 3 of Pitch 101, and build on what we already know about USPs (Unique Selling Points) and types of pitches. Today, it's going to get a little tricky, as we'll turn the pitch around and consider it from the barrel-end.

Have you ever asked yourself what the audience hears when you pitch? If you've ever pitched to me, you know I have this...quirk/habit of making very clear whether or not you have my attention. This is remarkably helpful for people, but not everyone will have such a transparent audience.

I know the assumption is made and repeated in lots of books and websites that you're fighting an uphill battle when you pitch, that you have only a few gasps of air to relay, hook and interest your audience, and while that is occasionally true, I do have to tell you that the majority of that fear-mongering is designed to drive you deeper into those books and to rely on them, rather than your own natural abilities to be interesting and appealing.

When you pitch, you're not fighting a losing battle. You may have already lost, if your thinking is so negative or sentimental or emotionally suggestive, but the actual act of pitching, the speaking and exploring the idea is not a lost cause. Just as earlier we talked about the foundations of the pitch as being USPs, now we consider the foundation of your target audience-- Interest.

Let's assume you've got three products: A book, a script and a game. For the sake of future arguments, let's say they're all related and that you're developing a "property" (fancy way of saying you're thinking of stuff, write that down and impress your friends) about....Eskimo Assassins.

In the novel, you tell the story of Tim, the Eskimo Assassin sent to Washington to kill a corrupt senator.

In the movie, you tell the same story, but throw in a B-plot about how Tim falls in love with the senator's daughter, saving her from her father's tainted legacy. (Yes, I did totally roll my eyes when I wrote that.)

In the game, you offer the chance to BE Tim.

We come to the first idea of the lesson:

I. Know the audience. I like the word 'know' more than the word 'consider' here, because you have to be a little deeper and diligent in your thinking. You have to know the sort of people you're talking to, and know what makes them receptive and what turns them off.

In the above 3 products, you're not talking to the same audience 3 times. The book has one group, the script a second and the third a completely different pool. Yes, they may overlap in some regards, but many of those overlaps don't really concern your pitches (they all wear socks, they all think the Star Wars prequels are awful, etc)

Here's the second idea:

II. Find the 'hook point' of the audience. When you think about your audience, the ideal group of people/consumers/aliens/humans who have purchased your product, there were several things that led them to pick up your creation and give you money for it. But of all the factors that contributed or led to the sale, ONE was special for them. That one item (hopefully a USP) 'hooked' them.

A hook point is the moment where they shift from aware-of-your-product to interested/wanting-your-product. Ever audience has them. When I say audience, I mean at both the macro (group) and the micro (the individual) level.

This is where people freak out. They see that they have to hook the audience, think that their material is rubbish, think that they cannot do it and despair. Common thinking. Absolutely wrong thinking, but it happens.

Write this down, stick it on the wall of the room where you work on your projects:

Velcro! Be the velcro!

Third idea:

III. Velcro theory. When I was a kid, velcro was a godsend. It took me quite a while to get comfortable tying shoes, and years later, that memory of the texture and sound of velcro has stayed with me.

Velcro works by connecting little loops with little hooks.

I'll say that again -- little loops with little HOOKS.

HOOKS. And loops.

Your pitch has hooks in it. Your audience has loops. That audience wants to grab onto the pitch and stick to it, following it along until they're buying your product late one night in a posh hotel suite on their way to a party. (or something, I don't know where you guys buy your games, but hey, it's life)

Build your hooks out of the USPs and whatever your natural talents are. You do have them. You may speak well. You may smile and be beguiling. You maybe express visual ideas clearly. You know your talents. Apply them to expressing your USPs.

The loops you're trying to snare are the interests of the audience, which you've discovered by knowing the audience. That book agent you've just queried, do you think they really have the time to read 800 words about Eskimo Tim? NO. You need to get right to the heart of the action and the story.

The movie producer with the checkbook? They're looking for beats and character growth. Movie Eskimo Tim better have that.

The game purchasing audience? Layout, boobs occasionally and some interesting mechanics all help. (And nice paper....and PDF support....etc) RPG Eskimo Tim has to hit some key targets

Practice making velcro. Get some paper, divide it into two columns. Call one column "Me" and the other "Them" (or if you want to be professional "product" and "audience")

Down the Me/Product column, list your USPs.
Down the Them/Audience column, write out who that appeals to. (Name them)

For example:

Eskimo Tim is a character with a troubled past
----- people who enjoy stories about redemption

Eskimo Tim RPG is a game with dice pools and incentives
------ people with a large number of d20s

You're going to really be comfortable with Velcro for Part 4 - Pitch Autopsy.

Happy writing.

Pitch 101, Part 2 - Styles & Components

2011-12-29T09:48:00.000-08:00

This is Part 2 of Pitch 101.

Previously we talked about the Mindset and principal ingredients of the pitching. Today, we're going deeper. Not quite Inception deeper, but definitely more intensive with our exploration of pitching.

What I have for you today is 3 kinds of pitches and what they're made of. There are in fact more than 3 types of pitches, but I thought it easier to explain these three rather than just dummy up five or six examples and pick them apart. I would rather you learn to build your own than just learn how to knock down existing structures.

Type I: The Emotional Pitch

Designed to answer the question "Why should I pick up this product over a competitor/alternate choice?" The emotional pitch deals more in emotion and sweeping the listening audience into a feeling or state of interest by using more evocative rather than declarative language.

A Sample Emotional Pitch
"Superman is a movie where the character is...super. Fighting for truth, justice and the American way, we follow the nearly impervious Man of Tomorrow as he goes toe-to-toe with Lex Luthor his greatest opponent. With every leap and flight into the air, you'll believe again in what makes good versus evil so compelling."

Yes, that's not my best pitch. It's sort of last minute, as I was originally going to pitch you a product that isn't on shelves yet, then decided it's probably not a good idea to reveal it, since it's not actually my product.

But let's take a look at the above paragraph and see what we have. Whenever you want to build a pitch (or deconstruct one) look for USPs (Unique Selling Points, we talked about them in Part 1). In an Emotional Pitch, also look for the 'appeal to the audience' and the 'emotional language'.

The 'appeal to the audience' is where the pitch either talks directly to the audience or makes a claim that satisfies a presumed audience need.

The 'emotional language' is usually the adjectives or phrases that make the audience feel something. The 'something' is deliberately chosen (Happy language makes you feel happy....etc) and is most often a stumbling block in pitch construction because authors/creators think a sentence or phrase conveys one feeling, when in fact, it says something different.

So, what do we have here?

USPs

Fighting for truth, justice, the American way
nearly impervious alien character, Superman
has an arch-nemesis, Lex Luthor
Superman leaps and flies

Appeal to the Audience

"WE follow"
"You'll believe"

Emotional Language

"You'll believe again in what makes good versus evil so compelling"
Fighting for truth justice and the American way presumes those things aren't present enough in society
An alien character leads us to project onto him our deeper desires and interests - we'll humanize him

An emotional pitch is great for getting people to pick up your product over a competitor's, or for demonstrating that you're passionate about the product, without having to expose any sense that maybe you're not comfortable talking about 'what's under the hood'. You don't need a deeper level of mechanical understanding to operate an Emotional pitch successfully. Passion wins.

Type II. The Mechanical (or Practical) Pitch

Designed to go into the substance of the product, the Mechanical Pitch extols the facts of the product as USPs. It answers the question, "What does this product have that other products like it (or other products I'll see later) don't have?" and it indirectly answers, "Why should I own this product?"

This is most often the pitch used for selling now or used cars (for example), because it's easier to construct than an Emotional pitch and allows the creator some distance between themselves and the audience.

A Sample Mechanical Pitch

"The Pyromatic 6000 is the tool of the future, the indispensable device that will reduce yard work to a fraction of the time spent by harnessing man's oldest invention: fire! By projecting concentrated jets of super-charged plasma, you'll remove the weeds in your sidewalk, the dead limbs off trees, the old piles of tires and leaves the clutter your precious greenspace. With a revolutionary water-cooled nuclear engine, the Pyromatic 6000 is recharged by a glass, yes that's right, ONE glass of water! Order yours today."

The components of the Mechanical Pitch don't really change. You retain USPs, probably using a lot more of them. Absent is the appeal to the audience (remember, this pitch puts distance between speaker and listener) but it replaced with "claims of use". Gone too is some of the emotional language, swapped out with a "sense of scarcity or urgency".

"Claims of Use" detail the specific functions or options of the product, giving the audience insight into how it works or where it can be used. The danger is creating hyperbole, which a listener may construe as fact, and then disappointment when your product isn't actually "the greatest thing since sliced bread".

The "Sense of Scarcity or Urgency" is present in a pitch to encourage people to not wait on making a decision. Scarcity and urgency are tools of a "Call to Action", which is the part of salescopy or presentation that (in the words of the guy who taught me this) "gets people off their asses and makes them hand you money for whatever you've done." (Note: Near the end of his life, he stopped saying it was a 'call to action' and starting calling it the 'Fuck you, pay me' moment of writing and presenting. I miss him dearly.)

When a consumer believes a product is hard to find, or that there are few of them and they may miss out, this may lead them to purchase the item sooner rather than later. The danger here is many-fold. You, creator, can assume that they'll run right to your product, and they may not. They may assume they have more time to wait and decide. You may decide that you're not spurring them fast enough because you're impatient or crushingly near-sighted and you've forgotten which one of you is 'in charge' of this buyer-seller relationship (here's a tip: Neither of you is 'in charge', it's a collaborative, cooperative relationship).

Scarcity and Urgency are potential red flags for products, and I urge you to be cautious in using language to suggest or imply quicker consumer decisions. If your product won't actually hold up to scrutiny, why are you rushing? The money, I swear to you, will come. Take the time to make the best product possible, and do whatever is within your budget to prevent having to get underhanded with scare tactics.

Now let's break this down:

USPs

The name, Pyromatic 6000, sounds cool
Reduces the amount of yard work someone has to do
Shoots concentrated jets of plasma
Removes weeds
Repairs trees
Reduces yard clutter
Nuclear-engine
Powered by 1 glass of water

Claims of Use

Reduces the amount of yard work someone has to do
Shoots concentrated jets of plasma
Removes weeds
Repairs trees
Reduces yard clutter

Hyperbole

"Indispensable"
"tool of the future"
Reduce yardwork to "a fraction of the time"

Interest-Building

Order yours today!

Type III. The Thematic Pitch

Combining material of the above two pitches, we conclude today with a Thematic pitch. Designed to answer the question "What experience am I going to have with your product?" or "How does the combination of creator and product interest me?", a Thematic pitch takes the best components from the above pitches and turns them all the way to eleven. Or twelve. Or if you're really cool, infinity plus one.

A thematic pitch uses a combination of USPs, hyperbole, appeals to the audience and a new element "product tone" to grab the audience securely and keep them paying attention.

"Product tone" is the mood/feel/vibe of your product. Usually an adjective or string of adjectives it's your theme, honed now into a commercial hook.

A Sample Thematic Pitch, (this one's for Jenn)

"Are you tired of typical games where it's all about rolling a lot of dice and announcing that you'll use a broadsword plus-your mom to kill the dragon that will likely eat you? Are you tired of having to keep quiet about your plans for world domination? Then this is the solution for you. Project Ninja Panda Taco. As a Mastermind ready to dominate the planet, you and a team of minions race towards success, with only player democracy and other Masterminds between you and sweet glorious victory. In this intensely fun collaborative game for up to six, you can make your fondest desires of despotism come true. Pre-orders available soon, stay tuned to Jennisodes.com for more information."

Here, a good presenter brings all skills to bear. Appealing to audience in a conversational, but not oil-slick way and creating interest by evoking desired emotion or experience. These emotions are supported by USPs and validated through more audience appeal, which prompts more USP generation, and everything cycles forward.

The breakdown:

USPs

Not a lot of dice rolling
Not a 'typical game'
This game is pro-world domination
A fun game for up to 6 players
There are Masterminds and Minions
It is a collaborative game
Information is available at Jennisodes.com

Appeals to the Audience

"Are you tired"
"you'll use a broadsword plus-your mom"
"this is the solution for you"
"you can make your fondest desires come true"

Product Tone

Fun, collaborative, atypical game of world conquest

Claims of Use

Collaboration, implied without many limits on invention
This game is fun for up to six players
You get to be a Mastermind, bent on winning

Hyperbole

"broadsword-plus your mom"
"typical games"
"sweet glorious victory"
"intensely fun collaborative game"

Interest-Building

"Pre-orders available soon"

Wow, that's a lot of information. But a good pitch has a lot of components available for dissection, and not of them vestigial.

What I recommend you do is write out your pitch, even if you're not done developing the product, and start breaking down the components as I've done here. You'll give yourself a nice road map of what you like and don't like and where you need to go.

It will be annoying, sometimes, but hard work is always rewarded. And yes, before you say anything else, yes you can do this. Honest.

In part 3, (up after the holiday), we'll look at some sample pitches and we'll talk about what the audience hears/reads/interprets from them.

Happy writing, and enjoy your holiday weekend. Unless you're a jerk or something, but if that's the case, then we're not talking.

Rock on.

Pitch 101: Step 1 - The Mindset & Selling Points

2011-12-27T11:22:00.000-08:00

What follows is the start of a series on how to pitch your product to other people. It doesn't matter if that product is a book, a game, a film script or your business, pitching is a critical skill and knowing how to do it can easily separate you from the rest of the competition.

Before we get into the first component of Pitching, there are some ground rules. Not many, don't panic.

I. You're not always 'on'. One of the big hurdles for people, especially when they're new, is that they think anytime someone asks about what they're doing, they have to launch into some well-rehearsed and stiffly-acted presentation, with broad gestures to invisible powerpoint slides. You don't. You don't. I repeat: You don't.

There is a valuable skill in knowing when you have to give a formal description, and when you're just explaining your material over a burrito to a bunch of friends. To better determine when you have to be on, ask yourself two questions:

a.) Do the results of this situation lead my product one step closer toward publication, or is this just chat?
b.) Did this situation arise because it's organized to be about my product, or did we come to the topic of my product through conversation?

If you answered "yes" to the first half of either question, then you're on. If not, be cool and relax, and talk in more relaxed ways.

II. There isn't a 'perfect', just 'moving forward'. Many people freeze when they think about talking about their product because they often want to give the 'perfect' answer to whatever question they just heard, as answers are like Highlander or the One Ring and there's a definite top to some pyramid. There isn't. And every time you think so, you're hurting your own cause in major way.

You didn't get asked questions because people are testing your sense of perfection - you got asked questions because the book/game/script/whatever interests someone else.

All you have to do in those moments is move the conversation forward. Just like flirting. Just like a job interview. Just like the weird conversations you have waiting in lines. Move things forward, keep the momentum alive.

Each of your answers, as long as it's positive and/or constructive in somewhat about the question, moves things along. Hopefully to the next question. Hopefully forward to other questions that maybe the interviewer didn't prepare in advance. It should be, at its best, organic, just like conversation.

Which leads to the third rule of pitching.

III. It's a conversation, not rocket science. A good pitch is talking. A bad pitch is silence. A good conversation is talking. A bad conversation is silence. A good time is talking. A bad time is silence. See the point I'm making here? If you're still talking, you're doing it right. And it's only ever talking.

Sometimes yes, it's talking while standing or while sitting or while in front of a room, but it's only ever talking. They're not going to ask you to describe a part of your product while performing brain surgery using celery and a spatula. You aren't going to have to calculate re-entry velocities for a Martian space probe, you won't have to defuse a bomb in the basement of Fort Knox. You're having a conversation about something you're passionate and knowledgeable about.

Load those three rules into your brain, digest them completely and practice them often. Yes, often. At whatever stage of development you're at. Just started writing today? Then this is what you have to look forward to. Did you just write 'The End' on it? Then this is the next step.

This is the Pitch Mindset. Well, technically, this is my pitch mindset and I'm hoping it becomes your pitch mindset too. It can be, with some practice. Not always easy practice, if you're like me and you catch yourself kicking your own ass or you go into a situation with the expectation of epic failure, but with practice, you can change that, and lubricate those creative ideas in this special I-can-do-it-sauce.

Just like GI Joe, this was half the battle.

For the next half, we better take a look at some of the actual words you can use, unless you're pitching telepathically. (If you are, we should talk, or mind meld or use the Force or whatever) The other stumbling block for people is what to actually say.

Seriously, it's like the words evaporate from the folds of your brain or something. I know. Your palms get all sweaty and your stomach gets all queasy, just like that time in eighth grade when you saw Karen in Home Ec (I may have said too much there), and then when you try to talk, your brain makes the jump to lightspeed and you end up runningallthewordstogetherlikeyou'regoingtorunoutofairortimeorsomething. And then you stand there exhausted and panting like you just performed in a bad musical.

Remember this sentence --

When in doubt, talk about the shiny.

The "shiny" is what makes your game unique. It could be mechanics you use (no one else uses seven-sided die like this), it could be your plot (epic battle as a robot version of Duran Duran!) or it could be the way you're going to distribute copies (When you buy a six pack of Suddso Beer, you get a free download!)

Now, this means you have to find your shiny. So break out the legal pad, and let's get to work. Here's the Shiny Detection Questionnaire:

1. What are you most excited to talk about when you're asked about your product?
2. What do you think is the best part (so far) of the development process?
3. Where did you struggle, and how did you overcome it? (The overcoming part is CRITICAL)
4. What are you excited to do next with your product?
5. Name up to 3 things/scenes/beats/moments your game/book/script has that you're proud of.

Write down all your answers. Try to get them into sentences, but if you can't, phrases are good too.

The answers to those questions are called "Unique Selling Points" (USPs), and you can reward yourself for receiving the same amount of knowledge as one semester of marketing in college! Hooray college credit!

You're going to want to cobble together a TON of Unique Selling Points. You shouldn't repeat information, but they don't always need to be cookie cutter sentences. Here are some USPs for a script I wrote last year.

I coined the euphemism "cunty deposit box"
You actually meet two cat burglars who burgle cats.
For ninety minutes, you practically drown in a weekend with the main character, Jared.
It's a movie about drug dealers that isn't inherently racist.

USPs are the currency you spend in your pitch to entice people to buy your product. You give them USPs, they give you currency. It's a wonderful economy.

I strongly strongly recommend you practice USP development as often as possible, at least until you exhaust all your shiny resources (go back to your Feel Document and Note Cards, don't forget). Strip mine the idea...because you never know when the little scribble you had on the bottom of a card is going to turn into the big hook for a consumer.

Before I end this post, let me just tell you, remind you, and convince you that you can do this. It's just talking about what you love. Throw on some blinders until you soak that idea into your genes. No, don't start telling me some bullshit about how this proves you're successful, don't be silly - you were successful the minute you started the product. Don't you dare tell me this is too complicated - it's just a conversation and all you have to do is move it forward.

You can do this. For realsies.

In Part 2, we'll construct some sample pitches. Look for it later in the week.

Game Design Tool: The Note Card Trick

2011-12-26T13:03:00.000-08:00

Note: The following technique for idea development is a variation on my Original Note Card Trick, available in its natural form when you start writing a novel. This version is modified heavily to reflect the complexities and scope of game design.

Go get some note cards. I prefer the standard size, but in a pinch you could use the larger recipe size, or even cut squares of paper. The idea here is that you basically have little boxes to write in (don't use Post-It notes, they stick together and that's actually another technique). As for the number of cards you need, start with at least 24. The most I've ever seen used in this technique was 150, but you should be okay with a few dozen.

They do not have to all be the same color, but if you're the sort of person who wants uniformity in their development, then try and make them all white. Or blue. Or whatever color makes the voices stop screaming in your head.

I'm assuming you have blank cards here or at least 1 side is blank. Please take the top three off the pile you have and label them:

"Players" "World" "GM"

Over the course of this lesson, you're going to fill these piles with the appropriate information. Yes, you're going to write up to 3 statements per note card (If this is your first time, do one to a card), so that it fits into one of these three big categories.

Now, I know what you're thinking - Isn't this just a recopy of the Feel Document? To which I answer - No, if the point was just to make a Feel Document, I wouldn't be teaching other techniques, would I? Do not 'crib' from the Feel Document whenever possible, as you need to start conceiving of those ideas in variable and multiple ways. Also, this is one of those times you get to expand on them.

Note: You don't have to do this all in one sitting, and in fact, if you can, then maybe you need to spend more time thinking and developing. This is as macro and/or as micro a style of creation as you're comfortable, and rushing through this is only going to produce shoddy work. Take your time, the care you put in here is critical to your finished product.

Let's start with the Players pile.

Players

This pile will contain all the facts, data, instructions and chunky bits a player would need to sit down and play the game, from the moment they have it in front of them. You're going to want to be objective about this, as if you're answering the question, "And what can you tell me about players in your game?"

So, the Players pile will have things like:

character creation rules (or if your game doesn't really pick up until after the players do that, you can just call it "character creation" and move forward)
any opening gambits the players enter into upon introduction of the game (does everyone wake up on bus? Are we all on a crazy Grecian riverbank holding 2 coins? Or is this game pretty variable?)
The number, names and types of races/character-types available to the players (are they just tokens on a board? Are they all humans? Are they all mutant animals? Do you offer them 40 different species and 50 different classes/professions?)
What's the first thing the players will do when they start the game? Also consider what's the first thing YOU want them to do when they start playing?

There's no plot in the Players pile. There shouldn't be, anyway. And in advance of your next question, do the players NEED your plot desperately in order to act? Even in a board game where all they can do is roll a die and then proceed, they still have options. Plot isn't a player requirement. (It's actually a world requirement, which we'll talk about next)

World

This is the setting of the game, the created-world experience, and all the NPC details that exist concurrent to the players. Yes, the players may be noobs, but the rest of the world isn't, is it? It might be Tuesday, the Eight Day of Flooglefog, and the Eve of Saint Carlos' Day. The world still spins even if the players aren't there, I hope you realize. This pile is also objective, and addresses the question, "What's the world like and what's the plot like?"

Note: If you're developing a board game, your World Pile may just have 1 card called "Board Game" in it.

The World Pile will contain things like:

The time-period of the setting
The technological complexity of the world
The name of the supervillain bent on conquering [insert city name here] by way of [insert name of insidious device here]
What sort of weather does the world have?
What sort of gods or belief system does the world have?
How literate is the average NPC?
What's the population breakdown like, by percentages? (40% Caucasian humans, 30% dragon cyborg hybrids 30% awesome living sound monsters, etc)
What's the badguy trying to do? Why? How?

Here's the trickier pile. This pile is a combination of mechanics, written out, as well as feelings and desires you want the GMs to have/convey/understand. Just like most games, this is the pile you don't really need the players to see, but this is more the "behind the screen" side of the game. It answers the question, "What does the GM know that the players don't?"

The GM pile will contain:

A breakdown of the basic rules for conflict resolution and skill-checks
A summation of sample combat
A sentence describing how the players should feel during or because of combat
The mood the GM should convey when describing the overarching world-plot.
The mood the GM should convey when the players throw a monkey wrench into the plot
A few alternate mechanics for resolving the player-instigated problems
A sentence describing the overall "difficulty" of the world for the player(s) (How forgiving is this world on its inhabitants?)

By now, I've lost some of you, because I've tried to convey in text what is for some people a visual progression. So here now, for the sake of the confused, are some sample cards. Just imagine boxes around the next paragraphs.

PLAYER

Start on a boat, in messy rumpled tuxedo/party dress
Stats: Strength, Smarts, Sass, all 2d10
1d4 personal items in a pocket/purse

WORLD

The sun hasn't shone in twenty years.
Time measured in days/weeks/years
Most people enjoy parties

[Name of Game here] is roll-and-keep, d10s
The plot advancement of the game is tied DIRECTLY to what the players discover
Game "mystery" elements should feel like old 1930s films

Each of the nine items listed above could go on their own card, and likely should, if you're new at this or if you're trying to be more thorough.

You could stop here, and use these piles to help your writing and development, and put together an excellent product with many layers. Or you can go one step further, deeper into the development and start tying these threads together.

What I'm going to explain below you'll do to each pile, but I'll just explain it once, with the Players pile.

Group like-minded ideas together, usually by common idea or term and label the card.

So the Players card above I'd label "Starting Characters" (I'd label either the top or the reverse side if it was blank) because those are elements that come into play at the start of the game. Try to avoid numbering the cards or organizing them obtusely, as these cards are more for your constructed benefit rather than a run of numbers. Having them labelled like that allows for other techniques to be applied, but at the very least, this gives you a sort of loose confederation of ideas as to how the game operates.

You'll find this time-consuming initially, but I promise you this won't distract from getting your material developed.

Hope this helps you, if you have questions, please ask.

Happy writing.

How To Work With An Editor, Part 2

2011-12-22T07:48:00.000-08:00

Previously, we talked about initiating the relationship between you (the author/creative person) and the editor, this morning I want to talk about what that relationship looks like in the day-to-day form.

Note: Not all editors function in this way, nor do they all use the same terminology or methods. If you're curious about how a particular editor works, ASK THEM.

Imagine this is Day 1 of working together. You've nervously emailed me your manuscript. And then you sit back and wait for the magical response emails to flood back at you. Maybe you're wondering what I'm doing to your manuscript. This is what I'm doing:

1. I'm chopping your manuscript into chapter/section-sized files, and making two copies. (Note: this is my method, other people....don't work this way)
2. On one copy, I'm double-spacing it and printing it out.
3. On the second copy, I'm working digitally.

For the print-out, I'm going through the pages by hand, circling and scribbling myself notes like:

"o.w." (one word) "hyphenate" "new paragraph" "no" "yes"

And then there's a series of furious underlines and symbols.

When I reach the end, I write questions, usually on the back of the last page. Questions like:

a) Did you mean for the two characters to be lovers?
b) How are you going to improve the next chapter, given that you've spent this chapter repeating yourself and not making any headway?
c) Where's the plot?
d) Which character am I supposed to be caring about?

For the digital copy, it's much the same thing, only this time, I make copious use of the 'Reviewing' Toolbar in Word.

Note: Only recently have I gotten into 'Track Changes' and it has made my work three to five times faster, allowing me to be more thorough in the comments.

Then, when the chapter is done, I email it to you. And at some point, should we meet in person, I'll also give you the hard copy with my handwritten notes on it.

This process repeats for all the chapters, until your book is done.

Depending though on what you've hired me for, you might also get some emails about particular issues I've found in your manuscript. These emails are basically lessons and examples of how to correct a particular flaw (like how to strengthen dialogue or how to build a better world readers will believe or something) or how to reduce your problems in the future.

Take a quick dance break. (DANCE DANCE DANCE WIGGLE WIGGLE)

So, how can you make this process easier?

I. Have a clear idea of what you think your manuscript's strengths and weaknesses are. The more you can put an somewhat objective finger on the inner workings of your manuscript, the easier it is for an editor to help you improve those areas.

II. Be honest about your manuscript. If you're not happy with pages 45 to 60, the time to tell me that is NOT when I'm about to start reading page 45. A little advance notice makes the editorial process so much easier.

III. Do the work. When you get these revisions back, it helps if you actually read them. It really helps if you actually implement them, but I'm not going to twist your arm....you should want your book/game/project/business/whatever to be better on your own -- if I have to prod you about your own project(s), then you may have other problems.

Hope that's helpful.

Happy writing.

Up next....your questions!

Game Design Equation, Part 3 - Mechanics

2011-12-18T17:20:00.000-08:00

We looked the other day at the over all equation, and today, thanks to several nice emails I got, I want to talk a little about mechanics. Absent from this conversation will be a lengthy section about probability and the mathematics of outcome, because quite frankly that topic either confuses or bores me and I'd rather not have it explained to me, so that I can explain it to you.

But where I can offer you, game designer, some help is in mechanical text. 'Mechanical text' refers to the paragraph(s) that accompanies the math. And it is almost exclusively the area an editor dreads for two reasons:

1. If something gets changed here, then the mechanics may change as a result.
2. If something doesn't get changed, then the mechanics may be misunderstood.

So into this minefield we plunge.

I've brought you three red flags to look for in your own game. If you're doing any of these things, go talk to an editor immediately and ask for help. No, seriously, do it. These mistakes are causing your game to not work, costing you sales and ultimately making you not successful. And they're fixable, so why not do something about them.

I. Big complicated math, weak text
One of the first danger zones for game designers is the very rigid thinking that the game mechanics have to explain the majority of 'How' and 'Why' of the game. To task the roll of dice with moving the story forward is a sign of a weak and timid design.

The dice's job is just to see if a particular challenge is succeeded or to grant a number/level on a particular variable for part of a story-equation. Read that again. And then again.

The dice are there to give you numbers to quantify story elements and act as a binary "Did you succeed or fail" checksum. Nothing else.

The dice say you've got a skill of 60 in Firearms. How that expresses itself as part of your character is not the job of the dice, but rather that of the feel of the game, the quality of the player and the tone the GM is looking to set.

The dice say you've got a strength of 11. And the table in the book says that means you can carry so many pounds or have this percent-chance to bash in a door. Again, those facts are information for challenges a player may face down the road. How that strength score impacts the nature of the character is left to the player.

Now, let's go grab some complicated mechanics.

[Herbalism Test] + [Chemistry Test] + [Intelligence] > [Recipe Difficulty per round] + [Situation Penalties]

That's an old potion-brewing mechanic. Let's look at the text that went with it.

Roll the relevant skills and exceed the penalties.

No seriously, that's all it said. My notes in the margin do actually say, "Thanks Captain Obvious."

While that text might be true (it is, that's just a really boiled down way of phrasing it), it's not enough. This shows that the writer/designer thinks the player will "get it" if they haven't already.

Important tip - It's the writing's job and purpose to make sure the players get it by the time they're done reading. Not before, not during.

What makes that mechanic so complicated?

1. The "Test" refers to a percentile skill check against both the skill and the 'Learning Curve'...so really you're rolling 2 percent-checks and hoping you win them both.
2. After each test (so that's 4 rolls, 2 per Skill), you check against your Intelligence, which was another percentile.

So on one side of the equation, that's 5 rolls.

On the other, the potion you wanted to brew was checked against a single table and then divided by the player's choice of rounds -- they got to pick how long it took them to make it -- and then you simply assessed any penalties like being Crippled, or Blind or working in a crappy lab.

Yes, I said the players got to pick how long it took to make the potion. And yes, as you'd expect, everyone said they'd craft the potion in 1 round, which was a flat 10 on the difficulty table.

So, 5 percentile rolls versus Penalties plus ten.

Or for the crunchy math nerds:

79 + 80 + 19 > 10 +(-50)

And you wonder why the game sold so poorly...

Text that serves as instructions has to be clear, not patronizing and written generally in a structure that encourages people to actually feel like they can do it. It's always better to overwrite the sentences and get them trimmed, than to underwrite and leave people guessing.

II. 'Swiss Army' Mechanics
I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but your game doesn't actually have to do EVERYTHING. If you're writing a game about the struggles of pioneers (finally, someone will tell the true story of the Donner party....), then you don't need to go outside the scope of 'pioneers' and I should not see mechanics for space travel, alien languages, complicated firearms, siege weapons or magic.

I'm not saying you have to over-specify (though if you do, you're only pressuring yourself to really deliver on specific experiences), but you don't need to make a themed-game into a one-game-to-rule-them-all book.

How this creeps into game design is when the design starts straying from their strengths (alliteration!) and allows worry and extraneous thinking to clutter their minds.

Your game, right now, what's it about. Say it. Don't mumble. Yes, it's fine if you have a few 'Um' and 'Uhh' in there. Good for you if you're able to explain it in a few sentences. (If you couldn't....PRACTICE.)

Within the scope of what you just said, surely you can find things that don't belong. If your game is about space exploration and colonization, I probably won't expect to see a horse-racing minigame, will I? Or if your game is about gypsy assassins, there probably won't be cyborgs, right?

But, you say, I like all these things, shouldn't they be in a game?

Yes, they should be in A game. That doesn't mean it has to be THIS game does it?

Have a good serious discussion with an editor about your mechanics, and if you've got far more mechanics than you've got story elements or reason for them, maybe you've got two games sandwiched together, and you can now be the proud designer of TWO games, not one. Mazel Tov, or whatever.

III. Far Too Many Dice Syndrome
Roll percentiles for your skills. Roll d20 for your attributes. Resolve conflicts with Fudge Dice. Determine hit location and severity of injury with a deck of playing cards. Can you imagine that all in one game? (I can. I wrote a game with all that in it....sigh.)

How many different types of dice are you asking players and GMs to roll during a session of play? Make a list.

For the above freakshow of a game, here's mine:

3 different mechanics during combat (to-hit, damage, defense)
1 mechanic for unopposed skill checks
1 different mechanic for opposed skill checks
1 mechanic for investigation and clue discovery
1 mechanic for clue interpretation
2 mechanics for magic (channeling power and spell casting)
3 mechanics for psionics (channeling power, mental attack, mental resistance)

What you're doing when you load up on mechanics is telling the players that all these situations could arise in any given session at any time.

Should mechanics trump story? That's a question for the designer/writer to answer. (Pro tip: Figure out that answer before you find an editor.)

I've not written this thinking your game has all these red flags. Maybe your game doesn't have any of these problems. Maybe you know of games that do though. And maybe that's who you're going to talk to about this post.

If you've got a game that's doing this or something that you fear is worse, let's talk about it.

John's Stack of Book Recommendations, Part 1

2011-12-14T10:24:00.000-08:00

There are, at last count, about 4000 books in my house. I have two rooms designated as library/office space and half my basement is filled with boxes of things I've read or used to teach. My classics, my prized rare books, and my favorites are in a third room that will likely become a third library in the very neat future.

Book bragging, I do it now.

What I present to you today is a list (and links) to books, broken down by category as they might appeal to you.

Books For Pleasure

1. Go to Chuck Wendig's site. Buy everything he's written. Budget money to buy everything he will write. Ever. Ever ever.
2. If you've not read Jim Butcher's Dresden Files (the books that made me want to work with game designers), then we probably shouldn't speak again until you do. Double Bonus: Pick up an audiobook or two - they're narrated by James Marsters.
3. I came across Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid series while waiting for the most recent Dresden book. I'm glad I gave them a try. Totally worth it.
4. A friend of mine gave me a copy of Mark Hodder's Burton and Swinburne series. I haven't returned them yet, and don't plan to. (Start with Spring Heeled Jack)

Audiobooks For Pleasure

I do a lot of traveling and audiobooks are great for those downtimes and traffic-times and long hauls from Point A to Point Q. Here are some of the best ones I've heard this year.
1. The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton. (I tend to find narrators and stick with them - Macleod Andrews MAKES this book the best audiobook I've heard in years.)
2. Johannes Cabal the Necromancer and the Detective are both FANTASTIC listens, even if there are two different narrators.
3. Richard Kadrey's Sandman Slim series. (Favorite series of the last few years) Again, you can thank Macleod Andrews when you get the audio versions. (Start with Sandman Slim)
4. Mike Carey's Felix Castor series. No, I don't know why more of these aren't in audio. Oh, I how I wish they were. (Start with The Devil You Know)

Books To Make Your 2012 Better

1. The Nerdist Way. Chris Hardwick is super nice and this book should absolutely be read (or listened to) by anyone who wants to be better next year. Also, this book changed my life more than many humans I know.
2. Spiritual Liberation by Michael Beckwith. Yeah I know, it looks way New Age-y. Give it about 30 pages (or ten minutes if you get the audiobook). It'll be worth it. I promise.
3. Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch. Seriously, get the audiobooks if you're serious about this purchase. 1. The material is interesting. 2. ED ASNER.

Books to Make You A Better Writer/Designer

1. The Weekend Novelist. Do you have a silly dayjob, so you only write on the weekends? Then you need this book!
2. The Writer's Compass. Are you trying to figure out what your story is about so that you can write it later? Then you DEFINITELY need this book!
3. Do you suck at grammar? Then have the trifecta: Spunk and Bite; Eats, Shoots and Leaves; and Sin and Syntax.
4. Do you often think about fonts and layout? Then you should read Just My Type.

Books You Can Learn Something From

1. Evil Hat's Dresden Files RPG - Come look at the confluence of mechanics, story, licensing and characters.
2. Ron Chernow's Washington: A Life - Take a look at what good research can do for your material.

More to come as I think of them.....

Game Design Special: The Feel Document

2011-12-13T13:39:00.000-08:00

This is a special post, dedicated to one of the elements I talked about at Metatopia, in my workshops and most recently in my Jennisodes interview. The 'Feel' document is NOT my original creation, but it is a useful tool.

What You'll Need For This:

1 piece of paper, legal pad, Word document or similar
1 idea
1 pen
1 favorite beverage

Let's do this.

Step 1. Title your Feel Document At the top of the page, put the name of the idea you want to write about. If you're writing a game, call it the name of the game. If you're doing this about a character in your screenplay, use the character's name. Try to avoid calling this "Feel Document" and then assigning it a number. It's impersonal, and easy to lose focus that way.

Write it large enough so that you can see it. Use 36-point font at least if you're typing this out.

Step 2. Consume part of your favorite beverage. This is really hard work.

Step 3. Start writing. 'Start writing what?' you ask. Onto this paper, into this document you're going to pour ALL-NON-MECHANICAL thoughts related to the idea. In any order. In words. In phrases. In full sentences. Key here is the idea that this isn't where mechanics go. (If you're writing a novel or screenplay, then you replace the word 'mechanics' for 'plot')

The paper should have things like:

Descriptions of the setting. (If you're creating the feel of your world)
Adjectives that players would use to describe the game (again for the feel of the world
Words to describe characters (if you're using this for characters)
Any idea that develops the atmosphere, tone or evokes a sense
Sample dialogue

For example, if I'm writing a novel about a lumberjack, my Feel Document looks like this:

Chops of Doom

Burly
Plaid
Lots of sap
Tall trees
Women's clothing
Mounties
Cold weather
"It'll be a cold day in hell before I use a chainsaw."

You want to keep plot and mechanics out of this document, because this is more about developing the creative side. You want to be able to draw scenes and compile an evoked experience from this document, so that as you're writing, and you get stuck, or when you come back to this project after a break, this document will snap you right back to the vibe you want to put down on the manuscript.

Note: Plot and Mechanics get their own documents, which I'll likely cover later.

Step 4. Have some of that beverage.

Step 5. Finish the beverage!

A Feel document is a living reference tool, you can come back to it and expand it as the need arises. And you will discover that as you pursue different avenues of thought, a lot of the planning and ideas you started with will change. That's okay. That's a good sign. The issue is when start changing the Feel document more than the manuscript.

Things To Remember

I. This Feel document is just for you. You don't have to share this with other people, and it doesn't have to be "perfect".
II. This Feel document is NOT set in stone. It's going to grow and develop as the story does, so don't think it has to be 100% complete before you move onto the next step.
III. When you get stuck, whether in writing, mechanics, plot, pacing or whatever....come back to the Feel document. The words here will help get back into a better creative mode and you'll find your solutions.

Happy writing.

Game Design Equation, Part 2

2011-12-13T09:05:00.000-08:00

YOUR GAME = Desired Emotion / Experience + Mechanics + Theme/Setting

You're going to want a legal pad by your side when you go through this post. It's meaty.

Today we're going to explore game design at it's core, because in order to understand something, you have to get down to it's most basic unit. We can't talk science without atoms, we can't talk writing without words, and we can't gaming without emotion, mechanics and theme.

When you're designing a game, whether that's a card-trading game, or a board game or a structured tabletop RPG using licensed characters and cinematic plots or something home-brewed, there sits at the heart of it a desired experience. You want the players, and you (presumably as its first GM) have an experience in mind - you want your game to be a certain way, you want the time you spent playing to feel a certain way.

Part I: Desired Emotion & Experience
Because game design is a practical task, take that legal pad next to you and write down some words, concepts or phrases to describe this desired experience. Ask yourself the question, "How do I want the game to be?"

Maybe you've written down things like:

Fun and easy
just like [insert favorite movie title here]
fast-paced
my players want to do it again

You want to stay away from the mechanics and setting here, because we'll get to those next. For now, think only of the experience of people around the table while playing. The better you can detail this experience, the easier it is for you to put your finger on it, the more evocative and expressive the game will turn out.

Add to this list, or in a second column, a list of emotions you want the players to experience while playing. This is just a list, you don't have to tie emotions to things you've already written. Do your best to have more 'player' feelings than 'GM' feelings, but don't exclude the GM side of play either.

I should point out now that there's no 'wrong' length to any of the lists we'll create, and if you only have one item on it, that's fine, in time you can always expand it later. What matters is that you've put something down on paper.

Your list may have things like:

excited during combat
nervous during suspense
happy to play at all

Now stop and congratulate yourself because you're one-third of the way done with the first draft of this game. Onto part 2.

Part II: Mechanics

Games can live and die by their mechanics, since it is lifeblood of play. Mechanics are the practical application of creative desire, and should be relatively codified in such a way as to answer basic questions and promote imagination about future issues.

Basically - mechanics should be 'how' the things you want to do get done but they aren't meant to be everything to everyone. Remember that play is a collaborative event, and no game is ever going to be able to account for all the potential things a player can do (or not do, depending). No game should be a Swiss Army knife, constantly trying to do everything, as that sounds and feels desperate, like a child begging a parent to pay attention to them. Don't be a desperate designer.

Likewise, don't swing the pendulum the other way and over-specialize. Your game might do one thing well, it may have one or two strong building blocks at the base, but by no means is your game just about the rolling of dice or the playing of one specific card in one specific context is it? Yes, the game can be driven/railroaded towards that situation time and again, but there's a decided lack of emotion and fun in always going back to rolling that die just because it's the only part of the game that you know works.

When talking and thinking about your game, those elements you get really excited about, or the ideas you want other people to be excited about should have mechanics. Also, if your game is "about" something, that "about"ness should be mechanized too. It's really hard to have a game where players are police who catch robbers if there's no way for them to find and/or catch robbers.

But how much is too much? Does EVERYTHING need a rule? No. You have to let the game be collaborative, remember? You have to trust those GMs and players to take what you've given them, and use it their way...so long as their way doesn't absolute ruin your intention...but if it does, so what? You cannot ultimately control that. All you can do is provide them a skeleton with some meat on the bones, and it's up to them to Frankenstein it to life.

Your best mechanics should be the clearest to understand, not the most convoluted. And you should be able to distill explanations of mechanics down to easy-to-grasp sentences. To practice this (and develop the critical skill of being able to explain your game), get that legal pad again, and write out first the mechanic and then an explanation.

It might look like this:

* Roll Fudge Dice and add your [Attribute] to the result.

* Roll Fudge Dice and count the plusses. To this number, add your [Attribute] score. The end number is the number used for [whatever mechanical issue we're talking about].

Or maybe this:

*Roll d100, subtract X% for difficulty.

* A percentile die is rolled, and from the result a penalty is assessed. The result is the percent chance of [whatever mechanical issue we're talking about]

Yes, it's going to be clunky if you're new to thinking this way. Yes, it's not going to be pretty writing. But that's why the world has editors (Hello. My 2012 calendar open, and we should talk.) But just like all your other favorite skills and habits, you got better at it over time with practice.

Mechanics are dictated by the story and they also dictate the story ahead. The GM will take the players through the imagined/created story and at some point will turn to the mechanics because the story got them there. If we're telling the story of conquistadors encountering natives, then at some point, we're likely going to have mechanical instances of combat. The story has brought the players and GM to that experience, and the mechanics will walk us through the parts of the experience where chance/risk/luck/The Force plays a role.

Also, the resolution of those mechanical situations will shape the story going forward. In the above conquistadors versus natives example, if the conquistadors get walloped by the indians, then the story will advance differently than if both parties fought to a standstill or if one side ran away. The story will ALWAYS move forward, it may not move forward in a way that you or the GM intended. But adaptability is a good thing. Both designer and GM need some amount of adaptability in their thinking, because it will have profound and positive impacts on the experience of play. (Note: If the game is supposed to have a certain situation go a specific way, it should be narrative, not mechanical)

We end now with the top of the pyramid.

Part III: Theme/Setting

I've talked previously about finding your theme. You're going to want to do that exercise now before going further. Now let's look at what the theme can do.

Theme and Setting (which is the theme objectified) are where the meal that is your emotion and mechanics are eaten. Up until this point, your game is nebulous and can occur anywhere. This is where you place a firm stamp on where the game occurs, how it occurs and to a deeper level, why it must occur.

A game's setting dictates parameters for the players. A game that occurs in 1492 won't have planes in it. A game that occurs in deep space likely won't have American politics at its core. The setting gives you a playground to explore, and the mechanics are the swingset thereupon. The theme is the...lax supervision that allows you to run from the slide to the monkey bars and tease that one kid for his pants falling down. (Not that I'm bitter about my pants falling down, but I was sensitive and stuck on those damn bars for five minutes until you were done laughing) Theme cooperates with emotion you want to express to cohere the mechanics and setting together into a game.

Likewise theme gives you a different axis of parameters for players. A "serious thrilling" game should not have too many moments of slapstick humor. A "fun rainy day" board game should not result in arguments about the nation's death penalty. Codifying and expressing your theme are critical if you want your game to feel unified.

Note: We're going to talk more about this soon

But that's enough for now. Happy writing.

One cake, many slices - How do you get what's fair?

2011-12-11T09:31:00.001-08:00

Good morning everyone. Before you come read the rest of this article, please look at the following:

http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2011/12/11/how-much-do-you-want-to-get-paid-tomorrow/

And at some point, my good friend Chuck will have a post about it, and I'll link there too. But, I'll go first for now.

We're all writers. We all want our books in other people's hands and on their shelves after we get money in exchange. We crave their praise and encouragement, we are fed and nourished by their desires to imagine.

That money thing though, oh man, that's the tricky part.

You want to see a bunch of writers revert to those apes from 2001? Talk about money and royalties and getting paid.

I used to be one of those people who wanted to charge $40 for everything I did. Now I don't do that, and I'm much happier for it, but I do remember my thinking:

1. I'm not sure I'm good enough to be worth more.
2. With so many other writers out there, how is there going to be enough for me to ask for any more than that?

A lot of that was fear, and self-doubt, bubbling up through me like crappy John-isn't-awesome magma to lay waste to my future paradise.

But that's been abolished now, so we shall celebrate by plunging back into the fray to rescue others.

Amazon (and their Kindle) is what made me make the jump to self-publishing. Well, that, and I'm impatient and think new media should be embraced. Amazon most recently began this service called KDP Select. Allow me to give you a nice analogy.

We're all partying. Perhaps there is nut bark. Perhaps we're rocking out. Doesn't matter. But at this party there is cake. Let's call this cake KDP Select's money.

Now, we're all at this party, and this is such a rocking party that the whole house is packed, the line stretches out the door and down the street and into the next town. But....

There's only one cake. And this party is the only way to get this cake. And we can only cut this cake in progressively smaller and smaller slices to accommodate those people at the back of the line.

Also, if you want a slice of this cake, you can't go to any other parties or throw any parties of your own.

Now, do you still want the cake? I mean you're welcome to have some, and thanks for coming to the party, but there is a really good chance that you're going to get a very tiny slice, and I'm not sure this one cake is worth trading away your own ability to have parties. (Note: I'm not sure ANY cake is worth that.)

I was on Twitter this morning (it's Sunday today) and there were some thoughts being tossed back and forth...and I started the conversation not so sure about what I had to say about KDP and their plan to be whatever it is they're turning out to be. By the middle of that conversation, after I read that link at the top of this post, I know what I want to say.

1. I agree with the sentiment that writers should be their own distribution hubs. It's our stuff, it's our hard work, and like the good folks of The Wire taught me, we should hustle to get it out there.

2. I believe now more than ever a writer can learn/be taught how to be their own distribution hub and their own conduit for success.

3. I think $500,000 is a cruel joke when it's split between so many deserving people, forcing a sort of brainy gladiator eat-your-own environment.

4. It doesn't take very much for a rebel to go mainstream, right Amazon? I mean, one minute you're letting people have options in publishing, now you're doing the same thing people went to self-publishing to avoid? Dirty pool.

5. A writer has to understand what they're willing to do, not do, go with, fight against, accept or rebel against, before they can even think of taking a side - education and information still trump ambition.

I don't think KDP is the way to go. It's not a panacea. It's an extension and mutation of the subscription system that breeds into exclusivity, rarity and scarcity. The competition in writing should be the talent, not the earnings.

You deserve cake. A big fat honking slice of cake.

The Game Design Equation, part 1

2011-12-07T10:54:00.001-08:00

So there's this equation I will share with you:

YOUR GAME = Emotion / Desired Experience + Mechanics + Theme / Setting

And we'll break it down shortly.

I got interviewed!

2011-12-05T05:29:00.001-08:00

I was recently interviewed on The Jennisodes!

http://www.jennisodes.com/podcasts/editing-your-game-book/

You should be listening!

Beats! (Sorry Blake Snyder...), part 1

2011-12-04T07:31:00.001-08:00

I mentioned previously that there are these things called 'beats'. Here now is a better breakdown of some them.

Opening Gambit - This is a scene different from the main thrust of the story, but that gives the reader/viewer an opportunity to see the protagonist in action. This is a mini-serving of the character or context of the world, and is often done in media res, meaning we join the action in the middle of it occurring.

Opening Gambits have three parts
A. Observation - We (and/or the protagonist) sees the world by way of a specific problem - We meet Batman on the roof of bank being broken into, for example. And that tells us something about the character (They fight crime, they're heroic, etc) and about the world (it has criminals, it's dangers, etc).
B. Operation - Here we see how the protagonist does whatever they do. Batman fights the bad guys, Macgyver builds something with string, celery and a dime, something that demonstrates WHAT the character does and HOW they do it.
C. Resolution/Praise - Having navigated the challenges of the opening conflict, the protagonist gets a reward. How they handle the reward provides more information about the character. Do they sigh when a rescued hostage thanks them? Do they escape before the police or publicity finds them? Do they talk about apple pie and democracy? The response to a completed (or failed) gambit educates the reader/viewer more about the nature of the character.

Instigator - This is a scene or character that leads the protagonist towards the conflict. They often introduce us to the plot as a concept, without actually breaking down the specifics of the plot. In a movie about treasure hunting, this is the character who tells the explorer about the existence of the map being found, for example.

Challenge Set-up - Just after the plot is introduced, most writers leave the protagonist for a moment and cut/wipe away to the antagonist to show them in a similar, albeit more evil situation. (Indiana Jones meets with the wise sage, the Nazis gather together to dig more holes) This is done to show that the desired Mcguffin is sought by multiple parties, to create tension.

The flaw here is the assumption that without the cut-away, the audience wouldn't know that this should be tense.

If the object is important, and the potential danger is illustrated (if the Russian guy gets the missiles, he can blow up the world!), then we don't need to cutaway to prove it -- the potential can be SHOWN to us in the characterizations.

McGuffin Tease - If your movie, novel, or play and it has a McGuffin, then you're going to want to show us that the object is powerful. The Ark of Covenant kills a few rats, the cursed Cthulhu statue leads to someone dying, the piece of kryptonite weakens Superman.

By showing the audience what the McGuffin can do when it's not even actively being used, you show how dangerous the plot is and how important the good guys win should be.

Sidekick Conversation Hour - Do you have time to kill between the B-plot romance and before you get back to the main plot, generally just before things look really bad for our intrepid protagonists? Then you're likely due to have 'Sidekick Conversation Hour'. This is that scene, or portion of a scene where the two stoner friends reference pop culture or allow you the writer to express your personal inside jokes that the audience will only tangentially understand. (Note - this is like the second beat cut out of a film, just after those scenes where multiple characters bring the audience up to speed on the plot as if we haven't been following along.)

Stay tuned for part 2, screenwriters.

More Game Design Goodies: A B structure

2011-12-04T06:57:00.001-08:00

I originally taught this with note cards, but have found you can also do this in two columns on a piece of paper. Designate one column (or card) 'A' and the other 'B'. (Or some cards 'A' and some 'B') Put them aside.

Now, the theory - for creating shorter (and slightly more intensive) direct experiences, there is a basic mechanic at work. It can be expressed and explained in three variations. I will detail them below.

Note: All of these can situationally operate 'backwards' as B:A B/A and B-A

A / B
Here we have two tracks of action, an A and B, and they work oppositionally. Time is not necessarily a factor here, but this is best expressed as 'nearly simultaneous'. Conceptually, this means that while A acts, so does B. While the good guys act, so do the bad guys. Their agendas need not mesh, although at some point, they should intersect (at plot climax ideally). This setup works best in larger scale campaigns, where players (often A) can operate under a wide variety of designs and are only vaguely aware of B's actions. (If that is the case, this is called a 'Blind A' or 'Blind B' scenario). Taken a step further, you may even withhold the existence of the one side from the other, although that tends to rob the players of the satisfaction of knowing the stakes they face and therefore projecting possible reward/praise.

Note: The majority of game experiences fall under 'Blind A' conditions, as the party operates mostly unaware of what their foes are directly doing (even though they might know about the goals).

A:B
This is more a traditional cause-and-effect situation, and is stated as "If A, therefore B" In this case, A and B need not be opposing sides, they could be action and consequence, move and counter-move, or any like-bonded pair. The majority of two player board games operate under this theory. (If he moves his pawn, I will move my knight -- if the rogue checks for traps, I will guard the door, etc) In multiplayer contexts, this serves a lot masters - individual characters follow cause-and-effect, players have an expectation of having their actions 'A' have in-world consequences 'B', and NPCs assume that 'B' is the reward for their plot. In this model, the tension surrounding "what will happen next" serves the desire to move things forward, as players will naturally want to know "what happens next".

A-B (-C)
This is the most open-ended and often most subtle expression of the structure, and is stated as 'A to B'. This is not a direct relationship (that's A:B), this is more about the option of the path from one item to the next. In a linear context, this is going from a quest giver to a location, or moving from one room to the next. What is not stated here is 'C', which is often defined as a larger goal (clear out the dungeon, win the election, do my errands, etc) and that 'A' and 'B' are items on a to-do list or instructional template that lead towards C's realization.

Now, let's see how they all blend together. Let's assume you have two players (the actual number doesn't matter), and that you're starting them in a room with a body.

1. Two players are in a room, with a body. (It is natural that they will want to explore/examine both the room and the body, although more likely the body, as they will assume it possesses more potential) [A-B]
2. Two players will speculate as to who they are and why they are here [A:B]
3. While this is occurring, the world exists OUTSIDE this room [A/B]
4. The players will discover some plot elements (they have to, else the game stalls out) [B:A]
5. The players must cooperate to leave the room [A-B]

Ideally yes, the whole game should blend together these elements on a moment-by-moment scale, and yes, in theory you should be able to chart the 'beats' (the scenes, the 'things') by this shorthand.

Now as an overall game experience, we can see a larger A and B relationship. In two-session play, the first session is 'A', and the second 'B'. The variation in relationship is dependent upon the way the sessions link together, which is an expression of the desired plot (either via game or via GM). Likewise, you may designate the players 'A' and the antagonist 'B' and determine their relationship accordingly. Going further, you may see all PCs (heroes and villains) as 'A' and the world they operate in as 'B'.

Return to your paper or note cards. On 'A' list the appropriate beats or characters. Number them as well, so that you can cross reference. Do the same for 'B'. See below

A
1. The players are in a room with a body
2. Gary, player #1, has an Aspect of 'Don't Take Me For Granted'
3. The villain buys the election.

B.
1. The players must cooperate to escape.
2. Engineer the situation so that Gary is compelled.
3. Therefore, he's set to become comptroller in two months.

(Using note cards is easier, since you can create note card pairs like A-1 & B-1, but side-by-side columns are effective if you have space for them)

In game design (as in storycraft of a novel) you should be able to chart out even the most open-ended experiences (hi Skyrim!) because the opportunities need not be linear, but they can be plotted (If the story/characters go to Location #1, that's an A:B, at Location #19 that's B-A).

I hope this sets some creative fires burning.

Happy writing.

Note: I realize that I make use of the term "beats" so perhaps I'll do a second post about what those beats are....

How to Work With An Editor, Part 1

2011-12-01T10:53:00.001-08:00

Previously on this blog, I've talked about the value of editing, and now I want to talk to you about how you can have that conversation with an editor. We are not difficult people to talk to, and there's no reason to think we're the enemy.

So let's suppose now in our first example you're writing a story. Maybe you just completed NaNoWriMo, perhaps this is something you've been writing every night for the last two years while your spouse puts the kids to bed, maybe this is something you started writing now that you're retired...whatever the situation, you've been writing this story and you're at a point where the story is done, and you had a hero and they did stuff and now you want it to be read by other people.

Congratulations, first of all, you've done something that a lot of people wish they could do, and you're taking a brave step in saying you want to do something with the story other than just leave it in your desk drawer. It's brave, not because the editor is about to tear it to shreds like a Skyrim dragon, but because you're sharing something personal to you. That takes guts, and a good editor will recognize and applaud that.

So you find an editor. Maybe you check out their blog, or meet them at a conference, or get referred to one from a friend...it's not hard to find us. And you write an email.

Dear (Editor),

I'm a new author and I've just written something. Can you help me? I want to be the next (famous author).

Your Name Here

Okay, so I abridged it. But let's list some things you should mention in your email.

1. Talk about what you've written, but don't give every plot detail. What I want to hear, what I look for in that email is how you see your story. Is it a love story involving robots and a 70s porn soundtrack? Is it a coming of age story for a young car mechanic? Is it a steampunk memoir of a mad scientist?

Nope, I don't need the plot. Not yet. If the description you give me excites me, then a second email will ask about plot. I promise.

2. Talk about other things you've written/you're writing. It is remarkably encouraging to know that you haven't just handed over your one and only creative endeavor and you're hanging on my every word (and refreshing your inbox every two seconds) waiting to hear my response.

3. Talk about what you want to do with the story. Are you planning on just posting this to your own blog? Is this going to one day be on store shelves? Is this going to be the next hot thing for my Kindle? What's your project endgame?

From there, a conversation starts and a relationship develops.

In our second example, let's say you're a game designer.

NOTE: Not all editors work in game design. Some do...make sure you do your homework. 

Alright game designer, you've got your game (aka "your baby"), And you write an email:

Dear (Editor),

I've made a game! I need help. Help me (Editor) you're my only hope.

Your Name Here

All three of the above should be mentioned, but let's throw in two more:

1. Has this been playtested yet? It helps an editor to know if other people have seen it, or checked out the mechanics (see below), or if the project is getting polished before it gets played. Yes, that is possible, and no, it's not always a bad idea. Depends on the project (I can see some people (hi Fred) making a face at this).

2. Is this a matter of text (flavor and exposition) only, or only the mechanics or both? Again, I'm odd in that as an editor, I will take a look at the mechanics if you ask. Also, I will visit the mechanics if the text changes radically, to make sure there is continuity and a cohesive theme.

Again, it's all about the conversation.

Lastly, here are three things you should bear in mind before and during this exchange:

A. By handing your project over to an editor, you understand that some elements are going to change. Keyword: SOME. An editor who slashes and burns without explanation is not someone you should be working with. Always get an explanation. And understand that you're going to find that some of your sentences, paragraphs, commas and phrases are going to go away. You may also hear the word "rewrite" a lot. Writing is not static-craft.

B. You are entitled to an explanation. When you were in high school, that English teacher didn't have to explain why she crossed out the sentence and wrote a question mark in the margin. But this isn't high school. This is the evolution of you as a writer and the production of your work, and you should have answers. A good editor will tell you what's wrong, explain why it's wrong, and tell you how/why it should be altered/fixed. And if you don't understand the explanation, ask questions until you do. If you don't get an explanation, then that's not the right editor for you.

C. You have free will. Just because you give over your project does not mean you have to necessarily make all the changes suggested by the editor. Yes, the changes and ideas are at best suggestions and you can refuse to do them. But at least think them over. Maybe down the road you'll revisit them and they'll make more sense to you. The choice is always yours. Remember Rule #1 - Writing is the act of making decisions.

Part 2 will get a little more in-depth about how a sample edit goes and what a writer can do to make the process easier.

Enjoy your writing!

The Three Act Exercise For Game Design

2011-11-25T16:13:00.001-08:00

You're going to want a piece of paper for this. I like legal pads, but you'll definitely want to see the work outside of a monitor.

Divide the paper into thirds (horizontally).

Act 1
Act 2
Act 3

We're going to chart the basic player's experience (ideally) in-game. This isn't a strict adventure outline, so we can be fast and loose with a plot, but there need to be key beats each Act has.

Act 1 - This is all things creation and introductory. Players should in theory develop themselves (conceptually, and mechanically) and learn about the basics of the world. Immersion here is critical, as no one wants to play a game where the rules are either too vague, too restrictive or too discouraging (i.e. railroading). In story context, this is where adventure/campaign plots are hatched and world-base concepts ("the feel of the world") is born. Act 1 ends when the Players enter the most intense and forward-progressive drive in the plot.

Act 2 - Characters by this point are INTO a plot/campaign, and are developing forward according to their brought-in goals (things they brought to the table) as well as open-goals (things the game offers). Combat here is more common, and risk is also introduced. This is also the largest Act of play, generally being 1.5 or 2 times larger than Act 1. Should the game be episodic, serialized or weekly, it will be so because of a long Act 2 that offers either complexity (lots of small steps put together) or intensity (there's so much to do and it takes time) or potential (lots to do, of mixed length). Act 2 ends when they feel prepared to finish the plot or wrap up significant material in the campaign.

Act 3 - This endgame is the shortest but is often the most mechanically driven of all the acts. It begins when the characters make that final push towards resolution, and ends when the conflict(s) introduced in Act 1 are resolved. They may not, and need not be resolved in a way satisfying to the character, (although the player will be satisfied in all but the most power-gamer circumstances). Act 3 is also the only Act that bears a formula:

The mechanics/world-building of Act 1 + the plot-building of Act 2 = Act 3

Now, return to your paper and do some simple bullet points.

Act 1 - What sort of things will the players discover, both in terms of the world/setting as well as the individual plot? What sort of things do you, game designer want to deliver to them at the start of this journey for them? Refer often to any Feel Documents you have, as well as any mechanics you want to show off.

Act 2 - How does the plot unfold? Are they key discoveries the players have to make? Are there contingencies for when they don't? How much latitude is given to the GM to improvise? Are there clear boundaries for a GM to play within, that at the very least define the "feel" (There's that word again) and themes of the game, even if they eschew the presented material? Note too that this is where many GMs will fracture or diverge from plot to tell their own stories - is that encouraged? Is a structure (mechanically and expositively) in place for the GM to move the characters towards resolution?

Act 3 - How can characters reach this point? Once they reach this point, can they go backwards to Act 2 without penalty or a change in experience (note: the experience of the badguy defeating the heroes and them trying again later is NOT endgame)? Do the mechanics developed in Act 1 and tested in Act 2 support resolving the plot in Act 3? Does the story (plot-wise) present enough reward to justify moving forward and resolving the character desires? What happens AFTER resolution?

Whatever you put on the paper is yours, and is subject to your change at any time, so there's no danger of being wrong. Likewise, you don't have to worry about missing material or "not thinking of something", because that's what playtest and homebrew rules are for. For now, focus on mapping out the experience, according to the ideas, theme and goals you want players to discover and worry about the finer points later. (Yes there are substantial finer points ahead, but that's what other pieces of paper are for.)

Start there. Happy designing.

What Skyrim Has Taught Me About Writing, Game Design and Life

2011-11-21T07:06:00.001-08:00

Everyone award yourself +50 Nerd points for reading this article.

So Skyrim happened. And is happening. And will happen until the mountains crumble into the sea.

If you haven't heard, Skyrim is a huge open-world role-playing experience that many of you are having, and many more of you should be having.

More than just escapist game-playing, Skyrim has been instructive. Theodore the Barbarian Nord has been a wonderful opportunity to develop some imagination, some life lessons and some writing skills.

Here are a couple:

1. An Open-World is full of options that appeal to multiple interests simultaneously. Theodore is level 16, and I've only gone through the first parts of the main story quest. (Learned two shouts, haven't gone see the Graybeards yet) Why? Because I just kitted out my house, and have been roaming the countryside as a lycanthrope, killing those who would oppose my hirsute bloodlust. The main story can wait. The experience here is all about Theodore developing into a potent, realized being. Who happens to swing a Skyforged Steel sword and breathe fire.

This afternoon for example, I plan on pushing myself towards level 20, by way of a few Miscellaneous quests and Smithing. Those are things that I like to do currently, but maybe in two levels, when Theodore crafts his umpteenth-billion iron dagger (I have forty pounds of leather strips....), I might decide to move back towards the main quest.

Skyrim offers that sense of openness without any of the nagging. I don't have some blinking urgent giant arrow railroading me towards one specific story -- the story is mine from the moment the game loads until I've lost five hours and gotten lost in the same mountain range...again.

2. Life Lesson: You're never without tools and options. I'm running around with Lydia, my butler-ess with an elven warhammer, and she's about as helpful as a hacking cough during a movie premiere. (I believe her thought process is "Is there a large and potentially lethal hazard ahead? I'll bring it to Theodore!") And when she lures those two giants and that troll to me, I need to be able to not die.

It doesn't always work out. She was a peach for luring a pack of necromancers towards me just after I turned that corner, and when the mountain path went vertical, it was great of her to backtrack and get lost for ten minutes, but all I had was at hand - and that's what I needed. When life/Skyrim gives you a mountain to scale en route to a bandit camp, head for the treeline, draw your sword and get to business. Your tools never leave you, even if you make your less-than-stellar companion carry all the dragon bones and the spare sword.

3. In the game world, the player wants to feel like they matter. I'm a werewolf now, and during my first canine moments, I may have torn through a few guards and pedestrians who didn't realize that the howling death machine always has the right of way. The next day, it was the talk of the town. Guards and the widows spoke about the horror that came from the night to ruin their lives.

And that was the "hook" moment for me. I did something, something not affiliated with the main plot of the game or even dragons, and the world responded. The player of a game has needs (a need to feel like they matter, a need to make an impact, a need for encouragement and consequences), and Skyrim satisfies all of them with all the claw swipes, howls, Shouts and smelting of ores.

Game designers - do the characters matter? Does what they do affect anything? Ask yourself, and push yourself to find the answer.

4. Writing - Even if you're a Swiss Army knife, there are a few tools you use often. Theodore doesn't do a lot of magic. He's got enough juice in him to transmute some iron to gold and occasionally light some dark rooms up, but on the whole, it's sword and shield time. The character has the options, and the building blocks to be quite deep and broad, but time and again, my play style involves putting the pointy metal end into the soft bits of my opposition.

In my books, the characters can do a lot. They detect. They communicate. They act. They delve into mysteries great and small. But time and again there is a 'comfort zone' of actions they engage in, and those are the brighter facets of their character-gem. Kestrel the eccentric detective is a shiny diamond of problem solving while Charlie Commons is a rich emerald of supernatural sleaze.

The experience is shaped for and by my play style. I could easily decide to switch from swords to magic, and while it would be awkward at first, I think I could adjust. But with every subsequent sword-slash, I'm one motion deeper. I fall forward into a world and drown in the details.

So, in short, Skyrim rocks. Grow from it.

Pioneering

2011-11-14T10:31:00.001-08:00

I read this on Chuck Wendig's blog. And it made me....angry.

Not because I agree with one side over the other, but because I don't think there are sides. I know people have taken sides, saying that their e-publication genitals are of superior size, girth and amazement because their path towards publication is on the yellow brick, orange brick or whatever-color-brick road.

None of this matters. Not to the consumers. Not to whatever fanbase you have (or want to build).

How someone produces their work is less important than the very binary condition of - Do I have a product available for others or not?

I'm not sure why this question doesn't come up more - I suspect it's because people find it too elementary, or too great a simplification, that somehow minimizes whatever they've done as hard work. It doesn't actually minimize the work, but people think it does.

Here's my thought, which doesn't really count as a "side" in this argument.

Isn't the point of publication (in any form) to get your story out to people who want to purchase and enjoy it?

Writers, regardless of their path towards publication, are pioneers, blazing an Oregon-esque Trail towards their own success conditions.

Don't argue about how you got on the path, WALK THE PATH. BLAZE THE TRAIL.

Be your own writing pioneer.

How to Find Your Theme

2011-11-10T10:57:00.000-08:00

Some people put "Setting" way up on the pedestal as the creamy nougat center of their manuscript candy bar. Some people do the same for "Dialogue" or "Characters". But for me, whether it's what I like to read or how I work, I look for, surround myself in, and propagate theme.

What is theme? Theme is all the core concepts of your story, distilled down to their best words and organized into a best sentence. And just like always I have a snazzy chart and system to explain this.

Step 1: Describe Your Manuscript/Creation/Baby/Whatever You Want To Call It
Compose as many sentences, phrases, words as possible to express to another human being what your writing is about. Don't tell them about the plot, or the potential plot, I mean talk to them about the vibe, mood and feel. (Yes, this is where a "Feel" Document can do double-duty). Let's put together a few examples:

1. The Dresden Files RPG

collaborative
often darker than intended
going H.A.M. (google it adults) is encouraged.
Magic, grit and not always a bright sunny conclusion

2. Moby Dick

There's a whale
Revenge is a dish best served with a harpoon
When in doubt, carve your coffin
Get used to the rhythm of the sea

3. Checkers

Diagonals!
Don't be a wuss, move your back row
Only 2 players

Step 2: Make a sentence or two out of them.

Go through your lists (or your Feel Document) and craft a sentence that either quotes those items you listed in Step 1 or paraphrases them. You don't need to force yourself into a single sentence, but don't take that to mean that you couldn't go overboard - you want less than a paragraph here. To our examples!

1. The Dresden Files RPG - Magic is real, wizards and the supernatural are alive and kicking, and sometimes you have to suffer to succeed.

2. Moby Dick - Obsession will kill you.

3. Checkers - Forward progress is a good thing.

Step 3: Find the Power Word in the sentence(s) you just wrote
A 'Power Word' is the word or word-phrase that carries all the emotional or impactful weight of a sentence. It's often the word that draws the eye and imagination and leads the reader to nod their head and "get it". It sometimes takes practice to find the best word, or to narrow it down from a few potential words to one definite choice, so I advise you to try these three steps for a lot of writing, not just your own, until you get into the habit. Onto our examples:

1. The Dresden Files RPG - "Suffer to succeed"

2. Moby Dick - Obsession

3. Checkers - Progress is good

Step 4: Success!
That power word or phrase is your theme! Congratulate yourself.

Note: Theme isn't 'wrong'. If you would look at each of those items and draw together totally different words, sentences and themes, great! Theme is subjective, and it should be. However, should we compare our notes, our themes should be in somewhat of the same range (we're both a litte pessimistic, or they're both character-driven or they both relate to another particular idea or even that they're polar opposites on the same spectrum) else we're only going to conflict with each if asked. And maybe, that conflict is okay.

Note 2: If you can't identify a 'theme' you're missing out on a powerful selling point, and a powerful building block for your manuscript going forward. Theme is often a lighthouse that you can navigate by, and return to when you end up astray in the middle of Act 2 and you have move things forward towards climax. Or in game design, theme is one of the great "sinews" that ties mechanics to setting in a way that appeals to a player on a level beyond "Ooh I get to roll the blue dice!"

Because it's so strong and so intense, I put theme at the top of the writing pyramid. And maybe you should too.

Metatopia, Part 2

2011-11-10T05:35:00.000-08:00

I have some more thoughts on Metatopia.

Attending as a non-primary-gamer (that's my term, it means that gaming isn't my bread-and-butter career path, passion or money maker), really gave me the ability to see holes and opportunities, places where in non-gaming contexts the void is already full. Like what you ask? Like these:

Marketing - Yes, I was part of a totally amazing marketing panel (led by Josh Seideman, who totally knows what he's talking about, and you really should be following him on Twitter if you're not already. And while his presentation was good, it honestly wasn't anything I haven't already done or heard about -- which is to be expected, part of my business involves marketing strategies.

But in a gaming context, marketing seemed to be somewhat of a mythical activity, something shrouded in confusion and spoken about with a lot of "Uhhs" and "Ums".

And here lies the opportunity.

I make marketing easy. I mean it is easy already, but how I teach authors to market is simple, effective and in the words of one guy "surprisingly fun". So consider this my note to talk about marketing strategies across all my social networks.
Presentation Skills - How many great presentations did I see? At least a dozen. How many presentations could have been made great by simple tips? Bazillions. I know, it's scary and tough to stand/sit in front of a room and hold court, especially if you're talking about something that's been your creative baby for a long time and this is the first time you're bringing it out for humans to consume. Good for you for doing that. That's step 1. Step 2 is, "Kick ass with it."

So consider this my note to the universe that I'm sneaking in some presentation tips into my next workshops.
Where were the ladies? Yes I met some fantastic women (Jenn, Terry and Shoshanna immediately spring to mind) And surprisingly women made up a decent percentage of the people attending, but this wasn't really lady-friendly. Now maybe that's the community, maybe that's got something to do with either the perceived or real awkwardness some people have around lady-people (I know, they have cooties, right?), but I think if the community as a whole was a little more pro-fem (not like I'm-going-to-hack-off-your-dangling-oppressive-genitals pro-fem, I mean more like "Girls-are-welcome-in-our-clubhouse"), the number of potential consumers and contributors goes up, and everyone wins.

What blew my mind is that game designers are just like writers and I could/can/did slot myself in and among them the same ways. There is somewhat of a myth that gamers are mega-nerds and entirely insular, but on the whole, I found these people to be among the nicest humans I've ever spent time with, and certainly some of the smartest.

So, to the game people reading this, so many of you have my business card. Flip it over and take a look at the back.

Find this line: Creative and Professional Solutions for Any Situation

I mean it. Much like Vanilla Ice - if you have a problem, yo, I'll solve it. (And yes, word to your mother.)

Another post shall later this afternoon.....and I'll talk about the magic that is the conversation with a writer.

Metatopia was AWESOME!

2011-11-08T04:58:00.000-08:00

My Metatopia experience was amazing beyond words, and it set a ridiculously high bar for all future conventions. The fact that I had less than a ten-minute commute to the hotel every day meant I could go home, and decompress and organize all the information I received over the weekend. It also meant I was able to shower and sleep in comfortable privacy, which is a double awesome bonus.

My presentation: Editing and Writing Workshop (For Game Designers) was EXACTLY the sort of presentation I've always wanted to give, and I could not have asked for a more attentive and receptive audience. My unabridged notes are available, (just email me) Granted, this workshop took place at midnight, and came after eight hours of other wonderful workshops by some real rpg powerhouses (Kenneth Hite, Fred Hicks, Rob Donoghue, Brennan Taylor among them), but my adrenalin was pumping and I was eager to do what I do (make writing and editing way less scary and impossible for people) to a whole new audience.

Things I will do differently going forward:

Pictures! Normally, I hate photos, because I feel like they rarely make me look good. The camera doesn't add ten pounds, it adds ten metric tons. But photos of the seminar room, of my audience, of me overdressed for my crowd (gamers aren't really shirt-tucked-in-people) I think would totally help portray the awesomeness.
Not carry around a heavy messenger bag full of things I don't use. In my bag I had half a dozen legal pads, a bag of dice, a box of pens, a box of pencils, three mini steno pads, my Ipod and two thousand business cards. This weekend I used 1 legal pad, a pencil and my Ipod for about ten minutes. I don't actually need to carry around an office supply store.
Relax sooner! On Friday I was nervous. This was my first convention, it was with people who I consider to be at the top of their game (nerd pun!), and I wanted to make sure I came across intelligently, accurately and passionately. Judging by the feedback I got and the amazing consequences of the weekend (more on that when I'm able to discuss them, but this would be a GREAT time to start following me on Twitter if you haven't already), the people I talked to and with, I did all that, but there was ZERO reason to be nervous. Everyone was super nice and really intrigued about what I do and they made me feel very welcome in their typical insular and slightly xenophobic community.

Will I do other conventions? YES. Absolutely.

This deserves more coverage. A second Metatopia (metatopic?) post will follow.

Metatopia!

2011-11-04T05:13:00.000-07:00

Metatopia is this weekend. For those unaware, Metatopia is a convention (called a 'con') all about independent game playing and creating. And when I say "game" I mean it in the nerdiest of contexts -- role-playing games.

I've played, written, edited and been around gaming in a professional context for years. And I've been around gaming in a personal context even longer (more than half my life ago...and still playing.)

But I've never been to this convention. I've always wanted to be at this convention, I've often said "One day I'll be the kind of guy who goes to these things"...well, I'm working on becoming the kind of guy who actually *does* things rather than *saying* he'll do things. Yay self-improvement!

While I cannot promise regular over-the-weekend updates (but if you follow me on Twitter, you never know), I will do my best to detail my experience on Monday, the day I shall rename "The Day I'm Going to Attempt to Catch Up On My Sleep".

Enjoy your weekend.

The aftermath of the storm.

2011-11-01T05:22:00.000-07:00

Consider this post an interlude:

For those that don't know, there was a rather intense storm this past weekend that leveled a great number of trees, rendered roads dangerous and left millions of people powerless.

My whole town was without power until yesterday. And actually, my house was the last house in town to get power restored to it.

The culprit for the town was the electrical substation. The culprit for my house was an old tree in the front of the house that decided this weekend was a good time to lay down, and hey, since the power wires were just sitting there, they should come down too. Into my yard. Into my wet, water-logged yard.

The result was no damage to the house (although the tree briefly rested against the roof), but it tore the wires out rather violently and I'm sure had the power somehow stayed on, there would have been some rather epic 80s-style explosions.

Without power, I lose internet access.
Without power, I lose phones.
Without power, I lose refrigeration.
Without power, I lose heat.

I note each of those separately for a deliberate reason - each of them was a point of contention between me and another person.

The lack of heat led to me being very grumpy.
The lack of refrigeration wasn't really a problem until the food started thawing and spoiling, and I've since filled my garbage cans to the brim with stinky bags. Sorry garbage guys.
The lack of phones led to quite a few angry emails between me and people who wanted to know why I wasn't working.
The lack of internet access led to quite a few more angry emails about why I wasn't working.

Oh, I did check my email, I did listen to the voicemail from my cable company saying they had emailed me directions on what to do about getting my cable restored - I just had to drive 30 minutes and inconvenience my grandfather to do it (his town was totally fine). But, you ask, why did you check your email and voicemail, but didn't do the work you know I wanted done, you ask?

Because quite frankly, when there is no power in your house for a few days, and when you're cold and in the dark and frustrated, the one thing I don't want to do is write words on a website.

In fact the disconnect from my usual routine allowed me to see that I really don't like writing words on websites that much anymore, and effective Jan 1, 2012, I won't be doing it any longer - because what I really want to do is create fiction - books, television shows, RPGs, plays...all kinds of creative things like that. I don't want to spend time having to worry about someone else's Google Adwords, I don't want to have to endure the client's confusion that I'm somehow both tech support and web design (when I'm neither)...and so, I'm not going to focus on that.

The storm showed me that I'm not looking at the opportunities best for me. And then I read this blog post, and it was confirmed.

Universe, you're awesome.

--The Writer Next Door

How To Write A Query Letter, In Three Steps

2011-10-24T07:49:00.000-07:00

This is the article that several of your How-To websites didn't want....

So, you’ve written a book. Congratulations. Welcome now to the harder process -- getting published. I mean, that was the point of you spending nights and weekends staring bleary-eyed into the screen until your eyes bled and your mind was day old pudding, right?

I’m assuming that you’re going to pursue the more traditional route of publication, the route you’ve probably heard the most about, or the route maybe you assumed was your only option. Yes there are other options, and I'll talk about them in later posts. But for our purposes, let’s say you’ve decided to go the ‘legacy’ route and you want an agent and a big-house publisher.

You’re going to write a query letter in three steps, and if you’ve done it right, the query letter you produce will be shorter than this article, and that’s mostly because I’m long-winded and enjoy hearing myself narrate instructions.

For this query letter, you’re going to need the following things:

A word processor document
Notes about your manuscript including the title, the word count and a general sense of plot and theme. (I like to put these on a note card)
The address of a specific person/agent/editor/publisher to whom you’re sending this letter (Make sure you spell everything correctly)

Once you collect all those things, we start with Step 1.

Step 1: Understand The Ground Rules
A query letter is essentially your manuscript’s pickup line, looking to interest the reader into taking the manuscript home and getting comfortable/intimate/freaky with it. And to avoid the ignominy of bad pickup lines, there are rules to follow before you start flirting:

A. You have AT MOST 250 words (including your name and contact info) to put on this page and get someone to read the manuscript. The people who are reading this have a lot more than just your query to read, and they cannot afford (nor do they want) to have their time wasted because you took three pages to say what can be said in a paragraph. (I suppose the exception is made for ‘How To’ articles)

B. This is NOT a desperate endeavor. Desperation is palpable, and it does not encourage people to read the manuscript. Don’t beg. Don’t dawdle. Desperation is death. This is your novel, this is your baby, love it, be proud of it, and talk it up.

C. You’re going to do this more than once. Nobody gets it right the first time. The words you put down on paper can always be fine-tuned, you can always send it to another (and possibly more receptive) audience.

D. It gets easier the more you do it. A lot of resources want to scare you about queries, demonizing them and making the process one of scarcity and limitation rather than of creative endeavor. I promise you, it’s supposed to be fun. This should feel like showing off the baby pictures, talking about your new puppy and praising your significant other. Learn to love this process.

Armed with these ground rules, let’s talk about the act of writing.

Step Two: Start Where The Action Is
Tell me about the movie you just saw. Tell me about your favorite episode of your favorite television show. How did you do it? Did you tell me about what color the sky was and how the camera moved over the scenery before it zoomed in on the hero? No, you didn’t, if you wanted me to stick around and listen. You started with the action of characters.

On a technical point, I’m talking about verbs here. Yes, you can say Moby Dick is about the pursuit of a whale, but if you really want to seize me and hold my attention, tell me that it’s Ishmael’s recounting of Ahab pursuing the whale that will ultimately be his undoing. Find your verbs, find the actions that the characters do to make the plot and story move forward. Verbs are king of the query.

Yes, that action paints enough of a picture. Also, with 250 words, it’s the actions that you describe that I will dive into the manuscript to enjoy.

This is the part where I tell you to start writing. Keep your word count in mind, remember your verbs and get me interested.

But wait, how will you end this? Endings matter too, you just can’t trail off when you run out of words. Within those 250 words, save the last fifteen to twenty or so for a wrap-up.

Step Three: End Assuming You’ll Be Spoken To
Repeat after me: I do not fear rejection, rejection shows me I’m on the right path. Chant this daily. Tattoo it on your children and pets. Do whatever you need to do to staple this philosophy to your soul.

That last paragraph should include the title of the manuscript (in all caps), the word count (because, yes, there is such a thing as too long for a particular genre or audience), and any information you want to impart to the reader about how to reach you. Notice here that I didn’t say to tell the reader about how you’re new at this or how you really liked two other books you just read. Stay on target, talk about your work and make sure the reader knows how to contact you.

That’s it. Three steps. Not to freak you out or anything, but anything else is just further complication. It helps to know your book, it helps to know your genre, but there aren’t any great and magic bells and whistles. Just write. A lot.

Good luck, and happy writing.

4 Editing/Writing Mistakes You Might Be Making & Their Solutions

2011-10-16T08:25:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow night I'm speaking about 10 Editing/Writing mistakes you're probably making and how to fix them. Seats are still available, if you're interested.

I originally had a list of twenty, but had to pare it down to ten for the sake of time. Here now are four that got lost in the shuffle but that are no less important or critical. I present them to you here in the same format I'll be discussing them.

Mistake #1 - You think the sentences have to be fancy in order to prove that you're smart or capable or good enough.

Fancy sentences, while they demonstrate that you've paid attention to instructors or grammar, don't necessarily prove that you're smart.
Side note: You're always capable
Side note #2: You're always way more than good enough.

The Solution: Ask yourself this question - What (type of) sentence serves the focus (of the sentence)? Every sentence talks about something, and I don't only mean the grammatically correct subject of the sentence. I'm talking about the 'point' of the string of words.

Is your sentence describing the chair a character sits in? Is your sentence expanding on what your character is saying? Finding out what the sentence is doing, and who/what it's doing it to can help you hone the sentence to make it more reflect the sound, feel, and style that you're looking for.

Likewise, sentences said by people have a unique sound. My spoken sentence structure is different than my written structure, and both of which are different than how you sound or how you write. Understanding this difference, and being able to express it within the manuscript, allows you to individuate your characters and breathe into them a vitality and distinct depth making them feel more real. Your hard-boiled detective in 1940s Los Angeles speaks in a completely different manner than your Victorian schoolteacher in Darbyshire and she's entirely different from the young girl from the future.

Exposition should sound and read (and feel) different and separate from your dialogue. And characters should sound distinct and different from each other. Fancy sentences have their place in a writer's toolbox, but you don't have to trot them out just to prove yourself -- if they help the story, use them.

Mistake #2 - Mid-Manuscript Sag

You had an intense opening, and you know you've got a ferocious close, but the middle of the story hangs worse than old lady boobs.
You've tried your best to avoid this by shoe-horning in some action, but it's obvious that this is the section you've tacked on because it doesn't have any bearing on what happens later.
You've decided that mid-manuscript sag is unavoidable, and everyone gets it.
Note: That's silly. It's a treatable condition, and you'll be happier when it's fixed.

The Solution: Remember that Act 2 is the middle steps of your staircase. It's the middle of the night. I'm on my first floor, and I want to go upstairs to the bedroom, here's what I do (you know, in case you want to hide in the bushes and watch):

Open the door to upstairs
Step onto the first step
Curse the darkness
Flick on the light switch
Go up the stairs
Pause a second to make sure that nothing creepy and evil is following me (seriously, it's a scary staircase)
Reach the top of the stairs
Go to bed.

If I was going to divide that into three acts (or sections), I'd do this:

Act 1 - Steps 1-4
Act 2 - Steps 5-6
Act 3 - Steps 7-8

The first four steps gave information as to what the problem was, and began the effort of solving the problem. The last two steps show the problem being solved and what happens after the solution.

But none of that would be possible without the middle steps. How can we get to Act 3 without Act 2?

We can't. But, you ask, how do I make those middle steps not suck?

Why do you assume they have to suck? Likewise, why do you assume you have to speed up the middle to get to the end?

True, Act 2 is different for every kind of manuscript. Non-fiction people have to use it to develop established points. Mystery writers use it for investigation and suspect growth. Scriptwriters use it to introduce villains, sub-plots and peril. Cookbook authors use it for developing main courses.

No matter how it gets used, Act 2 must build upon Act 1 and lead up to and into Act 3. I'm not going to reach the bedroom without climbing those stairs. With each step, up goes the protagonist (me), up goes the tension (will he climb the stairs?), up goes the expectation (he's almost to the top of the stairs!) and up goes the sense of success (look how far he's gone!).

Act 2 sag is defeated by knowing the goal, what's at stake, what gets lost or gained and by making sure you care about the guy going up the stairs. Or the girl who's a secret assassin. Or the teenage shape-shifting psychic.

Mistake #3 - Suffocating The Characters

Characters are not only the pawns on the chessboard of your story
You're not so much "controlling" them as "exploring" them

I have to deviate a little first to explain what I'm talking about. Hang on, this will all make sense shortly.
When we're sitting down at our desks, and either facing the blank page or screen, and maybe we've even got a stack of notes sprawled all around us, we are powerful. We create worlds and people and problems and we open the vaults of our imaginations and go wild.

And other times, we tell a story that is pretty straightforward, and we sit down only to express it, not embellish or evolve it.

Our characters are living creatures. They exist in three dimensions in our minds. They are not nebulous constructs that represent vague concepts - hopefully, you've done more to flesh them out and give them personality and potential. (I say hopefully because this needs to happen more often. For help doing this, we should talk.)

When we sit down to let these characters loose, yes we want to tell the story we had in mind (Yes, the cheerleader robot will destroy all of mankind), but is that all we want?

The Solution - Relax your stranglehold on the characters and the world, and see what else you can create. You are not limited, constrained or held back, unless You choose to be. The act of writing, the true art and craft of it comes in seeing where your imagination takes you AS you write, so that while you may intend to start building a scene where the girl tells the boy she loves him, it may, if you let it, also be the scene where the girl reveals she's never been kissed, and oh by the way, she's got a twin sister who sleeps in the closet.

I had a teacher (who I'm pretty sure is long gone, I mean he was in his nineties when I was a teenager) who used to tell me "You give your characters air, but you have to show them how to breathe, NOT 'let' them breathe."

And this quote absolutely bothered me for YEARS because I couldn't see his point. I have to show them, not let them. Of course I let them. I made them.

This is what he was talking about -- the act of creation does not automatically grant total authority. Your characters don't exist solely for the plot of this manuscript. Yes, they might exist for the duration of this manuscript, but while they're alive, they can live and breathe and live within the boundaries you create.

You create those boundaries with decisions, not limitations. (John's Writing Principle #1 - Writing is the act of making decisions.) If you build a strong enough world, and inhabit it with capable creations, and provide them a context in which to operate, you've done enough. You can stand back, let your imagination kick in, and see how the characters mingle and evolve across the manuscript.

Mistake #4 - Suffocating the Plot

The manuscript is MORE than your plot
The plot is NOT your reason to live, not should it entirely be that way for the characters

Plots are, by definition, the conflict and problem(s) faced by the character(s) in the story. Sometimes, it's argued that plots are the reason for the story. Sometimes it's argued that plots are the reason for characters. Sometimes I argue a lot.

Just like suffocating your characters, so too can you choke the plot like it owes you money. (And it very well may...)

But plots are more structured, and they shouldn't have room to evolve, right?
Wrong.

Plots evolve just the way characters do. Maybe not to the same degree, but at least by the same dynamic.

Think of this:

John's Lesson #3 About Plots -- Plots grow, ebb and flow, in response to the growth and evolution of the characters that face them.

The Solution - When making sure the plot is resolvable, and is a good test and crucible for the characters, make sure the plot is appropriate for them.

While Superman may sympathize with the crying orphan, do we really need to have the tale set around rescuing a puppy for the boy? While it's a nice element in the story, is that the bulk of the story?

Test your plot regularly and be willing to expand it. The clearer you know your characters, the clearer you'll know how they'll handle the plot.

I hope this helps you, and I hope you have an excellent time writing. I look forward to seeing some of you (tomorrow) Monday night. Write on.

The Value of Editing, Part 2

2011-10-03T11:24:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon everyone.

Today I'm continuing with Part 2 of The Value of Editing. Part 1 is found here.

I should start out that what I'm about to describe is by no means common, that while lots of people provide the services I'm to describe, there is no one singular method or name for things. Everyone does things a little differently, and I want it made clear that it's entirely okay. What follows is my method, my thinking and an explanation of how I work. Should you consult other people, you may find different experiences. I say all this to help you make the best informed decision possible.

We start today with a few assumptions, for the point of explanation.

We assume:

That you've got either a manuscript that you have or plan to finish.
That you've made a plan, commitment or promise to yourself to get the manuscript started.

And that would lead you to me. Maybe you've emailed me, maybe you've checked out my Rates & Services page and we've talked, or maybe you've found me on some social media and a conversation has been started.

Here you are writer, and you're wondering what the next step is.

The next step is that you retain me, and after payment gets all handled, we get to work. From that moment forward, the value of editing starts to become clear.

As Angeli Pidcock pointed out in "First Encounters of the Editorial Kind", the process is INTENSE. It usually starts with a series of conversations, assessing and diagnosing problems as well as the general start-state of the manuscript. From there, the process starts in sections (chapters, acts, etc) and the manuscript gets opened up, and rebuilt.

Whether the simple line edit or the more thorough substantive edit, the manuscript gets put through some rigorous examination. Ultimately, the goal is whatever the writer wants out of the relationship - I do not insist or demand that everyone set the same goal, I want instead people to benefit from the experience - I want their work to be better when we're done working it over.

So here now is valuable item number one - Know what you want as an end result. Do you want to see your book on store shelves? Do you want to just get it out in certain people's hands? Do you want to just get it off your hard drive and available for anyone to read?

When the manuscript changes, and yes, it's going to change, either by my suggestions and advice or by your own hand, that's a good thing. First drafts are called 'first' because they begin a series. Yes, the digital explosion has allowed first drafts, error-laden and thick with confusing clutter, to go straight to your readers, and that may be the path that many people take to publication legitimacy, but I cannot stress enough that if you want readers to stick with you for more than one reading, you need editing.

Editing is NOT a speedy process. Yes, the process can be expedited but as with any rush job, you're going to incur additional expense. Bigger pieces, pieces that need more revising, repair and correction as well pieces with more ambition (you want to turn your manuscript into a several webisodes with puppets, for example) take time. Here comes valuable item number 2 - This is an investment, not just of your work and financial expense, but also of time.

Your work gets made better. Sometimes that means things have to change. I would love to be able to say there's an exact percentage that must be changed or kept in order to craft a publishable manuscript, but I do not know of any number like that to exist. Evolution is not a static process.

If you're looking to evolve your work, if you're looking to get your manuscript to 'the next level' (a nebulous phrase, but I like it), then we should talk. I'll be waiting.

The Value of Editing, Part 1

2011-09-28T18:29:00.000-07:00

I enjoy editing. Not just because it is a way I earn a living, and not just because I enjoy explaining and teaching others. I enjoy editing because over the course of an editorial process, the manuscript in front of me comes to life.

I liken it to seeing something surface from beneath the waves, or watching a rocket launch.

Over time, through the series of suggestions and revisions, the manuscript changes shape and starts to define itself, not as only a mere collection of words assembled on page after page, but as a coherent story that has characters, and depth, and it interests all those who come in contact with it, and it has emotions breathed into the pages.

I do not apologize for sounding so florid over the transformative effect of editing. But if that last paragraph seemed like a lot of fluff and not a lot of payoff, allow me now to use a more visceral example:

You've bought your favorite car. You saved every cent and worked long hours of overtime to afford this dream car. You have thought of, dreamed about, and craved this car. And there it is, in your driveway. Very new. Very shiny. Very ready to be taken on a spin. So of course, you put the top down (at least in my fantasy, your favorite car is a convertible. It doesn't have to be, maybe you want the Batmobile or something) and off you go.

And driving is awesome. You're flying down the street. All your friends see you, and they're waving happily at you. You push the car up to triple-digit speeds. The roads are empty, and you feel more alive than ever as the car responds to your and your hands inside those Italian leather racing gloves (again, my fantasy for you). And you're loving this car as it winds down the roads and comes over hills. (Maybe if you're feeling adventurous you drag race a few police cruisers). And as you drive, you're not really noticing the occasional mud puddles that splash up now and then. Maybe you're not seeing the bug go splat against the windscreen. You're not really paying attention to the gravel and dust cloud your blasting through.

So by the time you get back to your garage, that beautiful car needs to be washed, waxed and tuned up. But, the hour grows late, and you have other things to attend to. (Given that this is my fantasy, let's say those things involve your favorite food and a party of some kind, maybe a Doctor Who marathon or something). The car can wait, you say. And it sits in the garage for a night.

And that night becomes a weekend. Then a week. Then a month. And then a season.

By the time you come back to that dream car, the mud is caked on pretty good. The gravel has sunk into the paint, and the bugs have formed a nice crust on your windscreen. You blast it with a hose, but all you really do is swirl the crap around. Maybe you take it to a local car wash, but really all they tell you is that the car is a mess, and if it were their car, they'd treat it better. And it would be a Jeep. No, it would be a monster truck. A monster truck that shoots fireballs. Called Chevysaurus Rex Prime.

But this is your dream car. You had a blast not too long ago driving this car. And you know you want to drive it again. So...you hire a specialist. You go out and you find the best car detail-and-restoration guy possible. He takes a look at it, and like any nervous parent, you're pacing in the background, waiting for his assessment.

He gives you good news: He can bring the dream car back. It'll take work, he says, but he can bring it back. And he's even sure that he can make it work even better, but he'll know more once he gets rid of some of this mud. You think he's going to ask you for the keys and you won't see your car for a while, which sounds sort of like what your parents told you about your dog when you were nine, so you're properly worried. But he doesn't ask you for the keys, and he says, yes some car restoration services will take your keys and your money, and your mint condition Impala may come back to you a lime-green Thunderbird with tiger print seats and a blender in the trunk.

No, he won't offer you anything other than your car, the way you want it. But he says you need to pick up the sponge and a few tools that you maybe hadn't considered using before and you're going to join him in bringing back the dream car, and then making it better.

That's what I do. And that's why it's awesome.

In part 2, I'll talk more technically about it.

3 Reasons Why Your Query Letter Is Getting Rejected

2011-09-28T11:45:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon everyone.

In my afternoon inbox clean-out session, I came across a few query letters from some friends of mine, who wanted me to take a quick peek and give them some advice. I did. And now I'm passing some of that advice to you.

Here now are 3 reasons why your query letter is getting rejected. Yes, there are more than three reasons, but I just picked three, and later, we can talk about more of them. Consider these the 'Big Three'.

1. It's too damn long.
I know, I know, it's called a query letter, not a query text or even a query missive, and that in a letter you can go on and on a bit about the particulars of your story or your own writing experience.

Well, this isn't a letter like you're writing to Santa or Grandma thanking her for the very fine afghan she knitted you, this document you're crafting is the ambassador for your manuscript.

And like all good ambassadors, it needs to be very very savvy in its word choice.

I am of the school of thought that you have at most (and I mean at absolutely the maximum) 300 words to say everything that you're going to say, and that includes your name, contact information and the recipient's address.

Yes, 300 word-Spartans for your literary-Thermopylae.

Actually, 300 is the ceiling, and I'd really want to see between 230 and 260 to get the job done.

Because it shouldn't take you volumes of words to get your point across. It's not like you're blogging or anything....

2. It starts in the wrong place.
Stories can start in the beginning. But as I just said, this query letter isn't a story, it's an ambassador at best and a flirty chat-up line at worst. And since you only have less than 300 words to work with, do you really have the time to start me at the beginning of the story?

Start the query like it's an 80s rock video (minus the denim vest and soulful emoting) -- start with action. Is a character doing something? (is that the something the plot? Even better.) Is there a problem, and like Vanilla Ice, you have a character able to solve it?

Your query letter has to launch the reader forward, interesting enough to send them diving into the manuscript to see if the promise is fulfilled at length.

3. You're relying on a gimmick to make this story sell, because you're heavy with doubt.
A character narrating his own query letter is a weird thing to read - because when we read a query letter, just like admiring a painting, we're not only seeing the characters portrayed, we're made aware of the artist's brush strokes.

You're the artist. And your words are brush strokes.

In the query letter, this is a chance for you the writer/creator to display your creation, and make it do a little interesting dance for us, provoking us into curiosity.

Gimmicks like character-narrated queries, or queries told in flashback...butcher the display quality of the work. The magic is in the objectivity and flair for crafty magic the writer displays. This is your chance to show off. So, break out the best words and pull rabbits out of hats.

The reason you're likely not wowing people is that your own fear, your doubts (either self-doubts or doubts about "what's right") are coming across in the the words you choose and don't choose, and in the formatting of what you say and don't say.

Don't be afraid. Don't let fear stop you. Don't let fear get ahead of your dreams. Take that leap. You won't need the gimmicks, they don't serve you.

You're good enough to do this on your own merits. You've made it this far. This is just one step further, and this is, by all accounts a much easier step (300 pages versus 300 words?) - so go do it.

I hope this helps your query letters out. For more help on query letters, or for anything you'd like to say, leave some comments.

Some Things You Should Know About Writing (To Get You Started)...the last part

2011-09-27T21:14:00.000-07:00

You can check out parts 1 and 2 here and here, respectively.

5. There are many ways to skin this cat, and none of them are more "right" than any other.
This is a biggie for people. People love to pin their flag on some method that got them published, or recognized or paid, and say that they're method is the "best" or "right" and that by extension, all the other methods (the ones known and unknown to them) are wrong or bad.

And that's not true. There are now so many methods, so many paths people can follow to get their writing dreams realized (I should point out here that every writer, regardless of what they write does have that dream to get their work into the hands of interested and excited readers), that no path that accomplishes the dream is wrong.

Are some easier than others? Yes.
But don't confuse 'easier' with 'better'. It may be easier for me to pay someone to shovel my driveway in the winter, but I have a snowblower sitting in my garage that I bought for that exact job, so why wouldn't I use it?

Go the 'traditional' route and get an agent and a publisher. Go launch your stuff directly off your website. Put it out on Kindles, Nooks and tablets. Print it in chapbooks and on the back of napkins individually numbered for collectors.

The bottom line is this -- Do whatever you can to get your work into the hands of the people who want it. Get your work out there, by any means necessary. Just don't hurt others on your rise to the top - this is my crafty disclaimer - don't be a jerk about it, don't be a douchebag, and for the love all that is good in the world, don't ever forget what's important to you as you try and get published, whether that's family or friends or the future or...your dog. Show love and respect and you'll be rewarded. I promise.

6. Don't you ever quit.
This is hard. Writing may be an easy task, but to produce the art and craft of it, that's difficult. It can be stressful. It can be upsetting. It can aggravating as you encounter and learn from your mistakes. You may hear some feedback that you don't want to hear. You may have to make some choices and accept some truths that don't always make you a happy camper. You may want to throw your hands up. You may put down the pen and paper for months or years at a time because somebody somewhere said something that just stuck in your mind. You may feel so overwhelmed that you decide you're better off taking up knitting.

Don't do it.
Don't give up.

Not because some guy on the internet says so. Not because all the books in your library say so.

Don't quit because you don't want to let yourself down.

Here's the quote from Richard Bach - "A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit."

It may feel (or may actually turn out to be true) that lots of external people and forces line up against you, keeping you from getting your work out. Don't quit.

It may feel like there's so many other books out there that are EXACTLY like yours, and you can think of no reason why someone would take your book over the one next to it. Don't quit.

It may feel like there's some giant knot in your head that just stops the words from flowing. Don't quit.

This is what you wanted to do, isn't it? This is how you've elected to demonstrate your talent, your brilliance and your creative soul, yes?

Then why wouldn't you stick it out?

If you feel the need to do it for external reasons. You can always #doitforbuttons (I realize I'll have to explain that later, maybe I will tomorrow on Google+) or do it for Johnny, but always, and above all else, DO IT.

You can get support. There are loads of writers, editors, friends, new friends, enthusiasts, experts, people, children, wives, future wives, sports nuts, comedians, postal employees, strippers, farmers, spiritualists, life coaches and chiropractors who absolutely support you.

You can improve your skills. You can take classes. Hire professionals to teach you. Sit in on writing groups. (I will always advocate talking to someone over book experience alone...but I can recommend a lot of books to augment those improvements.)

Like Andy Dufresne says 'Hope is a good thing', and I hope you realize how important it is not to quit.

Don't quit. It will be worth it.

Having said all that....let's move forward maybe a little talk about some technique...

Some Things You Should Know About Writing (To Get You Started), Part 2

2011-09-27T19:27:00.000-07:00

I continue from the previous post, found here.

3. The difference is not if anyone can do it, but how skillfully it can be done
You can write. Anyone can write. The issue, the unspoken part that everyone is too often shy to include is "well", as in: Do you write "well"?

Now this may not win my any popularity contests, but I'm not here to curry favor, I'm here to talk about writing in all the flavors, warts, shades and arenas.

Yes, you can say that "well" is a subjective term, something that comes down to my opinion versus yours, and yes, just like Obi Wan Kenobi teaches us, that can be true from a certain point of view.

But let's go past this hand-holding schlock and be clear -- not everyone who's writing, hell, not everyone who's got books on the shelf or available for download, writes well. Sure, they can string together some paragraphs and stack together a few chapters that describe a story from beginning to end, but that's sort of like saying there's no difference between a newly paved highway and the old muddy path in the wilderness.

Writing well takes practice, skill and talent. You can learn how to make better choices, how to craft stronger and more evocative sentences and even become comfortable with the elements of story structure and novel development. But that's only because you put work into it, and you improved. That makes you somewhat of an exception.

A lot of people are going to stare a page until their eyes bleed, until they stroke out and until they reduce themselves into quivering masses trying to do what you did. Because, and there's no nice way to say this - not everyone is meant to be a writer.

Let that sink in. And before you flood my inbox, let me just point out that if this were any other skill, it wouldn't be much of an argument.

I can do some really simply juggling. I understand the hand-eye coordination. But that doesn't mean you want me at your next birthday party tossing chainsaws around.

I can identify most of the parts of my engine without having to Google them. That certainly means though that when your car makes a grr-khshunk-plock-plock-vrrrr noise, you don't call me.

I really believe that you know you're meant to be a writer the way you know you're meant to be a teacher or meant to be a parent or meant to be a llama farmer. It's as much a calling as a gift and while you can improve your skills at it, for some people it's just not in the cards that they write the next great best seller.

You should try, by all means, try your hardest. But you'll discover very quickly, (especially if you're honest with yourself) if you're meant to do this either more often, more professionally or with more enthusiasm.

4. Writing is going to teach, show and tell you a lot about yourself - you may not always like what you discover, but it may be important
When you're sitting at the desk, or stretched out on the couch, or set up wherever you go to write, even if it's the most crowded and noisy place possible, it still comes down to you and the page. The blank page. Staring at you with all that square whiteness. Taunting you with all the possibilities and openness and lack of words. And you're going to sit there for as long as your patience will let you (maybe a few seconds, maybe minutes, maybe hours) until you start filling that page with your thoughts.

Now along the way, as you tell that story about Abigail the sex-crazed milkmaid in love with Grutnar the Viking Prince, you're not just telling the story about some Swedish hussy and her berserker sex machine, you're showing part of yourself.

Okay, maybe you're not Swedish, and you've never considered the possibilities of being pillaged like a coastal town, but the act of writing about it awakens within you some revelations. You're going to find out what you like to say, you're going to express your imagination, you're going to spill not just fiction, but also some truth on the page.

Maybe that scene you wrote this morning where the Viking spills his mead and the woman throws the bowl at his head is what you wished you could do the last time someone at the office spilled coffee on you. Maybe that passionate lovemaking scene where the ecstasy was so potent it blew the thatch off the hut was how you wish your spouse was on Tuesdays after bowling league.

Your truth sneaks out in your fiction. You can't help it. You shouldn't even bother hiding it.

Maybe the fiction isn't the truth. Maybe the truth is in your approach to writing. Do you start a lot of projects and never finish anything? That's a fear of commitment. (If you do happen to do that, I have someone you should talk to, ASAP)

Do you tend to edit as you go along, so that you spend all this time, but never make any real progress? That's a whole heap of self-doubt. (And for that, I have two people you could talk to, here and here, ASAP)

(the last 2 will come tomorrow...here's the link.)

Some Things You Should Know About Writing (To Get You Started)...(part 1)

2011-09-27T18:38:00.000-07:00

Here in is my list of things that you should know before we go any further. This list is both a combination of personal statements and business-y ideas.

1. Writing is only as scary and/or as difficult as you make it
When someone sets out to write, usually what goes through their mind is the idea that they're going to tell a story of some length that they may or may know when they get started. They have this whole movie in their head, and by writing it down, they get to share it with people who are hopefully interested in that same experience.

Usually when people start this, they're very seldom discouraged. When the words start to flow out and hit the page or screen, there's a surge of excitement, a moment of "Ooh I'm doing something creative!" and the celebration gives way to more words and those words form sentences and paragraphs and pages...up to a point.

Then there comes the point when the initial enthusiasm wanes. Maybe it's because the thirty minutes you set to write have lapsed. Maybe it's because someone came home and you're too embarrassed to go on with them tromping through the house like an ogre. Maybe it's just not fun anymore when you reached page ten or fifteen or thirty or sometimes, even page two isn't as fun as those initial paragraphs.

So, like anyone else, you put it down for awhile, with the solemn promise made to yourself that you'll pick it up later and that spark will somehow rekindle itself to life.

And in that moment, in that break, fear becomes an avalanche and you lose yourself of which way is up.

So let me introduce you to an idea that may dampen those initial fires, but will help keep them burning longer. Writing is only as scary and/or as difficult as you make it.

I say this because you can easily go online and find a lot of people complaining about writing. You can find any social media network and make a ton of friends who have flat out burnt themselves into shriveled husks because they got a rejection letter or worse (like worse by a power of ten) are the people who are so afraid of getting that rejection letter that they never sent anything out. (You may notice that those people are the ones who do the most complaining, not necessarily the loudest).

Can writing be scary? Sure.
You know what else could be scary? Walking across a busy street or eating that weird casserole your aunt always brings to holiday parties. (As if anyone is going to eat something that is both salmon and charcoal colored.)

You know what makes writing not scary? Practice. And education. And support. You can find those last two things in the company of experienced writers (Hi!) and the first one is all you -- practice is your opportunity to push yourself forward.

Onto point 2...

2. Writing is the act of making decisions

I am a control freak. I love control. Some of my favorite video games allow me to be the angry and vengeful deity of virtual lives and cities, dispensing doom and catastrophe with abandon. Some of my favorite characters exude control the way creepy bus station homeless guys exude that ammonia smell.

Now I can hear some people saying, "Too much control is dangerous." and that's true, too much of anything is dangerous, but I'm talking more about the exercise of control, not just the possession of it.

Writing is a chance for you to be in charge of something. Whether that something is a fantasy world of knights and wizards, or whether it's just a few sentences about a hapless accountant who wants to tap dance on stage...it's your creation.

Does the hero get the girl in the end? You decide.
Is there even a girl to get? Up to you.
Is this world of your creation a magical land where goblins cavort at the feet of Easter Island statues and make eldritch sacrifices to the winners of American Idol? Entirely your call.

(more to come...)

So, you want to write a book?

2011-09-27T17:34:00.000-07:00

Hello! It's been a while hasn't it?

I'm glad to see you again, or if we've never met, hello, it's a pleasure to meet you.

What I'm doing here, what I want to be doing here, what I plan to do here as consistently as possible, is to talk about writing, publishing, the world of books and marketing and sprinkle in plenty of tangents about my life, nerdy things and random articles that make me think.

First and foremost, we're here to talk about writing.

I'm assuming that at some point, you've seen writing. You've read a book or two. Maybe you've considered trying it. Maybe you have tried it.

Maybe it's just something you dabble in when the house is quiet and you don't have anything else distracting you.

Maybe you're doing everything possible to make a living out of it.

Whatever the case, you can be better at it. And no, it shouldn't take a great deal of expense or aggravation to make you better it. This is putting words on paper after all, and not launching a probe to Venus or sending a kid off to university.

So here I am, here to help, here to walk you through getting better at writing, here to pull back the curtain occasionally and show you that writing's boogeymen (boogey-people?) aren't all that scary and that you can in fact get very good at this, if you work hard.

I'm The Writer Next Door.

Let's get started.