What Not To Say To An Editor, Part 1

One of the more popular series of posts on this blog is the What Not To Send An Editor.

What I want to start today is a new series, What Not To Say To An Editor. Previously, we talked about stuff I get in the mail, now let's talk about the things I hear, get told and read in emails.

Now before some of you cry foul that a guy who has problems with his tone shouldn't be talking about sounding professional, I'm not chastising you specifically, I'm just pointing out red flags that I see in emails.

"Thanks but I'm not interested in having my work edited." This comes after I get an email asking what I do, and possibly after the email where I say how much what I do will cost. What this tells me is that you don't want other people to see what you're creating for any number of reasons (some discussed below), and that possibly you think your work doesn't need to be edited. Generally, if you think you don't need an editor, you do, often badly.

"I don't want to give you a copy of my work, you'll steal it." No, I won't. Here's why - I've got my own work to deal with, and don't really have the time to go around shopping your work as my own. This is particularly true if your work is fraught with errors and problems and things that need fixing -- why would I put my name on something that isn't the best? (And if you think I'm going to spend the time fixing your material, not get paid for it and then turn around and claim it's mine, you should probably consider how much effort that is without any sort of paycheck.)

"I don't need an editor, I've had my friends look this over a few times." I'm glad you have friends. Are any of those friends trained in writing theory and craft? Do they have experience in helping improve your writing, word by word if you need it? Are they unbiased? It's great to have your friends read your work, but to help the work develop, you need someone critical and unbiased. Like an editor.

"I've already given the story out to beta readers, and they're totally helping." Okay, I'm going to repeat what I just said about friends and add to it that if you're giving a reader a story in fragments or a story incomplete, you're robbing them of the total experience of the story and hurting yourself by not working hard at your craft. This is magnified if you're letting the reader dictate how the story should proceed or end, since the story is yours, not theirs. If they want to tell a story, they should be writing.

"I don't need you to tell me what I'm doing wrong." When I hear this sentence, I usually have to walk away for a second, because what immediately follows is the person saying that editing is basically what your high school English teacher did, and she was a real bitch, so you don't need that again in your life. The problem is that I AM NOT AN (YOUR) ENGLISH TEACHER, and it's my job to help you write better, and that means we'll be talking about what you're not doing well and what you can do better. If this was a gym, would you not want the trainer to tell you you're lifting the weight incorrectly?

"Don't you just press F7 in Word? I can do that." Sure, you can do that. I think I could train my dog to do that. But that's not all editing is. Editing is the process of evolving the story through technique and construction. Editing is part of the story telling process because it helps clarify and strengthen the material on the page. Pressing one key might take care of typos and some (it's not perfect) generic grammar, but you can do a lot more to help a story stand up and be noticed than just spell all the words correctly.

"I edit my own work." Yes, that's what every author should do. We should go through our work and look for the parts we need to tweak and look for the big glaring errors that jump out at us. But, we also have blindspots - scenes and ideas that we're attached to, or feel bias towards, so even if they don't help the story, we keep them in, because we like the work we've done. (I should point out, we like ALL the work we do, but like Animal Farm, some work is cooler than others). The best way to correct the blindspots is to hand the work over to someone else.

"I heard from XYZ person that you didn't edit their stuff, I think that makes you a jerk." The reason(s) I didn't take XYZ on as a client are none of your business or your concern (in much the same way you can't really comment as to how I spent my Wednesday evening - you weren't involved, you weren't there.) If my decision not to work with someone leads you to think I'm a jerk, that's a you-thing. Your mind, your thought, your decision. If that decision you made means you also decide not to work with me, that's fine too, I understand - there are other editors in the sea.

"You're so expensive." If you look at the pricing guide put out by the Writer's Market and then look at my prices, I'm just a little north of the middle of the road given the type of work I do. Why? Because I've been doing this half my life. Because I've built myself on delivering good results quickly. Because I'm good at this. Because it's a job and this is how much it costs. Just like when the sink clogs, the washing machine goes kaput or the car starts making that weird sound, you can try and fix it yourself.

(This one time my dad tried to fix the dishwasher when I was growing up. We ended up re-doing the whole kitchen (new appliances AND floor AND cabinets) that year).

Don't skimp on what's important to you. If you care about this story, make sure it gets the care and help and support it needs to be the story you meant to tell.

And yes, this will be a series of posts. Stay tuned for part 2 which gets a little more technical.

Happy writing.

Writing Theory - The Circle

Today, we focus on some writing theory. You may have seen this elsewhere, or seen it in pieces, but I rather like this method (it is not my own), and thought some of you could benefit from it.

For this, you'll need:

• 1 legal pad (or blank piece of paper)
• 1 pen
• 1 name for a character 

Now, draw a circle on the paper.

Now draw a plus sign in the circle, to create four quarters. (Divide the circle in half vertically then in half again horizontally)

Now number the ends of the plus with 1, 3, 5, and 7

In the middle of the quarters, number 2, 4, 6, and 8

It should, basically, look like this:

This is a cycle, and we're going to go through the numbers clockwise. By the time we're done, you're going to have a  good idea about the development of your story.

Note: This applies to all kinds of fiction - from screenplays to novels to big epics to cave paintings - anything where you have a character and a mission to do something.  

Let's get started.

1.CHARACTER

 You're going to start this off with a character. I like to use protagonists for this, but it's also possible you use an antagonist for this, depending on your tone or your objective. You want to stay away from using secondary characters here, because they don't really need so much attention. 

The character starts at the top of this chart as we find them at the beginning of the story. Understand that the state we have the character at Position 1 is NOT going to be the state we find them in after Position 8. 

Also understand that if you go through this wheel several times (say it's one character over a series of books), that each Position 1 is relative to the start of the respective book, and it's not always going to be the stripped down Book-1 version. 

2.NEED (AS EXPRESSED IN PLOT)

This is the conflict or problem the story has put forth to challenge the character. This isn't so much their internal desire, this is more like the plot of the book. For those people writing series, try and keep this to one book at a time -- being too broad here really waters down the efficacy of the subsequent numbers. 

If your story has twists or big reveals in it, then Position 2 is where you document the most complete and most knowledgeable plot of the book -- after all the twists, after all the misdirects, whatever the challenge is, goes here.

So, for something like The Usual Suspects, the plot isn't so much "To let Kevin Spacey get away with it", it's to "have the detective/audience understand what happened" 

For something more linear, like Donkey Kong, it's "To have Mario rescue his girlfriend (Who wasn't Peach) from a gorilla."

3.GO (TO THE UNFAMILIAR) 

It doesn't have to be literal, this isn't quite Campbell's overdone Hero's Journey, but the idea here is that you take the character and put them in an environment/situation that they're not used to. An environment/situation different than what they're used to from Position 1, and as we learned about in Character 101, this should be  filled with challenges big and small for the character. 

The comedic route is to make this an issue of extremes - the milquetoast suburbanite in the ghetto, the rugged outdoorsman in the big city, the disconnected pair of lovers in the wilderness, that sort of fish-out-of-water element plays well comically provided you stretch it far. 

In more serious work, this represents a larger context for the character - the character leaving their familiar confines for new and larger surroundings. It provides a sense of expansion and intimidation, while also offering hope that along with the challenges come rewards. 

4.SEARCH 

Here, the character is going to struggle. Not to their lowest point of their progression, hope isn't entirely vacant here, but they will be tested. They will have to adapt to the new environment, and initially that process won't be comfortable. Over time though, they'll become more comfortable and more accustomed to the new environment so that they can expand their comfort level and possibly develop satisfaction in themselves for obtaining new skills.  

Position 4 is about the act of the quest, the progression from starting-point to further-along-point and the improvement of the character along the way. This is NOT about the specific item or knowledge that will make them better, because...

5.FIND/DISCOVER 

Position 5 is all about the item or knowledge they need to improve. For the stranded castaway, it's the making of fire. For the nervous lawyer in court, it's the discovery of the witness or a legal precedent that will change the tide in their favor. 

Critical here though is the idea this: In Position 4, they didn't know the "thing" existed, in Position 5 they find out it exists and....

6.TAKE 

In position 6, the hero goes and gets it. He makes fire, she finds the legal precedent, the boy pulls the sword out of the rock. Ideally, Position 6 is made possible because of the confidence gained in Position 4 and the character benefits from the knowledge or awareness in Position 5. This is a pretty "hooray" moment for the character, and can very easily be the climax of the whole story if you wanted it to be, but often this can just be a moment of hooray on the path of the story. 

In RPGs, this is the item gained in a dungeon crawl, or the loot from a boss fight. 

7.RETURN 

The character is confident (Position 4), aware (Position 5) and armed (Position 6), and now they can go back to the environment (Position 3) and complete the plot (Position 2).

Like Orpheus, this is the character's emergence from the trials thus far back to the environment he calls home. In some stories, this means they'll go all the way to the village he was kicked out of or they'll just go back to their "newer" home because they've matured/grown/developed independence from their old ways, and possibly can't go back (either metaphorically or literally).

This can be a whole part of the story, like a return to areas previously thought dangerous now made easier because of equipment and experience gained, or it can be as simple as transitioning the story back to the bigger world. 

8.CHANGE. 

Lastly, the character is able to take on the plot, and (depending on how you want it to play out) possibly succeed. To reach this point, you had to go through all the preparation of previous positions (alliteration!). Without the equipment/knowledge acquired in Position 6, without the struggles and adaptation to a tougher environment of Position 4, they wouldn't be as ready to take on the plot as they first heard about it back in Position 2.

How would Harry defeat Voldemort without any of the knowledge from the middle of the series? (Sure you can argue that all he needed was 'Expelliarmus' and Horcrux knowledge, but he had to gain those at some point.)

How would Indiana Jones be able to find the Grail without going through the harsh lessons of his youth? 

How would James Bond be able to defeat...whoever he defeated if he didn't have the invisible car? (Seriously, dude had an invisible car...and fought someone on a glacier or something. I kinda blanked on some of the Brosnan films)

The point here is that the character has come full circle in some senses, but is on a whole new circle as well. Yes, there's the plot to contend with still, but there's also a visible set of benefits and consequences gained from previous actions. The character has matured, our understanding and appreciation of them has deepened and the story can move forward, through the plot and into resolution. Or even into subsequent stories, if you want to repeat the cycle with a whole new plot, and build forward. 

If ANY of this is unclear, let me know. Leave a comment, write me an email, catch me on Twitter.

Happy writing.

Soundbites and Language

"...a noir taste like we haven't seen in years."

"The impressionistic language dazzles."

"Raw and edgy, this doesn't disappoint."

This is the sort of language you see in reviews and on back cover blurbs. It's a quotable line, and something that hopefully attracts attention, if they're phrased correctly. The theory is that the sound bite is a perfect miniature of the whole, that in one quote, you represent all the flavors and elements of the whole.

The problem is that some of the flavors and elements of the whole aren't really great representations of the style, theme or even the author, but they make for dazzling copy, so they get used in quotes and the PR machine and somehow it's okay.

But it's not okay. Just because a review or a quote puts a word-label on something does not mean the item IS that thing. Anything can be mislabeled, mishandled or misunderstood. Now while so far in this post I've talked about the publishing side of the coin, it is also possible that from the authorial side things are misunderstood as well.

What follows are a few items I want to make clear, from both a reader and editorial perspective.

1. Profanity is not proof of hardboiled/noir anything. Yay for swearing. I enjoy a good string of expletives as much as the next guy, and anyone who can curse like a truck-driving sailor on shore leave will always be welcomed into conversation, but it's not a style. It's a string of words that, like adjectives, should be used for maximum impact and effect.

When I was away from home after high school, when I realized I was free of "the man" and had no sense of discipline or boundaries, the first things I wanted to do were all things I couldn't before. Smoking, cursing, drinking, eating whatever I could whenever I wanted, carousing...all the typical adolescent rebellion tripe. And I remember conversations I had when I came back from being away where it seemed as though everything third word rhymed with "trucking" or had something to do with defecation. (See what I did there?)

Was I expressing myself? Sure. Was it effective? It was not compelling more people to listen to me, no. It was not intriguing people to see the college student rattle off eleven curses while ordering an omelet. It didn't do anything to make me more bad-ass or more attractive. Too much cursing is not style. There is an art to language, and while provocative language is one technique, it shouldn't be the only technique, whether we're telling the story of a leg-breaking tough who discovers a dead dame, or whether we're reading about a police station in the grip of a crazed serial killer.

Profanity without purpose are words ripe for deletion when you need to trim fat.

2. The purpose of a book is to tell a story, not drown us in levels of craft-work. This is something I'm very guilty of. And for this, I blame my education. A host of teachers showed me all the different kinds of writing and English-major-y bits (I mean allegory, metonymy, catachresis, foreshadowing, parallelism, semiotics, etc) and I was so eager and happy to dust any and everything I wrote with all these big flashy concepts. This is great IN school, where a professor may actually tell you to use these things because you're getting a grade on how well you specifically use it, but out in the real world of writers and audiences, the great majority of your readers aren't going to care that within Chapter 6 you've created a deeply moving hendiadys (google it) buried within a turn of phrase that is a reference to the plight of the American Indian prior to 1890. No, instead they're just going to see the weird line of dialogue from a character.

2 sobering facts that I still find myself dealing with from time to time:

1. The vast majority of readers isn't aware of all the terms and usages and fiddly bits of language.
2. The vast majority of readers doesn't care about the terms, usages and fiddly bits of language - they want a story.

So for all the great exercising of years of English classes, it's not wasted on the readers, as I'm sure some of them will find, appreciate and digest the nuances, and the studies did make me more capable and diverse as a writer, but I'm not telling stories to practice what I learned in the spring semester of my junior year twice weekly before lunch. I'm telling stories because the characters have something to say and ideas to express as they gnaw their way out of my imagination onto the page.

In short - people are not going to know the hard work that went into the outlines, drafts, and revisions - they're going to see the end result. They may also miss the finer points of your writing prowess because they're engaged elsewhere by story, character or development. Don't hate them for it.

3. If the act of writing has a point, then it's to write to completion not perfection. Some days it feels like I'm forever writing and rewriting the same paragraph, page or chapter. I'm doing all this rewriting because I want, I feel like I need to have each sentence be 'perfect', because that's the only way someone will like it.

But then when I've handed out the first 60 or so pages of what I'm writing, the feedback I'm getting isn't "this is imperfect, you suck, go sit in the corner" it's more like "This is awesome, I want more please" and that's a hard thing to wrap your head around when you grew up feeling like everything you did wasn't good enough and as an adult you question your abilities pretty intensely.

Over time, and with the help of great people, I'm getting better at seeing my work in more appreciative and healthy ways. Sure, it chews a hole through me when it needs to be done, and I should make it more of a priority when I have great swathes of downtime, but I'm not chasing perfection here - I'm telling my story my way, the best way I can.

And that's where the perfection is - in telling my story my way. Not in the constant obsession of perfect grammar, immaculate syntax and brilliant use of obnoxious literary terms.


I will admit that I sort of rambled through this and lost a little steam while writing, but this is definitely a set of topics I'd like to revisit later. 

Happy writing.

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

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:

1. What format would you (the editor) like to receive the manuscript in?
2. How would you (the editor) like to be paid?
3. In what format will I (the author) receive feedback?
4. When can I (the author) expect that feedback?
5. What sort of comments should I expect to see as feedback?
6. 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:

1. Digital submissions preferred, older Word formats especially welcomed.
2. No Mac .pages or similar. Also, no PDFs. 
3. If you have to print it out, DO NOT bind your manuscripts.
4. If you have to print it out, DO NOT expect your printed manuscript returned to you in the pristine state you send it.
5. When you send your manuscript, include in your email at least 2 ways to contact you (phone, social media).
6. 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

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

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.

1. About the book (the length, the genre, etc)
2. The Characters
3. The Plot
4. The Author (that's you!)
5. 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"

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.

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

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

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

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.

Writing/Gaming - Character 101 - Part 3: Abilities

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

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

1. 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? 
2. What things would this character change about their appearance if the circumstances allowed it?
3. 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

1. What gets this character out of bed in the morning? What would send them running back beneath the blankets for a do-over?
2. Can you identify your character's three most frequent emotional states? What causes each one?
3. 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

1. 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?)
2. 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?
3. 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.

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

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.)