The Power & Potential Of Openings

Good morning.

That's it. That's my opening for you today.

Or, maybe those three lines are my opening.

Does it matter? Sure it matters. And today we're going to talk about what openings can do, what they shouldn't do and how important they are. Now I'm going to frame this discussion mostly around fiction, but you can easily swap "game setting text" or "non-mechanics rules text" when I talk about chapter or book openings.

What does an opening do?
To my thinking, it does three things:

1. Establishes: the setting, character(s) that we're going to follow or the tone of the story
2. Sets an expectation for how intense (physically or emotionally) the story is going to be
3. Interests and engages the reader to keep reading

Let's talk about each of them in turn.

Establishing setting, character(s) or tone - However you start the story, this is the first thing the reader sees. This is your first opportunity to both show off your writing chops as well as introduce the things you want to show off. And yes, I mean show off like "Look at me and my awesome word-skillz" because that's one of your roles as a writer, so don't be shy about getting up on that soapbox and being in the spotlight. 

The setting is where you can talk about the stage where all the action is going to take place. Maybe not the specific locale where action unfolds, maybe you're introducing New York City but this particular story takes place in an apartment building within the City, but you need to start somewhere, so why not show us the big picture and zoom in?

No, don't tell me the ancient and dense backstory of marriages, wars, soldiers and commerce that established your setting, unless that information is going to prove so incredibly vital to the current-time story you're telling -- I'm looking at you, fantasy author -- we seriously do not need "to get the whole history" if you're just telling me the story of a farmer-turned-questing-knight. Long histories like that can be both incredibly dull and purely masturbatory. Yeah, it's great that you spent so much time mapping out kingdoms and families and histories, but when are we getting to the story of the rest of the book? 

The character(s) we're going to follow are likely the protagonists or antagonists. I'm not saying every sentence needs to be about them, that you can't mention the barista or the bank teller, but by the time the opening is over, we should meet or at the very least have an introduction to the protagonist of the story. This also applies to antagonists, if you want to tell a villain-facing story. (And if you're telling me a story where the badguys are goodguys, then we need to be clear about that up front)

The tone of the story is how the story is going to read for the next three-hundred or so pages. If we're in first-person, is the narrator snarky? Jaded? Weary? If we're in third-person, how close are we to the action and the characters (psychic distance)? Is the exposition conveying a serious tone? Should I be laughing? Should I be worried - although it's truly hard to be worried about characters we've met only sentences earlier.

Sets an expectation of intensity - If you open the story with a bang, either literally or figuratively, it's like cranking the stereo up to the eleven at the start of an album. You're setting the bar pretty high, and leading people to think that you're either going to continue that pace or else it will be really hard to maintain.

For a minute let's talk about a hypothetical SF novel. Let's say the first scene is about a planet blowing up. On most scales, that's a huge deal. Especially if there are badguys and they used a superlaser to do it. It makes it sound like those villains are pretty bad news. And what about the next scene? Well, as a reader, I'm going to wonder what happens next - do they start threatening another planet? Do the good guys launch a counterattack? When the bar is set so high, the expectation is that you're only going to ramp up.

We get that from exposure to other media, that the best is yet to come, and that as a thing (a show, a movie, a book) progresses, it's going to intensify, reaching a climax much further along in the story. It's a serious let-down to find out that the best part of the book is the first ten pages.

Because of the expectation that it's only going to get better, many stories may start with a big event, but then afterward, cut to a smaller event - using the first event as an introduction to the character or the world. This is an "opening gambit" and is regularly used in television. We see the heroine already engaged in something, usually the big climax of a work we've stumbled into, so we get to watch her dispatch the badguys and escape, just before the title and credits. Then we come back to the show and she's given her assignment for the episode. In this fashion, you can intro the character and the world, but not have to worry about continually escalating in order to engage the audience.

Interests or engages the reader to keep reading - A successful connection with the audience means that they keep reading the story because they want to know what happens next. An introduction is the first time to make this happen, and the events of the introduction, the components more specifically, are the start of this need to know what happens next.

An opening should be interesting. Just like meeting people, the first impression you make is critical, and helps the other person figure out if they want to actually talk to you, or if they're going find every reason under the sun to get away from you. ("Oh you have to go take your cat to the pet chiropractor? Okay, see you later then!")

An opening should be a hook for people. There's an advantage to an opening - it doesn't have anything that precedes it, so it's not competing for any in-story attention. That's the benefit for going first. If you set a really good example, the other sections are going to try and be better. It's a very interesting internal competition, at least on the reader's mind-side of things.

You want them to keep reading. So keep writing. Keep telling the story. Tell the ups and the downs, the slow parts and the fast parts, the scary bits and the sweet bits.

What doesn't an opening do?
An opening is not a middle. The middle of the story is, well, the middle. What that means is that the opening isn't a bridge between things (because we don't know what happened before the book started, and even if you tell us all about it via flashback and narration, there's still some measure of incompleteness because we want to draw our own conclusions). Openings lever us into the story and the world and squeeze us into meeting the characters, either while they're doing cool things already or just before the cool things kick off.

An opening is a not a conclusion. Even if you're telling a story backwards, and we see the after effects of some big event, and you spend the rest of the book showing us the big event, then end the book with how the big event came to be, the ACTUAL opening of the book is still the ending of the story - all we're doing to moving forward in reverse time and order. So, yes, the ending of the book could be the opening of the book if we reshuffled the scene order, in theory - but that's a pretty tough thing to pull off casually.

An opening is not the spot for an author rant. I don't mean that author should break the fourth wall and  address the reader directly. I mean the author shouldn't launch into a manifesto about how pine nuts are a vast conspiracy or how landscapers are secretly placing microphones among the shrubbery, unless your book IS a manifesto. But if we're talking fiction, then these pages you want me to pay for and reader, they should be about the story. Sure, you can totally insert commentary about issues into the story: the characters can have opinions that mirror your own, the plot can parallel something that happened in your own life.

How important is my opening?
If you've come this far in the post and you're expecting some percentage or some specific number, you won't find it. There's no magic formula to determine how critical your opening is, or how much energy you need to put into it. It IS important, since it invites the reader into the world you've created, but it's not *more* important than the climax where your threads all come together or the resolution where the rewards and desserts are dispensed.

Should I worry over my opening?
You mean like, "Should I worry and obsess over my opening so that I'm always re-tooling it, practically paralyzed by thoughts of whether or not it's good and never really making progress into the deeper parts of the story?

No.

I'll say that again.

No.

Yes, the opening is where people start the book, but if you keep toying with it, when are you going to tell the rest of the story? And if you spend so much time on the intro, will you spend that much time on the other parts of the story, or are you going to let there be some kind of emotional or pacing drop-off because the post-opening chapters don't live up to the hype?

So what can I do?
Get the whole story out of your head and down onto paper or the monitor. Just get it all down, you can get it edited, you can reshuffle the pieces later, but get it all out first - yes, even if you think some parts are awful. Develop the discipline to tell the whole story and then put it under the knife, rather than working piecemeal.

And if you do all that and you're still stuck, send me an email. I'll help you however I can.

Happy writing. We'll talk later this week, with more Editing Out In The Open.

86 Things I've Said On Twitter, the 9th and final part

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

86 Things I've Said On Twitter, Part 7

Wow, part 7. This is awesome. Hope you're enjoying this series.

Before we begin, did you know I got interviewed? It was really a pleasure. And Pete asks awesome questions.

Now, to Part 7!

Rejection doesn't mean stop writing altogether. Rejection means "Change your approach, try again."

On Chuck's blog, there's been some talk about self-publishing versus traditional publishing. It's rather contentious. But then the one guy called some lady a "bitch" and everything sort of when downhill from there.

The one thing not mentioned in this conversation is that rejection exists. It's a thing that happens. It's a thing that happens that can drive people away from traditional publishing and to different avenues, sometimes without a net or an education or a plan, because they're working so hard at just not-being-rejected.

Rejection happens. I'm sorry. It does happen. You might get rejected for a date. You might get rejected by an agent. You might get rejected for a loan. You might get rejected by an audience who thinks your published book is tired or not as interesting as you think it is.

Rejection only has whatever meaning you give it. If you tell yourself that rejection is the cue for hanging yourself in the garage with a string of holiday lights, then it is. Maybe rejection is the neon sign that you shouldn't be writing at all.

But maybe rejection is a sign that how you took your shot wasn't accurate, that the method you took to build your better mousetrap was flawed, not the mousetrap itself. What I'm saying is - there's a chance that the manuscript wasn't even read if the pitch to entice readers wasn't appealing.

See, because if the query letter doesn't engage the reader, they're not going to look at the manuscript. Why should they? They've not been lured to its words by the query's siren song.

True, the manuscript might also suck. But I'm assuming here that you've done everything in your power to make it not suck.

Rejection doesn't have to be the end of things. It may be a bump in the road, but don't drive into the median just yet.

You don't have to be an "expert" in the industry in order to write a good book. You need to be an "expert" on you and what you love. 

Lots of people (especially in self-help) call themselves experts. And some might very well be. I have met people who are legit experts in their fields. I have met people who couldn't hope to be an expert, let alone spell expert without assistance.

Oddly enough, the experts I recommend are the ones who have actually put the time into the work and not the ones who toss around the word or the concept in some self-elevating (and masturbatory) way.

And everyone's an expert on two things, when you think about it. You're the best expert on who you are and what you love. Other people might have an idea about these things, but really, you're the best in that field. Nobody knows you like you do.

Use that to your advantage. When you speak about what you like and don't like, when you talk about yourself, speak from a place of authority, not arrogance. You're not "better" than anyone else, but you do know yourself better than anyone else. Let that authority permeate your writing

To tell a story, you need to tap into your own confidence and authority about who you are (though if you're on the fence about who you are, this may be a little hard), and write from that place of security and comfort. Yeah yeah, writing a thing makes you subject to other people at some point in the process, but never ever let it detract from your sense of who and what you are.

By being you, by telling the story you can tell in the way you can tell it, with the artful practice of your craft, with assistance from others, you can make your thing a reality that other people can enjoy. Really.

Readers aren't going to know what goes on in your head. If you don't paint a clear picture, don't expect them to "figure it out".

I look at a lot of manuscripts in a week. Some are for games. Some are for books. And sometimes I get a very clear sense of what's going on in the scene I read. I can count the characters, I can see their motivations. I can see game mechanics and what they accomplish. It's spelled out for me, but never in the same way that my uncle Steve always talked down to me at family gatherings.

When you're communicating an idea, whatever that idea might be, you want to be as clear as possible, without being lecture-y or a bully. You need to respect your reader's intelligence, and trust that they came to read your thing (hopefully) excited about what they'll experience or learn. Talking down to them, or worse, being incredibly vague (either because you make the assumption that everyone already knows this, or because what you're thinking/saying is so advanced other life forms won't understand it), doesn't respect your reader.

It's also a waste of your talent as a writer. People come to read your work because they want to see how you weave words and ideas together. Paint the reader a full picture on their mental canvas, and they'll keep coming back for more. Hastily scribble them a stick figure or abstract diagram, and they'll run. Often fast.

Game Designers - Ask yourself: Is there a reason you put this rule (and its text) ahead of that rule (and its text)?
When I edit games, I ask this of the designer - why are the rules in the order they're in? Sometimes it's because that's the order that the person wrote them, sometimes it's because one rule follows another. Maybe sometimes there's a third option where they're alphabetized or something. But on the whole, there should be a reason as to why one step in a process (creating a character, combat, economics, whatever) comes before or after another step, other than the arbitrary "That's how I wrote it".

Now, yes, if your game is pretty rules-lite, then maybe the order of the rules isn't so critical. In that case, swap the word "rule" for "paragraph". Why is this paragraph ahead of this other paragraph? Where are you leading the reader? What do you want/need them to know before they go further? How are you illuminating their path from point A to point B?

And yes, there should be some kind of answer beyond "I don't know" or a passive shrug. There should be a method to the madness that is game design so that ideas flow logically and naturally, so that the reader walks away understanding the big mechanical picture and not confused by how the words just seem random coked up and tweaked out on the page.

Fun fact - You don't want ellipses in your exposition. Just don't.

This...is...incredibly...hard...to...read...after...a...while...don't...you...think...? The ellipsis (the dot-dot-dot) is a really abused punctuation mark. Like abused enough to be in one of those late-night Sarah McLachlan pet adoption commericals.

I get it, you're trying to say that an idea trails off, or pauses before it reaches a follow-up thought.

But have you considered saying "trails off" ? I know, it's more letters to type, but it actually says what you mean better than .... (That's dot-dot-dot and a period, honest) When I see ellipses, especially in exposition or rules text I assume the writer got lazy. And looking at the name of the writers who have done this on things I edit, I know they're not lazy people.

The exposition text of a document is supposed to express to me, the reader, a clear sense of what's going on. It's telling me things. It shouldn't trail off, even if the narrator is all loopy on cold meds or stoned or an Ent or whatever. Let me insert those pauses in narration mentally (or even better, leave it for the audiobook), don't force your reading-style on me. Just tell me what you need to, and do so clearly.

Not every character needs to be stand-out memorable. Sometimes they're just a barista. Or "people on a crowded street".

I went to a writing conference (actually it was the last dedicated writing conference I ever went to) and sat in the audience, waiting patiently for a writer I didn't know (and later grew to loathe, thanks to homophobic and sexist comments made at the bar) to tell me all about how characters "work in a story".  You know, as if I didn't already have an innate sense because I've been reading since I was a little kid. As if I didn't watch TV and grasp that GI Joe fights Cobra, Hulk Hogan loves America, and the A-Team is amazing.

This author said "Characters, from the lowest peon to the highest protagonist should be memorable."

Whoa, cue the siren. Flag on the play.

That's a really potent statement. Because it suggests that every character should be memorable to the same degree. Which is like saying that if we're all special, no one is special.

Some characters matter more than others. Your protagonist, for example, should matter more than the lady who made them a soy latte that morning. I mean, yes, there can be a scene all about soy-latte-lady, but on the whole, this is the protagonist's story. I might remember soy-latte-lady because of how she was described or some snarky line she delivered, but really her job in the story is to give our hero/heroine the cup of coffee and get out of the way so that the story can move forward.

I once listened to the Godfather as an audiobook. It was something like 33 CDs, just HOURS of story. And it often stopped the main thrust of the story to detour and tell me all about how some character got their start and how they eventually ended up in the scene I was first hearing about when the detour started.

That's a great approach if we're talking about a huge story, fat with details and every detail is something I need to stuff into my head because later on the story picks up steam and I have to be able to distinguish Carl from Carlo from Kelly from Craig.

But that's not always going to be the case. That's not always the best approach. Not every character should be as memorable as SOME characters - the ones that have the impact in the story you're telling.

I'm not saying they can't have names, or details about them that distinguish them or make them enjoyable, but not every character needs the full autobiography and character relationship tree that your protagonist and sidekick do.

Sometimes characters are just there, just for a purpose, or they're nameless because "the street was crowded." I wouldn't expect you to tell me the name of every person on the street as your protagonist comes out of the building and gets in their car. I'd kind of freak out if  I read a paragraph that said:

"Bob came out of the building on a mission, eager to get in the car and drive to the hotel for nap. He passed Susan and Margaret and Tommy and Tommy Junior, and Nunzio and Flor and Steve, and Stephen and Mark and Marcus, Terry, Terri and Theresa, Brian, not to be confused with Bryan who was standing next to Chris, who was talking to Kris about something Cristina said to Christina who heard it from Christine."

That's bananas. Don't do that. Tell me what's important. Also, don't forget that what you are telling me, I'm assuming *IS* important, so all those details are somewhere in my head, hoping you make use of them later. (otherwise, why would you tell me something if it's not important?)

Thus ends Part 7. Part 8 will be up later in the week. Until we talk again, happy writing.

86 Things I've Said on Twitter, Part 6

We march forward in the series of things I've said on Twitter, here's Part 6. Part 5 from last week is here (and so are the other parts).

You're never going to write like Author X, Author Y or Author Z. The good news is that they're never going to write the way YOU do.

I remember being a teenager and even later into my twenties and reading books by my favorite authors and wanting to BE them -- presumably because of the wealth I assumed they had, but also for the talent they demonstrated with words. I wanted to write just like they did, because they're successful, so being like them must make me successful too, right?

No. There's a couple ways to explain this, but here's one -- the market doesn't need another Rowling, King, Stout or Hammett. The market doesn't need a Wendig or a Forbeck clone. If you're trying to be like someone else, however well intentioned that might be, you're not being yourself. And it's all about being you. YOUR voice. YOUR skill. YOUR talent.

That's what the market wants - a new story. YOUR story.

And it can be daunting to enter an arena where Kadrey, Brett, Mixon and Blackmoore are already firmly entrenched (Yeah, I'm name-dropping left and right). But there's room for [INSERT WHATEVER YOUR NAME IS HERE]. Honest.

It's not about sounding like other people, it's about sounding as yourself. Be you, tell your story, you'll be happier.

If an editor does their job right, writers, you won't see their work, you'll only see your work, more clearly.

Editors on the whole, are ghosts. We don't really leave visible signs of our presence unless something catastrophic or extreme happens. We come in, help you, and go away. Frequently, we're under-appreciated, under-credited and under-thanked. That tide is turning, especially on social media, but by and large, the view of editors is a lot like how you view the hammer in the garage -- great when you need it, but you don't have a whole lot of reason to thank it, even if it made your house possible.

What an editor does isn't (and shouldn't be) a mystery. Our job is to take whatever words you have on the page and make them not only mesh but illuminate the idea you had in your mind. We do that by changing the text on the page, by clarifying it, by fixing the errors, by taking extraneous elements away.

When we do our job correctly, you don't see the footprints, and we don't leave any scars behind from our literary incisions. All you see is the text the way it should be - in the best shape possible to deliver the idea you want it to.

When we do our job poorly, the text suffers. Ideas become muddy and confused, the pace and flow becomes sluggish and overall the text isn't one you want to read.

How can you sort out the good editors from the bad? Ask them what they've edited. Then go read it. See if you like the finished style. See if they have a website, and go read that. See how they put words together. Do they sound like they know what they're doing AND that you can get along with them?

That question is food for another blog post by itself. Maybe even two.

To avoid too many dialog tags, let the words the characters say imply their feelings. Not the punctuation either.

I had a teacher once who marked down my short story from an A to a B because in her mind "I used too many 'said's". When I asked her how many I was supposed to use, she told me that you're supposed to use enough to figure out who's speaking with whom, but that the dialogue itself should be doing the work.

I didn't understand that for the rest of the school year, and ultimately got a B in her class. No one said squat about the number of saids in college, so I just figured she was crazy.

She wasn't crazy. She sucked at explaining her point, but she wasn't crazy.

Here's a line of dialogue:

"Good job," he said loudly to her.

Does that look like he shouted? Do you feel as though, if you're in the scene, that he's hollering or exclaiming?

No, and if you had to pinpoint the issue, maybe you'd circle the verb, and say that said isn't correct for the scene. Or maybe you'd circle the comma and say that commas don't really indicate shouting.

So let's make the changes:

"Good job!" he yelled to her.

Great, now we have an exclamation point, so the dialogue is louder, and we have a clear verb.

But let's look at the sentence a little more broadly. You have two spoken words (Good job) and four words that give directions or explanations (he yelled to her). If (and yes, this could be a big if) there's only two people in the scene that we're paying attention to, why do we need so many directions? And why should we spend our time reading more than just the dialogue, which is what we came to the scene to experience anyway?

"Good job!"
"Thanks! Couldn't have done it without you!"

No tags, because we know who's speaking. And we know how they're saying whatever they're saying, because the tone of the words tells us far more than anything else.

Remember: Punctuation tells us HOW something is said, not what is said.

I'm not saying you can never use tags, or that you should cap the number of "said" tags in whatever you're writing. That's crazy. But what you can do is shape the words, the substance and subtext of what they're saying to better describe how they feel so that you don't need so many directions tacked on to it.

Not everything needs have a sequel or be part of a great series. Some stories are just stories.

The Hobbit is going to be three movies. There's already an Evil Dead sequel AND a prequel on the way. There are three sequels to Beauty and the Beast.

Most of the reason this is done is entirely financial - there really isn't a lot more you have to say in the Hobbit once the plot wraps up (but I'm sure there will be like 35 minutes of additional endings), but because we can read a book at our leisure, and a movie is a contained experience, films get stretched until their plots are translucent at best and non-existent at worst.

But if you're writing a thing, and it's the best thing it can be, don't think you need to simultaneously map five future installments so that your first product gets picked up.

Tell the best story you can, worry about sequels and series later.

You cannot mentally sigh.

Characters can't sigh in their heads. Characters don't yell through gritted teeth. Characters can't see with their eyes closed. A lot of this is cliche-hunting. But it's important that you've got your characters acting like real people so that they're taken as real people, in a real world.

It's not the stretching of believability that kills fiction, it's the lack of consistency within your own construction.

When you're writing, you can stretch credulity as far as you need to. Science fiction introduces physics-defying technology. Fantasy fiction brings us magic. But we're willing to "go with it" so that the story makes sense and is compelling.

Where things come of the rails is where within the same story, there's no consistent adherence to a set of rules.

We've talked about how writing is the act of making decisions. A corollary to that idea is that they have to be consistent decisions. The sky is blue until you say otherwise. Magic works a certain way until you explain or provide a reason why it doesn't. But when things change without rhyme or reason, the story you're telling starts to feel like a story, like something hastily composed and sped through - a rush job.

I'd recommend you make yourself some notes about how elements in your world work. What does magic look like? How does faith work? How are the angels and demons supposed to interact with humanity? Whatever the element that makes your story deviate from the experience of our real world, write it down, and flesh it out. Be consistent, it makes for a stronger story.

Do some research. Figure out how things work. Sure you can tweak things, but lay a strong base.

There's a vocal segment of the population that takes a great deal of pleasure telling the rest of us how things really work, and how the movie/book/TV show we watched is inaccurate. Now, this operates under the assumption that our favorite fiction is supposed to be just like our lives, and opens the door for debate between simulation and fantasy.

The more research your do about how things (guns, corporations, explosives, farms, taxes, whatever), you're giving yourself not only the ability to give accurate detail, but you're also giving yourself more things to write about (the components of the engine breaking down, rather than a blanket statement that the car's not working).

More specificity gives your story more depth, more credibility (if that's what you're after) and makes it feel more engaging to the reader.

You don't need to slavishly adhere to realism. You can invent brands of soda or manufacturers or streets or whatever the story calls for, but partner those faux-truths with actual truths. We won't be able to tell. Really.

If you're writing a children's book PAY YOUR ILLUSTRATOR(S).

This one's a really short one --- if you're creating something, and there are other people involved in that process, PAY THEM. Pay them appropriately and fairly and on time. They have a job to do, just like you do.

If your story ends in the middle of act 2, then either it wasn't act 2, or that's not the whole story.

One of my favorite guilty pleasure movies is The Devil's Advocate. Keanu Reeves has an inconsistent accent, Charlize Theron can't act, and Pacino triple over-acts. It's also two and a half hours long, despite the plot being resolved at just before the two hour mark. Those last thirty minutes are a chance for Pacino to rant and Keanu to stare at a naked woman. It's the whole third act of the movie.

My point is that if you resolve your plot twenty chapters in, then you're done the story. You don't need to pad the story for ten more chapters...unless you're laying the groundwork for whatever comes next, and the big climax you thought wrapped things up was just a rung on this crazy ladder of a story.

Whatever system you use to organize your thoughts (note cards, Scrivener, whatever) - if it works for YOU, great, use it. If not, move on

There are lots of ways to put together thoughts. Some people love Scrivener, I like legal pads. Other people make note cards. No one method is better than another, they're just different. Anyone who says otherwise might be selling something or looking to make themselves feel better at someone else's expense.

If you have a system and it works for you, keep at it.

If you don't yet have a system, try lots of them until you find one that suits your patience, your research and your writing method. You can even cobble your own method together, a little from this system, a little from that system over there.

Whatever works for you is ideal.

Want to see if a story makes sense? Give it to 4 readers - a tween, an adult friend, an enemy and a loved one. See what happens next.

I have a lot of people asking me how they find readers. There are websites you can use (google 'beta readers'), you can turn to writing groups, you can go to friends and family for instance.

When you're building a pack of readers, try to get a diverse group. I use a tween, a friend, a loved one and someone who hates my guts. Here's why:

1. The tween will tell you if they're enjoying the story, if they get it, if it's cool.
2. The friend will give you the highlights, saying what they like and what works.
3. The loved one will give you encouragement and support and help turn those good parts into promotional material.
4. The enemy will hate whatever you do, ground you in reality and teach you where you lose readers or bore people, so that you can improve your craft and earn their readership.

Now, I don't always talk to the people who hate me, because it's kind of annoying and dramatic and stupid to do. So I usually go to a relative stranger, someone who isn't a dick but who doesn't know me well enough to be favorably biased.

The third act is never a great time to introduce new characters.

"There are no drive-ups in the third act" is the old Hollywood saying, which means that by the time the third act is about to kick off (or underway) you're not introducing critical elements or people who just sort of appear and then prove themselves vital. We're not really connected to these new characters, and when they accomplish more than the established characters, it makes those characters we have been following less cool and less capable - and that's not good for the story.

By the time we get to the soon-to-be climax and the story is moving at top speed, we should have all the characters in play and have relationships and a connection to each of them. Sure, it doesn't need to be the same reason, but we need a reason, other than "it's what the story needs". No one wants to read something that feels convenient.

There's still plenty more to come in this series. I hope you have a great week.

Happy writing. 

86 Things I've Said on Twitter, Part 3

This is Part 3 in a continuing series of things I said on Twitter last week. Part 2 is found here. Today, there are ten items. Rock on.


I'm an editor. My job is to help you get your story/creation/thing into the best shape it can be. Not a "gatekeeper", unless YOU say so.

"Gatekeeper" as a buzzword cropped up a few years ago (at least as far as I can tell), to explain that in traditional publishing models you have to get your work past some literary Cerberus before your creation can hang out in the word-Underworld.

And this idea set up this them-vs-us sort of barrier, that whoever was a gatekeeper was an obstacle, some additional wall you had to climb or hoop you had to jump through.

Yes, there might be some old crusty guys still adhering to the old model of publishing, and they may very well be quite the gatekeepers, arbitrating and adjudicating whether or not your work is "good enough". But by and large, that model is on the decline.

I'm an editor. It says so on my business cards. I don't ever feel like a gatekeeper. I am an enabler. I help you get your creation into the best shape it can be, both so that it may later blow the socks off whatever gatekeeper in encounters, but also so that you can see that you're good at this, and that you tell good stories and that your stories deserve to be a part of the marketplace and pantheon of creations.

I'm no gatekeeper unless you make me out to be one. Approach me timidly, approach me coming from that place of "Oh John I hope I'm good enough to have you look at this." and watch me have no choice but to play that role for you, even if I don't want to. You are good enough to have me (or any editor) look at your work. You just are.

P.S. Please don't make me be a gatekeeper. It sucks.

If writing is important to you, if it's a thing you want to do or a thing you want to be called, why aren't you making time for it?

Far and away, the biggest complaint I hear is how people don't have time for writing. And they're quick to trot out a ton of reasons why - they have jobs, they have kids, they're tired, the phone kept ringing, etc etc. Some of these reasons are valid. Some are not. Usually when this statement gets made at me I point out that some of the reasons aren't valid and don't have as much weight as the person thinks they do.

And other times I ask the person to write out their schedule (in big blocks of hours), so that they can see where exactly they're spending their time, and to see that (for example) while the dishes run, that's 30 whole minutes where they just sort of sit on the couch. In those same thirty minutes, I bet they could write several paragraphs.

I wrote a whole blogpost about this - Making Time To Create.

If it's really and truly important to you, you'll make the time. Just like you make time for exercise or playing with your kids or tending your garden. Make time for what matters to you.

How long are you going to call yourself "new" at writing? When are you going to accept that you love it, and it's okay to succeed?

Next week, 60 workers are descending upon my home and installing nearly two dozen new windows. This has not only set off a great deal of anxiety (because, hey, new people) but also really rubbed my comfort level the wrong way. In order to give them access to the windows, I've had to move all my furniture and bookshelves. This gave me a chance to count my books on writing.

195.

There are three whole bookcases (the floor to ceiling kind) lined with books about how to write, how to plot, how to figure stuff out. And for a long time, I thought that I could find the "right" book that would tell me the perfect way to tell the best story from start to finish. I found a few that came close, but they didn't exactly  get me there.

Books are often aimed at new writers, or people about to become new writers, because they're hungry for advice. You know why there aren't so many books aimed at experienced writers? Because the experienced writers figured something out --

That you figure your own process out as you write. The act of doing the thing teaches you about the thing. In your own way. Tailored precisely for you. That's not something a book can teach.

How long are you going to chase the books? Sure there are great morsels of advice in those books, sure they might help you. But there's no substitute for sitting down and writing and discovering yourself by taking the action.

It's okay to be new at this. It's okay not to be new at this. It's okay to succeed. People want you to succeed (not all people, but that's for another time). You want you to succeed. So, get writing. And succeed. Book or no book.

You know what's great? An author excited about their work. You know what's not great? An author paralyzed by bad advice and fear.

Here's the other danger in books - some of them discourage people from writing by making the process sound scarier or confusing, when in fact, writing is just taking an idea out of your head, and painting it into other peoples' minds with words.

How can a book of bad advice get published you ask? A couple reasons: 1) If bad advice leads you to not get published, it makes it all the easier for other people to get published (smaller pool of applicants for a job) 2) Some people don't realize that their advice is bad, thinking so highly of themselves that what they spout is verbal gold, not verbal sludge. 3) Anyone can get anything published (see: whatever awful book you most recently suffered through).

Be excited about your work. Don't let yourself be dissuaded from your goal. Keep writing, keep going. You can do this. (I mean, unless you can't, but that's for another discussion.)

You can curse in your work. In your work, you're like Aladdin, showing us a world. Do whatever feels best for the story.

I have a client who loves to write arguments. They enjoy creating back-and-forth moments between characters. They love the tight exposition and the chemistry between people in those moments.

And then they write a line like this, "[Character A], you're a real lame-o."

When I flag this sentence as being both an eyesore and not indicative of tension, I ask "What's up with 'lame-o' and get told something to the effect of "I didn't think it was okay to curse."

It's totally okay to curse. It's okay to have sentence fragments. It's okay to do whatever you need to (short of totally wrecking grammar and punctuation) in order to give the reader the details they need to see this created experience the way you see it / the way you want them to see it.

Curse like a sailor. Kick ass. Take names. Do whatever feels best FOR THE STORY.

Rule #1 - Writing is the act of making decisions. The sky is blue until you say otherwise. Make choices. Own them. Go forward.

I teach this rule to as many of my clients as possible. This is the first thing I say to new writers. I usually say this three or four times during workshops.

How do you know what happens next in the story? You decide. How do you know where to start? You decide.

You're in charge. Make choices. Put your foot down. Go forward from that point. The only "wrong" choice is not to do anything at all.

Don't tell me you're only an author AFTER publication/sales. Are you writing? You're an author. Sure, you can love how other authors write, you can want to be like them. BUT YOU ARE AN AUTHOR TOO, AREN'T YOU? BE YOU!

There's a lot of focus on the end-goals of writing. Being published. Being "legit". Making tons of cash. Living the jet-setting high life. But you don't get the title of "author" after you write. You get the title AS you write.

This usually partners with another thought - that in order to be an author, you have to sound like an already established author, or you have to do whatever they do. Curse like a Wendig. Emote like a McGuire. Explain like a Hammett.

You don't. You have one job to do -- to write like a [whatever your name is].

That's what readers want. Not a clone. They want you. Your voice. Your way. Your words.

How much writing is "enough" for a day? You need at least one new word a day. Everything else is icing on cakes.

I'm a big fan of "two new pages a day". It works great for screenwriting. It makes short work of theater pieces. And in text, when you're double-spacing, two pages can fly by if it's a conversation. But that's my pace. That's a speed I figured out that works for me, given my schedule and how fast my fingers hit keys. Your speed may be totally different, and that's okay.

But don't conceive of writing as a race. It's no sprint. There's no bonus waiting for you if you write faster than the person to your left. Your pace is your pace, and at its heart, even one new word a day on the page gets you one step closer to being done. If you can get one more word, then the next words come all the easier. One word at a time. And if you can string several words together into sentences, and sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs into pages, and pages into chapters...that's just awesome.

Worried about your "platform", your "presence" or [other buzzword here] ? JUST WRITE YOUR STORIES PLEASE. AND THEN TALK ABOUT THEM A LOT

Want to find the people to avoid at a mixer, cocktail hour or slightly douchey conference? Find the people who spout buzzwords more than pronouns. Your life as an author is not about your platform. Yes, you need a platform (read: website, social media presence) if you want to engage/interact with your audience, but it's just a set of tools to interact with people IN ADDITION TO writing. It's no measure of your quality as a person, nor a reflection on your work. And anyone who inflates your platform ahead of your writing needs a swift kick in the pants. And/or they're trying to sell you something.

So what do you do? You write. Then, in whatever media you're comfortable (me, I like Twitter, podcasts and blogposts) you talk about what you've written. Then you write more, then you talk more about it.

Buzzwords can suck it.

How do you make a scene more tense? Focus on big AND little details, but in tighter sentences.

You watch TV? Ever pay attention to the where the camera focuses? Sure it shows up close-ups on our favorite actors, and it shows cars on a road, but did you see how the camera focused on the picture of the character's wife on the wall when the guy was talking about missing her? It's showing us a detail that isn't the character, so that we learn more about the character. 

And that builds tension. See, tension isn't just what you build when you want to make the next scene more exciting. Tension is any built-up feeling. It could be comedy, like we're all waiting to laugh. It could be nervousness - will the spy get caught before she can escape? 

How that gets built in visual media is by the camera. In text, we have to go with sentences. Long sentences draw our eye across the page slower than short sentences. 

Compare:

He moved across the room with all determination and purpose, a skulking panther in fleece pajama pants and a grubby t-shirt. 

In his grubby shirt and pajamas, he skulked across the room with a purpose.

21 words versus 14. Shorter sentences have a greater punch, moving us from one thought to the next faster than the longer sentences, which consume time and energy to read. 

Also, what the sentence talks about gives us a clue about what to think about. A character who forever gets dumped upon and is weighed down by the world has a lot of power in their first, "No". 

During the scene where we're to be focused on what the character is feeling, try anchoring that feeling to something tangible. A mother's locket. A picture of a spouse. An image of their kids playing ball in the yard. The dog at their feet.  

The details that aren't expressly about the character say as much about the character's world and the character's place in it as the description of how the character felt at a particular time. 

Remember: You control what the reader pictures. You paint the images on the mental canvas, so what do you want to show us? Where should we pay attention?

Part 4 will be up next week (likely not Monday, maybe Tuesday). Happy writing. 

Using Fate Core To Write Your Novel

Good morning, strap in and let's get to work. We start today with a story.

I was having lunch with someone yesterday and over the course of our discussion (which naturally covered what he could do to bolster his newly rejected novel), I began describing how he could flesh out characters to make them less static and make them multi-dimensional.

As I was talking and gesturing, I used the word 'aspect' a few times, and realized that there's a way to meld my two great passions, gaming and editing/helping people write better, and that aspects are the key.

Everyone go look at your most recent copy of your favorite Fate product. (There's still a week on Kickstarter! Get to it!) Now, go get a legal pad. And a pen.

For today we use Fate Core to write your novel.

We'll start by identifying what "aspects" are. For the purposes of our discussion, let's use this definition --

Aspects are phrases or sentences that express some element of the character, either physically, mentally or emotionally.

For example, that tall nervous blonde you work with has the aspects "Tall" "Blonde" and "Nervous Wreck".

So, how does this help you? Let's look at step 1.

Step 1:: Identify (and write down) 5 Aspects your primary character(s) has/have. (A primary character is your protagonist, your antagonist and anyone you spend more than 45% of the book describing)

Yes, five. I like to do them in some combination of physical and emotional/psychological descriptors, usually three and two. I'd stay away from a 4-to-1 ratio (particularly 4 physical and 1 emotional/psychological), because that may lead to your character looking pretty, but being sort of hollow inside. (This may or may not be called 'Kristen Stewart Syndrome')

What does this look like on paper? Here, let's talk about Batman.

Batman
- Forever avenging the death of his parents
- Rich & handsome playboy
- The greatest detective in the DC Universe
- Master martial artist
- Has a Rogues' Gallery (translation: lots of enemies)

Here I mention who he is - a rich & handsome playboy, master martial artist, and the greatest detective in the DC Universe - but also what he does - forever avenging the death of his parents - and what that brings him in return - lots of enemies.

What we've got is a snapshot of the character, and ideally something that isn't *only* a physical run-down of traits. This isn't a dating profile, we don't need to go on and on about someone's appearance in a superficial or sexist way - this is a chance to distill character down to key emotional hooks and connect the character to both other characters AND their world.

Just as character have aspects, so too do scenes. Most of time, scene aspects in novels are expressed as tension-beats, creating dangerous complications like a building burning down or a badguy about to shoot or a bomb about to explode. (They don't always have to be melodramatic like that, it can also be an uncomfortable conversation between two characters or something.)


Example: Barry is trapped in a burning office building. He can hear the sirens, so he knows that at some point, he'll get rescued. But until then, he's stuck in a smoky room that's growing progressively hotter and hotter. It's getting hard to breathe. He's not a strong man, but he's got to at least to try and make a break for it - maybe out the window before it's too late? 

In this example, the building has the aspects "burning down", "getting hotter and hotter" and "slowly suffocating in a growing furnace". Barry has the aspects "not the strongest" and "not quite Hero material".


Step 2:: Identify (and write down) how the character(s) make use of the 4 Actions. 

Fate Core has four key actions available to players. They cover a multitude of possibilities. Admittedly, I'm tweaking them here for our purposes.

a) Create an Advantage -- This is the ability of a character to use their skills and talents to take advantage/make use of the environment or situation they're in.

The ability of an author/creator to conceive of a scene's aspects (the elements that describe it physically, emotionally or psychologically) and parse them into phrases or short sentences is an invaluable tool for world-building, tension-crafting, or general descriptive capacity. Thinking about what goes down on paper and being able to think about it in an observational way, allows you to control and shape the scene more to your liking in a more intimate way.

So, look at your characters and look to their aspects and skills. Now look at your scene and its aspects. How can the character, in this one particular situation, use their aspects and skills to partner with a scene's aspects to reach the desirable outcome? Note: The desirable outcome is not always the same as the perfect outcome - the character's best option may not be coming out of a scene unscathed.

Now, you may be tempted to change aspects to suit the scene. Take caution - you're doing yourself a disservice (and creating a crappy character) if the character's aspects change at the start of every scene, just so that they come out smelling like roses and being perfect. Here's the rule - if you've got to change aspects, change it AFTER AND BECAUSE OF the scene that just happened, and remember, keep it to five.

To continue our previous example....

Barry has to smash a window to escape the fire. He realizes that he doesn't have the brute strength to smash the glass by hand, but if he can pick up one of the chairs, he can hurl it through the window. Summoning courage and strength, Barry wades through the smoke, grabs the sturdiest looking chair he can find and in a run, sends it hurtling through the window, raining glass down onto the street!

Here, the scene aspect "full of chairs and desks" is created so as to provide Barry the tools he needs to make good his survival. This is justified because the building is an office building, so it's reasonable to assume it has office equipment in it. So while Barry isn't Hero material, in a survival situation, he takes the initiative and creates an advantage for himself - allowing him to make it to the next scene.

b) Overcome an Obstacle -- This is where the character(s) face down a challenge that requires them to use their skills. This is a test of the character's ability. And with that test comes risk - often injury of a physical, mental, emotional or social nature - but again, it's what makes the scene compelling to both read and write.

We keep with our example...

Barry finds himself looking out the hole the chair created. Yes, he thinks, this is where he gets out of here, but look down, it's higher up than he thought. And he's no athlete, but the fire's getting worse and if he doesn't jump now, he might not last long enough for the firefighters to rescue him.  So, he backs up as far as he can into the room and makes a run for it, jumping out the hole and into the alley.

Barry's obstacle is both internal (his fear) and external (he's got to try and run, then jump out of a burning building).  It's through these overcome scenes that we learn what sort of characters we have. Are they brave? Will they do the right thing? Are they capable? Are they cowards? Overcoming obstacles should be a challenge, not in some great Herculean way, but some element of who they are or what they can do should be tested.

Success brings the reward of character growth. Failure can also trigger growth, but carries with it consequences - the character ends up hurt in one way or another.

c) Attack -- Note: Because we're writing a story and not rolling dice, I'm changing the nature of Attack. My apologies to my Fate Core friends. An attack action is anything the character(s) do(es) to change the status quo or current situation. (Also, this can cover fights) This definition may seem a little broad, but coming off the heels of overcoming an obstacle, an attack action may partner up nicely here.

Whatever occurs in the scene, characters are going to react to it, because of it and through it. They are going to attempt to alter it, changing the circumstances and possible outcomes so that they're more favorable...and so that they can then go ahead and create more advantages. (See how this is starting to come together?).

This is NOT a call to make your characters more selfish, this is a raising of awareness that characters are a part of the scene, not always at the scene's mercy. Flat, one-dimensional characters can get tossed around the scene like red-shirted crewmen on Star Trek. Characters with some heft to them can weather the scenes, and push back.

Our example marches on...

Barry has jumped out the window and luckily avoids breaking both his legs when he lands. He separates his shoulder, probably fractures some bones in his foot, but for the most part, he's going to make it out of here alive. Thankfully, the firefighters arrive and the blaze is contained. We then join Barry getting interviewed by a cop, who believes Barry started the fire and got trapped inside. Barry has to change this situation, so Barry stands up for himself, saying that he knows who started the fire because he heard Larry talking about it the day before. 

Barry attacks the situation by challenging the cop's assumption that Barry is the culprit. (For the game mechanically minded, this is Rapport). The revelation that Larry is a suspect both moves the story forward by introducing new character Larry, but also introduces Larry's plot...setting up Larry as the likely antagonist if we haven't done so already.

d) Defend -- Again, I'm really sorry, Fate Core friends, I'm changing this. A defense action is when the character must preserve themselves from harm or preserve the status quo for the continuation of the story.

Our example...

Barry confronts Larry, just as he's about to set another fire. They tussle, but not before Larry reveals every detail of his master plan. Barry manages to get the upper hand for a moment, long enough to press Larry's hand into some freshly spilled paint, leaving palm prints all over the room. The police arrive just before the fire is set, and combined with the palm prints, Larry's going to jail. 

Here Barry has to use a combination of attack and defend actions, both during the altercation (obviously) but   also in a test of wills to coerce Larry's villain monologue out of him, which Larry was happy to do, because Larry was a jerk.

It's the synthesis of these four actions that tells the compelling saga of Barry and Larry. Story is about expression of aspects through challenges, created advantages and the attack and defense of the characters along the way.

It's my hope that this quick-and-dirty toolkit is helpful when you're writing. If you have any questions, please let me know. (Twitter, G+, email)

Happy writing.

Finding Your Voice

Good morning readers, I hope you had an excellent weekend. I did. I played some games, relaxed on the couch, did some reading and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Very restful.

I'm sorry the blogposts have been few and far between, that's more because I've not been sure what to say, rather than lacking topics to potentially talk about. It's a frustrating feeling when I have things to talk about but I can't seem to get the words straightened out in my mind, which usually leads into some sort of panic that I've lost my writing-groove and unlike Angela Bassett, I'll never get it back.

But I have my groove this morning, so I thought I'd sit down and write. What we'll talk about today will be blunt and candid, but important. I want to talk about your voice as a writer, and why it above all else is critical if you want your writing to take you places, personally and professionally.

So what is it? Some resources will tell you that voice is the way your narrator sounds. Some people will tell you it's the frequency that you use particular phrases or word. Some of the shady / less-than-reputable resources won't expressly spell out what it is, but for the low low cost of however-much-their-book-is, you can figure out your voice BEFORE you get to writing "seriously", as if whatever you were doing before was mute and you're nothing without their book.

For me, and I can only ever speak for myself when I talk about writing terms, voice is the sum of the word choice, inflection, tone and medium through which the ideas are attempting to reach me. Every author has a voice, and every project shades, tints and spins that voice as I digest the material.

Do I figure it out BEFORE I write? When I was learning all that I know about editing, I was mentored by a man named Sid. In his later years, the cancer was pretty intense and his long-windedness became short-windedness, but I remember a lot of what he taught me, and kept rather obsessive notes. On the subject of voice, when I must have asked if you're supposed to find your voice before you write, he said this:

"Voice is like sex. When you're getting some, you're not worried about it. It's when you hit a dry spell and don't get any that you start to question it."

And that's true. When you're writing, when the fingers dance over the keys and the ideas take shape on the screen or the page, you're not worried about whatever the voice is.

You'll develop that voice AS you write. It's something that grows out of the act of writing, as well as from the confidence of having written.

Why is it important? One of the things looked for when you want to take work from the "I'm writing as a hobby" to "I'm writing because I want this creation to do something for other people, and possibly make me some money" is voice -- Yes you need a strong story, well-written, with characters and growth and a plot, but you also need to demonstrate that you've created something, and that this story is a lens through which you show off a particular idea and view of the world.

Imagine you have a camera with a powerful zoom lens. You can use that zoom to create some very arresting images, images that you may want to share with other people. By using that zoom, as well the light and exposure of the camera, you're able to take photos that evoke a particular reaction in whoever seems them later. It's no different in writing. The voice is your camera; the words and style your zoom lens.

How do I find this voice? You write. You create. Don't judge the writing as good or bad, that's something for later down the road, when you have the benefit of hindsight or the expertise of others as a reference model. For now, to find your voice, you write. You write and create and discard and hone your work until you can sit down and nearly on command, summon the ideas so that you may broadcast them (that's a little hyperbolic, but precisely what I mean)

Any other notes? Yes, have some bullet points:

• Voice is what you get when you let yourself show through your work. There's an old saying "Voice is vulnerability." and that's not too far off. I'm not saying you should expose your pink underbelly to every predator on the veldt, I'm saying you don't have to prop up some tower shield and defend your actual and perceived weaknesses from the mean scary world.
• Voice doesn't waiver, but your mind will tell you that it does. How you sound doesn't change. You can effort to mask it for one reason or another, through a variety of techniques (read: lies), but there will always be a 'tell' as they say in poker and facial recognition, that will expose your native sound. Your brain, not wanting to be scared or exposed (see above bullet point), will tell that your voice is wobbly or that your writing isn't at its best today...because your brain is trying to protect you ((technically, it's protecting its addiction to specific chemicals released when you feel certain things, and if you suddenly were to change behaviors, you may not release the same chemicals and your junkie-brain may have to change)). But don't believe this hype. Your voice is always there, always the undercurrent of your work - it's just up to you as to whether or not you tap into that.

Now go and let your Voice be heard. Happy writing. 

What I Learned This Week At DexCon

This week was DexCon, the annual summer gaming convention that happens between Origins and GenCon (the two other big summer conventions). And if you've been anywhere near me lately, you likely got sucked into the tornado that was John-prepping-for-a-convention.

This year I was assisting in the running of a Signature Event, a tournament of Night's Black Agents where the winning team scored a $1,000 for surviving and discovering the conspiracy unfolding around them. I am forever grateful to the tremendous assistance and support of Ken Hite, the game's creator as well as Bill White, the third GM for their enthusiasm and patience with me -- I have no doubt I was an over-compensating buzz of frantic anxiety, and they were masterful in keeping me on track and keeping everything moving forward.

Granted, my job seemed easy - I had to create the 30 characters for participants to use, as well as develop adventures designed to both give the players clues as well as winnow down the 30 players to a final round. We were successful, and I felt a tremendous sense of relief and adrenal relaxation (I suddenly lost an invisible 60 pounds of "what if this sucks?" I had been carrying). And the whole event, which mauled my Saturday, taught me A LOT.

Combine that with likely one of my top-four workshops (which is no longer at midnight, and comes with coffee for the morning crowd) and I am deeply happy man. That also taught me a lot.

I list those things now. When I talk about "it" (whatever "it" is) just replace that word with your book/game/project/thing you're doing).

1. It doesn't have to be perfect, it has to be the best you can do, and you have to give a shit about it. When I said yes to the opportunity to co-run a tournament, and once I got past the excitement of "I'm going to play one of my all-time favorite games with one of my favorite people who happens to be the guy who wrote the game!" and I saw the amount of work I had to do, it was tough not to get immediately paralyzed.

Create 30 characters that were pitch-perfect, interesting and accessible to players as well as seven scenarios that would weed through players and characters all within a 6-or-so-hour block? Gulp. I have experience making characters, I've even thought at times I was good at it, because I'm really just filling out an excel sheet, but this....this is serious! I can't just have "my" kind of characters, I need to have Grade-A characters (kudos if you just caught the implication that I doubt myself sometimes).

And I just can't have decent or average plots, I have to have plots good enough for the guy who wrote the game will respect and enjoy and not scowl at me all the way through. I can't suck at this. (Cue anxiety, nervous stomach and panic sweats)

So, I sat down, talked myself down off that ledge and got to work.

a) I know how to do this.
b) I do this for my friends all the time.
c) I'm not working in a vacuum, I have people (like the game's creator, duh) who can help me
d) and if it all goes pear-shaped, who cares, it's a game, not nuclear disarmament talks with the Iranians)

And I did it. It was time-consuming, and it was essentially its own clinic in game design, story development and how-John-deals-with-the-spotlight, but I did it. Likely, when I tell you that I had also dropped about $90 at Staples to get pencils, erasers and folders, you'll tell me that I overdid it, but the fact remained that I put all these things together. I don't say that so that people say "Oh wow that's amazing." I say that so that I get it in my own damn head that I took on a big project and kicked its ass.

Was it perfect? Nope. Characters were under-powered, plots had holes, and my printer is low on toner, but all those things are fixable, despite my frustration and guilt that I didn't do a perfect job, what I got was teased, not yelled at for the errors. And the errors got fixed, and a good time was had by all.

2. There are few things as nerve wracking as watching someone else go through your work with an audience, especially when they're the developer of the game upon which your work is based. I'm used to people critiquing my writing. I go to meetings, I share my work with a lot of people, and they give me feedback (usually it's "keep writing this!" and "stop thinking that you're not good at it!" etc etc), so I have no problem sharing my work when my work is prose - someone reads it, they make comments, I'm used to that.

But it is wholly a different beast when what you've written is something interactive. When you watch someone at the top of the field take your work and make it come alive for an audience in a way you didn't realize possible. It wasn't just roll a few dice and say something, it was a moving, near-theater experience. It was as gaming should be - a dive into deep waters of imagination and story-telling where everyone is equally invested and equally enraptured by the tale and their contributions to it.

So I'm sitting there in the back of the room, watching Ken lead the final table through the plot. I know where the monsters are. I know where the red flags are. But what Ken did was transform them from simple encounters and bullet-points on page 4 into a story, and he painted (I mean like Van Gogh) a picture of an adventure and enemies and tension and excitement that I had some inkling of on the page...but Ken filled in the dots in a way that I don't think anyone else could. He made my words not suck. He made them awesome.

That is scary though. While the other people in the room are listening to the players gasp and laugh and cheer and panic and play, I'm listening to the plot, I'm waiting for "Okay, does this monster kill them?" and "What about the clue?" That tension goes far beyond I-hope-there's-a-winner and turns into oh-god-I-hope-this-doesn't-suck-for-people. But...we made it. Hooray!

3. The biggest interference in a plot are the characters. The plot for the tournament, I felt, was one of the cleanest and jaw-dropping-est I-can't-believe-that's-a-thing plots I've ever worked on. It was so not a "go to Place A, retrieve item B, fight enemy C" affairs, but it rather intricately wove about 2 dozen clues together so that people could follow along.

Of course that somewhat assumes they will follow along. When one character takes the lady he's supposed to protect and seduces her, then knocks her unconscious and throws her out a window into a pool (so the badguys can't get her), that's both one hell of a mixed message as well as something I wouldn't think to do.

Likewise when characters are marshaling their forces and say "We need a flamethrower", that's not really something you can plan for. And no, you cannot plan for everything. The characters will surprise you when you leave them open-ended and provide fertilizer for the seed beds of imagination. (No, this isn't the time to get into that discussion about whether you or not you "let the characters dictate the story as you write it", this isn't the place for that.)

I'm not saying that people are going to sabotage the plot, but you just have to roll with the punches when characters decide to make a hard-left out of the story and take it in a new direction. Granted this weekend we had neither time nor energy to vamp for 3 hours to get them back on track, so there was a huge margin of flexing, but as the developer of content, much like Moff Tarkin, you can't hold too tightly to your plans, else things slip through your fingers. And I guess your British accent will come and go. Or something.

4. You need to take care of yourself. So I worked on this tournament and then decided that a six-hour marathon game wasn't enough, that I would pull myself to my feet and play in another game that went from midnight until about 2am or so. Because that's the healthiest response I could make, right? So by the time I fell asleep it was around 3:30 and I had to be up at 8:30 and ready to give a workshop at 10.

Also, if you're scoring along at home, I am not 22 with a super metabolism and incredibly springy immune system. Oh, and I've fractured my ankle recently, depending on which medical authority you talk to (sprain, fracture, break, microfracture, these terms are but commas in medical sentences), so I'm gimping along on one leg and doing my best to pop Advil here and there and rest whenever possible. So what's more restful than gaming for 12 hours straight?

On Sunday I had a GREAT, SUPER AMAZING WORKSHOP with a fantastic and detailed discussion of writing - covering discipline and habits and goal-setting and related ideas. I also answered a ton of questions (there were some wonderful questions this time), but I was so tired, I wanted to be more enthusiastic and answer more questions and get more into how to individually help people....but I just ran out of gas. I was tired and worn down and needed to rest.

It should be mentioned that this whole weekend it was hot. Like crazy living-in-a-furnace hot. Like 89 degrees at 2am hot. Hydration was the order of the day, and when I was hydrated, I felt great, I was awake and my foot didn't hurt. When I was way behind in my waterload, I was sluggish, tired and a little babbling.

Those times when I stretched out in a chair, put my leg up and drank water? Incredibly restorative. I didn't feel like I needed to be go-go-go all the time, I was better for not pressuring myself to do more.

So, summary time:

Take good care of yourself, and it makes stressful high-energy times worth it.
You're going to end up stressing yourself out trying to be perfect, you'll be much better off trusting yourself to do the best job possible.
More than you realize, there are very likely a lot more people who support you and actually like you, rather than who just tolerate your presence.

Happy writing. Later this week, I'll do a post about how my writing has changed because of this experience.