The Writer and Pain

I'm writing this when I'm tired, despite the numerous people telling that the best thing I can do is go to bed for eight to ten hours. I am writing this because today I hurt, and I hurt in a way that goes deeper than bone or marrow, and it wasn't until about twenty-six minutes ago that I even thought today was a good day.

See, on Friday, I had a big dream of mine crushed. And I don't mean crushed like the way you lose a video game by an embarrassing score, I mean crushed the way an addict grinds up a good pill, or the way the weight of the world hangs like an anchor down between your shoulder blades when you're just worn down to the last nerve. I will spare you the specifics, but just know this - I had hope, I had a plan to do a very awesome thing, and it would have in turn lead to some very awesome praise, which would have led to even more awesome things.

And this isn't just about me being told "No." I hear "No" a lot. This didn't feel like a "No, we're not interested in what you're offering to do", which I hear all the time, so much so that it's just a part of doing business. This felt like "No, you loser, no, you sad fat sick piece of shit, you don't get to sit at the big-kid-table of success, because you spent every single one of your formative years out of your mind, and all your best experiences happened outside the normal boundaries, and this thing you want to do, this idea, it's not inside the box we expect ideas to come in, so take it and roll your ass out the door."

That hurts. It hurts because I had to have conversations with people I respect, people I admire, my friends, people who look at me as a mentor and as a friend and I had to tell them, "Yeah, this didn't work out." I had to be more than mature, I had to be brave and strong and big and ready, and I wanted so badly to tell them I'm none of those things right now, because I hurt, just like you. Maybe not the same way, but I hurt too.

I had a good day Saturday. I laughed and smiled and was with the person I love and despite freezing temperatures, for the first time in my adult life, enjoyed a baseball game simply for being in the seat, not because I was obligated to attend it - I got to be me. Side note - I love all times when I get to be me.

But I thought that "being me" meant that I could only be the positive me, the me with good news, the me who was excited to share this whizz-bang set of mechanics that makes something fun, the me who laughs an obnoxious laugh that makes prudish people stare at restaurants.

This weekend taught me that being me means I get to be me with the bruises showing. That it's okay to sit in a car in a Starbucks parking lot, biting back tears because you're just so tired and just so hurt, and you're past anger over the not-getting-a-thing, you're fighting and clawing your way out of a hole lined with oil and glass, sliding and getting cut. Bleeding and falling.

Because, I don't know if you know this, but sometimes, it's hard not to feel like a failure. It's hard, even in the face of people who can point to your successes and you say to them, "Yeah, but that's the past." and you look at the present and you see things you're *not* doing, and you look at the future and all you see is, even if for a moment, how hard it might be to do the things you want.

Now I don't know if I'm going to feel this way come Monday morning. I hope I don't, this sucks. This sucks because it hurts, and it sucks because it's draining. It's a leech, and it makes every breath feel like I'm taking it through concrete cheesecloth and that every limb is weighed down in lead blankets like at the dentist's office.

I'm tired, this hurts. This is my illness talking. This isn't me. I don't know if it is me or not, but at this moment, this is my experience, and these are my feelings. I don't want any of you to feel the ache that comes with wanting something and not getting it, I don't want any of you to have to push off your plans and dreams because there's any measure of other-people-telling-you-no.

I make a living somewhat invisibly, which is why I started doing development and why I reignited the fire under me to do more interviews and speaking. This is not a post where I want your praise. This is not a pity party. This is a tired man's ramble. These are the disjointed thoughts of someone in pain. These are the thoughts of someone who is taking his one talent, wordcraft, and making something of it.

Big sigh. Pause here a minute. Exhale. Wish you were getting a hug right now. These are the things I say to myself when only the dog is listening.

When you get a chance to go after a big dream, go for it. Let nothing stop you. Not even the fear of getting hurt, which might happen. If it happens, it happens, you manage it the best you can. And if you get hurt, be hurt, not immobilized. Not paralyzed. Just hurt, for a little while. Wounds mend. Moods pass. I learned that tonight in a Starbucks parking lot.

I'm tired. I got denied one dream and yeah, it feels like right now there's this dryspell, that I'm not in the center of a great productive hurricane like I was a few months ago. But that's nobody's fault - it's not always going to be the busiest you've ever been. It is what it is. I wish it didn't hurt sometimes to say that, or type (each finger striking a key feels like falling down a flight of stairs) it.

Here's to hoping things improve. Here's to tomorrow, which is a better day because it starts new and hasn't been written yet.

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. 

86 Things I've Said on Twitter, Part 2

Last week, I started a new series on the blog: 86 Things I've Said on Twitter, a lengthy collection of Tweet-sized advice covering all kinds of motivation, writing, and publishing advice.

Part 1 is here. This is part 2, with eleven items.

And there's still time to pre-register for tomorrow night's online workshop.


No one's going to know if you wrote the thing you did over the course of a month or a year or a decade IF YOU DO THE BEST YOU CAN.

I'm not sure why, but a lot of people, and a lot of books about writing put a large emphasis on how long it takes you to write something. Novels in 90 days, poetry in sixty minutes, twenty-seven overtures before lunch...and I get it, in part. If you give yourself a deadline, you're challenging part of yourself to be disciplined, and treat it like a short-term goal. And I'm a big fan of discipline when it comes to accomplishing your dreams. BUT, the downside to that discipline is this -- sure I can write something in 90 days, but if I'm new at it, if I have my doubts as to my ability, is it going to be any good? (I mean from my own perspective, let alone some other person's).

Yeah, I can paint a wall in two minutes, but it might not be the prettiest job. I've always been the sort of guy who freaks out during timed elements in video games, always worried that I'm going to be late for appointments, always worried that I'm behind some curve -- so why would I impose that sense on my work?

There's no prize for getting it done quickly (and in a lot of cases, instead of a prize, you get a nice assumption that it's done poorly). It doesn't matter how long it takes you, so long as eventually, it gets done. Want an example? Check out George RR Martin's writing/release schedule. Dude's like a glacier with words.


When you're explaining what makes your story cool/exciting. THAT'S THE SAME THING AS A PITCH, just less dressed up.

So much emphasis is placed on the pitch - making it sound good, giving it to the right person in just the right way, making sure it has the right words and not these wrong ones over here...it can get really overwhelming and confusing.

Let's simplify it. When someone is listening to (or reading) your pitch, what are they looking for? Action, the juicy exciting parts that make them want to read/hear the rest of the story. Isn't that much simpler to think about?

Here's an example. Pick your favorite movie of all time. Now pick your favorite part of it (just a scene or two). Describe it out loud. Sprinkle in some back story and some explanation on who the characters are, and that's a pitch.

If you wanted to dress up that pitch, you'd probably use more formal language, maybe chop out a few um's or uhh's or something, right? But on the whole, you just pitched your favorite movie to me. You can easily repeat this process for your favorite book, or for the thing you're writing now.

Have you considered taking one of your characters and changing a trait you take for granted? A king who curses, thieves who like cats?

Characters are a tricky thing. They can be the centerpiece of a great story. They can be memorable for reasons both good and bad. They can also be staler than old crackers. How do you prevent that? How can you keep your characters from "just" being whatever they are, somewhat generic and a little dull?

When you map out your characters, when you write out a character's aspects, make one of them stand out from the others. I don't mean suddenly make a guy green or something (though maybe that's okay, depending on what you're doing), I mean give the character a trait that isn't typical for who and what they are.

An alcoholic divorcee who always wanted to get into snorkeling is far more compelling than another drunk lech who mistreated his wife. Having one element of a character stand out is something people will connect to, and make the character memorable.


If you've got a word count (like in a contest), don't forget to cut out adverbs, double-verbs and excess dialog tags. Make words matter

As an editor, I love word count. I make a living on word count. But as a writer, as a game creator, word counts make me break out into cold sweats. They seem like limits that I'm uncontrollably rocketing towards at Mach 1. They seem like hurdles I have to leap...or else meet some grisly fate.

You can trim down the adverbs, they get to be like a crutch, not clarifying the verb as much as you think they do (why can't you just use a different verb?).

A double-verb is something like "was running" or "had been thinking". And yes, there's a place for this sort of construction every once in a while, but on the whole, show this stuff out the door if you're trying to be more declarative about what your character is or isn't doing. (Hint: Being declarative is a good thing)

If there are only two characters talking, and you just spent the first two lines of dialogue establishing a rhythm that he-said, then she-said, you don't need to keep reminding us of that.

Like this:
            "I like your hair." he said.
            "Thanks." She blushed. It made her prettier.

Whatever line comes next, we can assume that HE's going to say it. Save a little space here by not reminding us "he said" "she answered" etc etc. You may need those words later for awesome sentences.

If a character gets shot/blown up/stabbed/burnt in Chapter 1, I'd expect them to be limping/in pain/hurting in Chapter 2.

Unless you're writing Superman, your character is not a superman. Especially if you're aiming for "gritty realism" or whatever hot new buzzword corresponds to "realistic". Many authors, especially new or nervous ones, think that the best way to hook readers is to really go all Michael Bay on the opening pages, blowing up a building or something, as if to set a bar about what you can expect within the next three hundred pages or so. Which is awesome, except...

It sets both a pace and a "power level" for the story that might be too hard to maintain. Blow up a building and I expect repercussions, else the building didn't really matter to the landscape. Shoot a guy in the gut and I expect blood loss, pain and likely a slow death.

When story elements happen early, I treat them like setups for what happens later in the story, and am satisfied as a reader when they pay off. When things happen (and often they're fights or injuries) but are immediately shrugged off as if they don't really hurt or don't matter, I have to ask myself, "Well, why did the author spend time telling me about them if they aren't important?"

If that question comes up too many times in a book, I will likely stop reading that book. That's not a good way to build an audience.

Don't write a trend into your book. Your story is whatever your story is. It'll find an audience. It just might not be the one you think.

Trends are short term waves of popularity for ideas and concepts. Remember when everyone told supernatural romance stories? Or when everyone really liked saying sports were "extreme"? Those are trends. And while they make great fodder for magazines and blogs and get scrutinized and predicted by talking heads everywhere, a writer should never feel like they have to include a trend or two just to capitalize on it or be perceived as popular.

It's not the trend that makes an author popular. It's what the author does in their story, with their words, in sharing their vision and their world that makes an author popular. Trends are short lived. Audiences last longer. And every book will find an audience eventually, if the search is honest, open and earnest.


If you want to show two characters in love, saying "and now they're in love" doesn't cut it. SHOW us scenes to help draw that conclusion

Love is really hard to see. Sure there are actions we undertake to demonstrate that we love someone else, but there's no giant neon sign over our heads pointing out "she's in love!"or "he digs her!".

So look to our actions to figure out whether or not we're in love. And when you're trying to convey that character A loves character B, sure they can say it to one another, but proving it is another matter altogether.  Granted, if you're working in a visual medium, the characters can look at each other and we can see it, but if you're in print, you need to play out those scenes that help us draw the conclusion that yes, this couple is in love.

Think of exposition like a camera, zooming in on details or pulling back to show us how big the picture is.

This idea is called "psychic distance" and I teach a lot about it in workshops. Your exposition is where we get to see the whole stage, so where are we to focus? We'll follow the narration. How are you describing the birds in the trees? If it's just a word or two, then maybe they're not a big deal. If you've broken out two paragraphs on the merits of sparrows, then clearly, you've got something to say about birds. (The amount of words you spend on a thing tells us that the thing-described has more "narrative weight", meaning, it's a big deal)

You control what the reader focuses on, from the littlest detail about an eyebrow quirk to the big importance of the wind during a hurricane. And we want to follow the 'camera' as it tells us the story.

You know what's annoying? Written st-st-st-st-st-stutters. When a person stutters, we get it.

S-s-s-s-s-s-ee h-h-h-ow ann-n-n-n-n-oy-y-y-y-y-y-ing th-th-th-th-th-is looks? Don't do it. Don't use the actual display of text to convey something. Typography is great and cool when we're doing layout and games and things, but when we're cranking out 300 pages of fiction, how about you just say "he stammered" and move forward?

Shockingly not every story has to risk the whole of existence, the fate of all beings or the entire kingdom. Small stories work too.

We talked a little before about how a story's "power level" can be this huge monumental thing, which causes a story to be very much weighted towards the maximum side of whatever scale we're talking about. It may seem obvious that when a story involves all a race or an entire planet or whatever, that we're supposed to care extra because of the quantity of danger.

But can't the flipside also be true? If you've only introduced four characters in the whole story, and you risk a pair of them, that's 50% of the characters in the story. Keeping the psychic distance close to the characters and keeping the story intimate is what makes us care about the risks. It's only a numbers game in comic books, summer action movies or those B-movies on SyFy.


You don't have to write in dialect in order to be understood in dialect. That's for the reader to manage.

Before we go further, congratulate yourself on reading this far. Now, our last point of the day. Earlier in this list we talked about that annoying stutter. The same is true for breaking out accents and dialects. It might be funny the first time character A encounters character B, but on the sixtieth time, when I'm supposed to have these two characters as buddy cops solving a crime, I'm more wanting B to just make some damned sense so the killer gets caught.

You accomplish more saying "He spoke in a brogue" than trying to parse out the vowel sounds and where the apostrophes go in the lines of dialogue. You'll get less frustrated typing it, your editor will gripe less at you, and most importantly, the reader won't be confused as to what a character is saying.

Part 3 will be up Friday. Happy writing. 

86 Things I've Said On Twitter, Part 1

If you've been following me on Twitter over the last two days, I've just been bombarding social media with punchy little lists of writing tips and advice. I hope I didn't upset or offend anyone in blasting a stream of thoughts, it wasn't my intention.

In part this is because I have a Workshop (I've recently found the phrase "creativity workshop" which is pretty great) coming up Tuesday night (details here) and in part because these thoughts constantly rocket through my brain and I usually just bite my tongue because some other editor or a respected writer says these things at a much slower pace. And frankly, it's felt pretty good to just throw all these things out there, and see how they help people.

So, rather than just drop all 86 without explanation, I'm breaking them into chunks. Here are the first six.


1. Don't think about writing in terms of "getting published", think about it in terms of "I want readers to read stuff". Aim for audience. 

It's really tempting, and a lot of books reinforce this idea that publishing is some be-all, end-all that once you get published, it's all sunshine and roses and puppies. But, talk to published authors, and a lot of them are working harder now than before they were first published -- almost as if publishing isn't the end of the marathon, but the start of a new one. To that end, I caution you not to go so far down the "must get published to be legit" road, and think instead of what publishing translates to, which means readers get their hands on your creations. The goal is to get readers (as that assumes they've spent money to purchase your things, right?). Think of all the books that sit unread on a shelf. Sure, they're published, but are they being read?

2. How long should a book be? Long enough to show me a plot arc, some interesting character growth and some insight about you as a writer.

One of my favorite amusing things to Google, aside from "the A-Team theme song", is "how long should a book be" because the answers are so varied, yet so certain of themselves. Novels have this many words. Novellas have that many words. Oh you have some other number that's just a hair over? Well then you fall into this third category.

See, these categories are imposed on authors by publishers for a lot reasons (read: costs to print, edit and produce) and aren't really indicators of quality or requirement. A novella is a short novel, but a short novel is also a short novel. A book of poems might just be ten words, but a children's book might also be ten words. The labels and connotations of those labels don't always translate well to the people writing whatever they're writing - because if you get it into your head that you have only a certain number of words to say what you have to say, then you're going to panic as that number approaches.

Take a different tack. Let the story be however long it's going to be, so that over the course of the story, the reader can see the plot get introduced, developed and solved as well as the character(s) involved get some expansion and maturation as well. How you do this, however you choose to accomplish those goals will share some insights about who and what you are as a writer. (Because you'll favor certain terms, build sentences in a certain way, shy away from some details while promoting others, etc)

3. If you're writing for young adults, the keyword is "adults" - treat them smartly, accept them. Don't lecture or talk down to them.

I have a lot of cousins. And while they're older now, for many years family gatherings were packed with children, running around, making noise and generally being children. Universally though, across age ranges and gender, every single one of them would roll their eyes, sigh and take a tone with an adult who got it in their head that as an adult there was a great deal more superiority than there actually was.

As an author, you're the adult. But, don't be THAT adult. You're not doing these kids a favor by coming down from on high to grant them a little morsel of word-ambrosia. You're SHARING a story with them, you're SHARING this experience of "I made a thing, I hope you enjoy it".

Children aren't miniature adults, you can't expect them to express the full depth of maturity and understanding that adult readers do - but not because they lack the understanding, merely because they lack the experience. Let your book be something that gives them an experience they can take forward.

4. Not every kiss is fiery. Not every embrace is passionate. Not everything a character does is at 100% efficiency. Let them be wrong

I've talked about this here and elsewhere - that a character who never fails and always super-succeeds is kind of a let-down. It's the risk in a character's actions, the chance that they'll fail, that makes us care about the character.

And while that talks about big potentially bad things that the character faces, we can also apply it to the not-dangerous behaviors as well. What's interesting about a character who always kisses the best kisses on the planet? Or who always makes the best omelets? Hyperbole aside, if everything is special, nothing is special. Also, the more perfect the character becomes, the less connection to them we (the imperfect audience) feel. Because our kisses aren't always earth-shattering. Because we burn breakfast. Because we get really nervous talking to one another. It's our mistakes AND our successes that define us, so why isn't that true for characters?

5. If you're setting the story in a kingdom and we're not learning about politics or social class, why do we need to know it's a kingdom?

This is about focusing and distributing details. As readers we assume that what you're giving us is important, because you're, well, giving it to us. Telling us about something, tossing some adjectives about down on paper draws our focus to it. And if you spend even more than an adjective on it, we conclude that it has to be even more important than that, so when you talk about it and then move on without ever coming back, we feel deprived and a little misled. (I'm looking at you numerous unfinished plots in TV dramas)

If the scale (how big the set pieces within the story are) doesn't include or involve the big landscape details you're giving them, why are you giving them? (Hang on a second, we'll talk more about this)

6. When figuring out which details to keep and which to cut, ask "Does this detail show me a new thing or explain an old thing?" Stay new.

Just like we talked about above, it's important to know WHY you're giving detail X at the moment you are. If I'm describing...the room I'm writing this in, I may talk about the way to the desk is worn and aged. I may talk about the view out the window to my left. I may talk about the mess of papers to my right. Those details help you paint the mental picture about what the desk looks like and tells you a little about how I keep my office space. But...do you need to know the color of my shirt? Sure, you can find out about it later (purple t-shirt), but how does knowing the shirt's color tell you more about the desk or the office? It's a stretch to say "oh he's wearing a t-shirt, that explains a lot about how organized he is" -- that's you imposing your conception of how an office should run onto my story. And that's not fair to you or to the story.

When it comes time to edit and trim, one of the things I look for is why details are in the places they're in. That question above asks "what's the purpose of this detail?" which is key for knowing what has to stay in a draft and what has to come out. Likewise it helps pare down the number of different ways I express the same detail. How many various ways can I call my desk "full" or "active"? Breaking out the thesaurus doesn't further the story, it just moves things laterally, heaping similar repeated statements atop one another in a slowly stalling strata of story.

Part 2 (the next ten) will be out on Monday. Have a great weekend. Hope to see you on Tuesday night.

Post 101 - Where I Speak Honestly About Writing

Good rainy afternoon (well, it's raining here as I write this),

I'm feeling a little frustrated today. It's the kind of head-shaking frustration you feel when you catch a glimpse of someone else making not just mountains but Himalyas out of molehills. It's the kind of frustration because it's the sort of thing you know you're guilty of too, but at least this time you're observing it from afar, rather than experiencing it.

What I'm talking about today is a few bullet points about writing and editing. I will disclaim in advance that I may get a little vulgar, and that I will very likely make statements that rankle a few readers. I'm not doing either of those things to be malicious, I am doing both of those things to express how I feel.

Here now are those thoughts on writing and editing

Quit making it harder for yourself. Viewed from far enough away (zoomed out) writing can be scary. You have to tell a complete story, use characters, have a plot, show some talent, find an agent, get the story edited, get the story published and hope that people like it enough to pay money to read it. That can be A LOT of stress and A LOT of anxiety.

By that same token, if we look at another activity: cleaning a room in your house, we can just as easily find ourselves overwhelmed by the amount of mess, the perception of how long that's going to take, and how tired that will make us when we're all done -- we have to clear a path to the garbage can, take out the garbage, clear the counter, wipe the counters down, fold clothes, put away clothes, probably have to vacuum or wash the floor, recycle papers, take out the recycling, and then still have the energy to do all that in other rooms in the house.

Or we could change our perspective and do all in our powers to act like writing is just the act of putting one word down after another, and that cleaning a room is working in one 2-foot radius after another.

There's a lot of things you can worry about when you get into writing. You may even believe that some of the terms are serious and you should devote a lot of energy into warding them away. You may needle yourself into a panic attack over just how third-person your third-person point-of-view is, you may give yourself a headache because some blog somewhere said you can't use "of" more than thirty times in a chapter.

It's all bullshit. Horsefeathers. Nonsense. Overthinking, committed to pages and screens.

Burying yourself in jargon or "terms you totally read on the internets" and then hiding behind them as a shield or a crutch is just one more of the many ways NOT to get any writing done.

Seriously, do you think the reason a book got published is because they used a certain word a certain number of times between pages 30 and 47? How reasonable does it sound that a story sold thousands of copies because there was a very crafty application of gerunds in the middle of the book?

Conversely, do you think the reason your story didn't get published is because you split a few infinitives in chapter 6? Or because you have (gasp!) used a "filter word"? (we'll get there in a minute).

Your story likely didn't get published because:
1. The story itself is weak.
2. The characters are flat, uninteresting and fail to present the author's desired lens on the world
3. The market is saturated with stories of similar ilk.
4. The writing (the specific words on the page) is of a poor quality.
5. The story is fraught with errors big and small that an editor should have examined before you went ahead and submitted it

Yes, there are other reasons, but those are the big five I keep telling people about. They are NOT in any particular order (other than the order I typed them).

Basically, writing is sort of a test. Authors/creators test themselves to see if they can complete a goal - it takes time, discipline and skill...and at no time should they complicate that efforts. You don't see marathon-ers suddenly adding hurdles to the last six miles do you?

Tell the best story possible. Get help when you need it. Get an editor. Practice your craft (that means improving your writing as well as writing regularly).

Don't make this harder.

The problem isn't the finer points, the problem is what you do with them. Show of hands - how many people know what "filter words" are? Or "Deep POV"? Or "Sustained suspension?" Does anyone know if they're good or bad in storytelling? How about why they're good or bad?

The answer, by the way, is that those things AREN'T GOOD OR BAD. Filter words are just words. POV is just how the story is told. Sustained Suspension is how well you tell the story. That's all.

It boils down to what you do with these things, whether or not you let a weak story be told because of poor word choice, inconsistent or weak point of view, and weak commitment to world-building.

I edit what seems like ALL THE THINGS lately. My editorial calendar is dense, my schedule is so packed I don't even update Google Calendar so much anymore (yay for handwritten desk calendars), and there's conventions and panels to be at (GenCon in less than a week!). And not once in the 18 years I've been editing things has anyone (publishers, agents, other editors, writers, librarians, consumers) ever asked me one damned question about filter words. When I go out to a meal with other editors, they don't double-check my work to see that I've correctly flagged errors with suspension or point of view.

There's no reward, there's zero "bonus" for touting that you've eliminated such jargon-y traps from your work. The goal isn't to find alternatives to "touch" because "touch" is a filter word...the goal IS TO MAKE YOUR WRITING BETTER BY PICKING BETTER WORDS, WORDS THAT MORE CLOSELY RESEMBLE AND REFLECT THE WORLD OF THE PROTAGONIST OR CHARACTERS INVOLVED.

Here's where I get all rage-y.

Do you know why there are blog posts and blogs and podcasts about these little nuances in writing? Because people have to fill webspace and audiospace with words. Because repeating "Tell the best story the best way you can, taking the rules you need and discarding whatever doesn't serve you" would be a pain in the ass to hear over and over again (although it would totally help).

In the course of spitting out tens of thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of words, one of the goals you're trying to accomplish is to create a world where these characters exist, and the reader will follow one or more characters more closely than the others and see this created world through their eyes and experiences. (Those characters are protagonists and that created experience is the reaction to the plot). The method on how you accomplish this goal is ENTIRELY UP TO YOU.

There are authors who don't use a lot of punctuation or capitalization. I know this, because I've bought their books at my local bookstore -- so somehow they got published.
There are authors who (gasp!) use sentence fragments. I know this, because I've bought their books -- so somehow they got published.
There are even authors who break EVERY single grammatical rule I talk about and some I don't -- and I've bought their books at stores, so they've been published.

Forget the bullshit coward cop-out of "well those people are the exception to the rule, I'm not like them, I'm not special enough, waah waah" and seriously look at your writing. YOU CAN MAKE IT BETTER. THERE EXIST PEOPLE AND SERVICES YOU CAN AVAIL YOURSELF OF TO GET BETTER AT DOING THIS.

It has nothing to do with you sucking ass while other people are special. We're all capable of getting published. It might take some people longer, and they may have to work harder, but IT CAN BE DONE.

You're going to face critics, bullies, jerks, haters and idiots. What you do in response to that is what matters. Sometimes people aren't going to like what you do. There are LOADS of people who don't like this blog, scores of people who think I'm still a lying douche, quite a few professional people who find me obnoxious, heaps of folks who don't like my edits, and I'm sure an assload of people who don't like what I say on Twitter.

Prior to about three weeks ago, I'd totally let their vitriol and commentary keep me from writing, out of fear that every time I'd be doing something, they'd be upset. And I...didn't want to upset them, because I wanted everyone to approve of me, like me, and tell me I was doing a good job.

And then I had a few really intense things happen to me, and I got a big dose of reality mashed into my face. Now, I'm not seeking that approval (because in many cases, I'll never get it), and I cannot control if other people are upset over something I do or said - so long as I know I didn't write or do something intentionally to upset them, all I can do is accept that their reaction is their choice, and it's on them to own it and be with that.

While there is no shame in backing down, hanging up your typewriter ribbon and ceasing to dream of writing professionally (hey, it's hard and not everyone is cut out for it), there exists an equal amount of potential that you can succeed. Not to spite the haters or prove them wrong, but just because YOU want to succeed.

Personal story -- I spent YEARS (like 2 decades) doing things because I thought other people wanted me to. If I go see a doctor, my girlfriend won't leave me. If I curb partying, people in my life won't hate me -- I was doing these big huge tasks so that other people (who I couldn't control or influence) would make some kind of invisible decision (that I thought they were making, even though they weren't) and I'd get the happy results I wanted. 

And then I did those things, and didn't get the happy results. 

People were still upset, I was angry and resentful, I still lived in this pattern of shitty behavior. And yeah, I thought that made me a bad person. It's only recently that I've begun to do EVERYTHING for myself. The important distinction here is that I'm not being selfish, I'm not doing what I do to put down others, I'm doing what I do to make me the best me possible, because that's what I want. I'm sick of the pattern of shit, I'm tired of the fear and the doubts and the approval seeking, so what would happen if I'm the only approval I need? And what would happen if I didn't have to fall into that pattern, what's that like? 

Everything changed, that's what happened. I'm doing things for myself, and I'm benefiting. Yes, the haters still exist, but I don't go out of my way to bait and engage them. They...just cease to be the source of where I'm seeking approval. I approve, and therefore I keep doing what I doing. 

I think that empties my thought jar on the subject. This is very likely the last post I'll write before GenCon starts up. It's possible I'll have the ability to write something during the Convention, but I'm not expecting random folks to say "John, do you need a laptop?"

So we'll talk post-GenCon. You can follow me on Twitter if you want.

Have a great weekend.

Ask An Editor: Plot, Similarity and Length

In the last two weeks, this blog has really taken off. Part of me wants to say this is because all the seeds I planted about it are finally bearing fruit, but more than likely, people are responding better to the more honest tone I've been taking.

One of the new experiences I have to acclimate to is this idea that I'm now getting a lot more mail. Now while some of this mail isn't great (really, people still send trolling hate e-mails in 2012?), a lot of these messages ask the same things, which has led me to start this new post on the blog, "Ask An Editor".

Now, some disclaimers:

1. The answers I'm giving ARE NOT to be etched in stone, and they're not the be-all or end-all of information. They are a combination of many years experience and my opinion, melded together to help you.
2. My answers are not sugar-coated. I...don't really like to sugar-coat things, and quite frankly, it doesn't do you a whole lot of good to get a pat on the head when you may sometimes need a kick in the rear.
3. You don't have to believe what I'm telling you, you're very welcome to think I'm full of shit, but please consider at least reading what I have to say and then filing it away for later - you may surprise yourself.

Onto the questions (note: If you said it was okay to use your names, I'm using them. Otherwise, they'll get  reduced to initials.)

Plot

C asks:  I've been working on this novel for three years now. I've written and revised this plot so many times because a lot of the rejections I'm getting say my plot is too complicated or "too much". But I read published books all the time where the plots are WAY more complicated...what gives?

C, I have no idea what your specific plot is about, and please, don't go send me an email explaining it. It's not important to the answer I'm giving you here. No, really, I'm sure you've put a lot of detail and love into it, but in explaining it to me, you're not going impress me with it. We have to start with some basics:

i. "Too much" is shorthand for either "boring" or "too complicated". Suppose you're writing a multi-generational romance saga with three eras of family members grow up, find love and experience life. And now suppose you add some quirks into this story like time travel, maybe some lasers and magical tap-dancing fairies. You know, to spice it up. The plot hasn't changed really -- it's still going to be the story of character 1 going through plot points A to B to C and then character 2 going through their version and so on. But all those bells and whistles? Well, that's not plot detail.

Here's how you find your plot -- strip out all the names for people, places and things. Boil down all the verbs to their most simple and active. Using really simple nouns and active verbs, spell out what happens in the story. That's it. No rocket science required.

Here's an example of a complicated, congested "too much" plot:
Sally Heaven is a hard working college student who graduates from school and moves into her ancestral home, only to find that because she is the fifth daughter of a fifth daughter born under a full moon, she is also the sole heiress to a vast fortune of pirate treasure, assuming she can figure out the map before sunrise on her next birthday.

Here's the same plot concentrated:
A young woman learns she can inherit a treasure, assuming she can find it before her birthday.

But, I hear you say, you've taken all the "spice" out of my story! It sounds boring that way, story-ruiner! And before you come to my door bearing fire and pitchforks, I want you to learn something -- SPICE IS NOT PLOT. Plot is just an expression of the problem(s) the characters are challenged by over the course of the story.

ii. You don't have to 'give it all away' in the query. No, seriously, please don't. The query, as I've said before, is just an opportunity to lead the reader into the manuscript. It acts as bridge, seductress, chat up line and movie trailer...not Cliffs Notes version. We should want to / have to read the manuscript to find out more details than those offered in the query. If you tell us how it begins and ends in the query, why should anyone bother with the manuscript?

Similarity

Next, we have a message from Thomas who writes: "I've been following a lot of agent blogs and re-tweeting a lot of agent tweets lately, but none of them are really talking about what I need them to. My problem is that I've written a story and well, it sounds a lot like three other books that just got published. How big a deal is that?"

Thomas, we need to first figure out what "sounds a lot like" means. Are you saying you and these other authors wrote exactly the same story? Or are you speaking more generally, because if we look at all stories from a wide enough scope, we'll see similarities. If I zoom out far enough, all stories share the same set of traits and genealogy, all we're ever doing is putting new skins and spins to them.

Yes, it's very tempting to concern yourself with the ideas of originality, that whatever you're created be the only one of its kind...but we've been telling stories for millenia, and while the foundations are universal, look to use that originality on whatever springs up beyond the foundations.

Great, it's a story about woman overcoming Nature, (I know your specific book isn't Thomas, I'm just giving an example), but what element of Nature is she overcoming? How is she overcoming it? What's trying to stop her? What is she risking? These are the sorts of questions that sit on the foundation of "woman overcoming Nature", and this level is where you start to define your story against the backdrop of all these other stories.

To distinguish your story, we come back to the very commonly discussed idea of voice and craft - what do you do, author (Thomas), that other people do differently? What makes you stand out from the rest so that were I to pick your story out a hat (or crowded inbox) I'd know it had your fingerprints all over it. That's the sort of "deal" readers/agents/publishers/your grandmother is looking for.

I say again: No one wants you to or expects you to re-invent the wheel. And if you feel that you have to do that in order to get published, please leave all pursuits of writing behind and go take a knitting class or learn all about cat food or something, because you've entirely missed the point of writing and you'll continue to miss it every time you charge up these batteries of "scarcity" "pressure" and "publication equals success".

The reason why people say things like, "Just tell your story." or "Just write the f#$king thing." or "When in doubt, write." is not to get you thinking about all that crap that publishers and agents and publication want you to swallow in copious amounts. Yes, writing's hard. Yes, writing's scary. But it's a thousand times harder and scarier when you're writing your guts out AND worrying that you sound too much like other people.

Believe you have the story in you to tell. That's step 1. Transfer the story from your brain to some format. That's step 2. Step 3 involves getting your story read, your craft honed and your first taste of feedback and revision. You're going to repeat Step 3 for a while, until the story is complete and told to the best of your ability. Publication and an agent don't even factor into most of step 3 so long as you're still working out the story that you're trying to tell. Also, you don't always need one (the agent) to get the other (published), and I'd seriously look twice at anyone who stills holds so doggedly to that maxim.

And while we're at it, what do you think the point of Twitter is? Retweets are not yours. You're just passing on someone else's thoughts to your audience. Now while I'm all for shouting to as many people as possible, every once in a while I like to have my own thoughts mixed in there, not just a grocery list or an update about what I did in the last two hours. When I say thoughts, I mean YOUR thoughts on publishing. Your fears. Your anxieties. Put it right out there in 140 character sandwiches for us to nibble on. It's yet another way to tell YOUR story.

Length

And lastly we come to a quick note from M, whose message I'm paraphrasing because they've written it with a lot of emoticons and acronyms and I'm not sure I've got the patience to figure out why M is laughing at the end of every second line.

M writes: "I'm writing a novel. Can you believe it? (see, this is where there was a LOL, mind the gap) But I'm stuck. How come there are so many different listings for how long a novel should be? (also a LOL here)"

Okay, I'm going to let you behind the curtain and give you some special writing secrets. Are you ready? Are you sitting down? Here's your answer M.

Your story will be as long as your story needs to be in order to be complete and told to the best of your ability.

Now before you get snippy and say I didn't answer the question because I didn't mention that there's about 250 words to a printed page, or that the average book is 300 pages in paperback, remember that you're in charge of this story. If it's coming up short, that's not some random publisher's fault. That's on you, dear author. (Yes, I will further argue that you can't really have an idea of "short" because it's grossly subjective.)

The reason people can't agree on what's "right" for a novel is because thanks to the wonders of publishing, there can be more than one "right", and they're all acceptable. You may talk to Agent X who says a book should be a certain length, while Publisher Q says it should have twice that, and maybe Editor H says you have eight times too much, cut it back.

Who's right? They all are. But that doesn't mean you have to agree with them. They're not the boss of your work. Yes, you may hold onto the notion that they're "gatekeepers" and they're opposition for you on some kind of publication-chessboard, and you may also think that editors want nothing more than the cackle gleefully over the charred remains of your life's work.

Your story (novel, novella, piece, manuscript, baby, whatever) is however long it needs to be. Rather than worry about some label when people ask about it (or what you're doing) tell them ABOUT what you're doing. It's way more interesting to hear that you're writing a story about a man who wants to build a golem out of cereal than to hear you're writing a novella.

Find those opportunities to talk about your love, so that you can grow your love and make new opportunities.

I hope people found the answers to these questions useful. I'd really like to make this a regular blog feature.

Happy writing.

The Nine-Step Checklist

We start today with a story from my youth.

I was about ten or maybe eleven and my family was heading down to our shore house for the month of July, which meant that my dad got use "The Checklist". As if he was prepping an Apollo moon launch, he made sure all the bags (I have a feeling we always overpacked, a trait I've inherited from him) were first staged in the living room the night before, and then loaded into the car just after breakfast while my mom packed the huge Igloo cooler with food  (I don't remember if we yet realized there was a grocery store ten minutes from the house, or maybe it wasn't built yet or something). The cooler would go in last, and we'd be all set to go. And then we'd be in the car, all buckled in, me with my books, dad behind the wheel, mom in the backseat with my brother and some cross-stitch. But we wouldn't leave.

My dad began the next stage of his checklist. He'd check his wallet, to make sure he had money. He'd check the front door (3 stiff pulls, practically slams) to make sure it was locked. He'd look in every first-floor window to make sure the lights were out. And then he'd start the questions, aimed mostly at my mother.

"Is the oven off?" (It wouldn't matter that this was late June/early July, and my mom hadn't likely baked anything since mid-May.)
"Did you lock the back door?" (No matter how she answered, he'd go check, meaning he'd open the front door, check the back door and then re-check the front on his way out.)
"Is the TV unplugged?" (This later became my responsibility when I was twelve. I remember getting this job because my wrists were narrow enough to slide behind the monster set and pull the plug out.)
"Is the freezer closed?" (In filling the cooler, my mom emptied the giant basement freezer, and would go so far as to defrost it if she got up early enough. Years later she started stacking things in front of the empty freezer in case it 'just popped open', but I think it was more to fuck with the old man.)

The answer to all these questions was, "Yes John." (A sentence to this day that makes my skin crawl.) And I was impatient - the beach was waiting! While this checking took maybe five minutes, it felt like it took hours, and I remember being incredibly frustrated with every slam-slam-slam of the front door and the sound of my father riffing through the stack of bills in his wallet. I don't know what he was expecting to find or not find, but I just wanted him to get the car moving.

I asked my dad once, "What's with all the checking?" And his answer was, "It's just what you have to do, to make sure you get everything together before you move forward." Now, the chances are great that I rolled my eyes while he answered my question, in fact I'm sure I even threw in a sigh for emphasis.

The sigh was my sign that I'd never be like that, that I'd be able to leave the house without the almost superstitious dance of pocket and door checks.

That sigh was way wrong. I might not check the door three times, but I've definitely caught myself a little freaked that maybe I didn't put my wallet in my pocket, or maybe I didn't put my credit card back in my wallet after dinner, or maybe I didn't shut the freezer door all the way six hours ago when I put that bag of ice in there. There's a little wrestling match in my head about whether or not I did or didn't do something, and usually it's resolved either by me going and checking or by whoever I'm with at the time reminding me I did.

Checklists are good tools, and you don't have to take them into Super-OCD land for them to be effective. Here now is my not-so-OCD checklist for your story or script or game, so that you can make sure everything's together before you move forward.

Act 1

Have you set the table? "Setting the table" means have you rolled out the three P's (Protagonist(s), Place(s), Plot), so that your readers (or players, if we're talking games) know who's doing what where and why.

What's the palette like? By the time we're well invested into the first Act of your creation, we should have a pretty firm grasp on the tone, feel, vibe and scale of the story. If you're writing about a save-the-universe sort of sci fi adventure, then I'd sort of expect the story to be a certain size and scope. Your word choice will tell me the "color" of the story: if your protagonists are fighting an uphill battle, if the world is "gritty", if the badguys are more intense, etc.

Is it clear what the next action will be? If you can't get an idea of what's next based on what just happened, (it doesn't have to be a directly linear idea, it can be somewhat inferred or logical) then what just happened wasn't enough. Or it's not done cooking. Or you need to spice it up a little. Insert your favorite food metaphor here.

Act 2

Are we seeing skills (gamers: the opportunity for skills)? By this point in the story, we should be seeing the protagonist doing what they do (and hopefully that means doing things different or better than how we do them) and how the results (successes AND failures) drive the plot forward (don't confuse "forward" for "success", failure IS an option that can transform and evolve characters).

Do the options you've created have purpose? "Options" is a broad term meaning the off-shoots of the main plot. This could be the suspects in a crime story, the different avenues or routes to take in a travelogue, the number of topics in your book of essays or anything that demonstrates that you just don't have a really simple plot that can be wrapped up in like six pages and you're just filling space and killing time.

How high is your climax? While you're still in the bulk of the book, and while you're still laying out the dominoes so they can topple later, it's a good time to start seeing how high this stack builds up so you know how far (and how fast) it will come tumbling down. The climax is the highest point in a story. The greatest moment of tension, the most intense scene(s), the most knockdown fight. If your story ratchets up the tension, emotion, action or stakes AFTER that, then that new scene is the climax. Map out your scenes, climb that ladder (I guess in a future post I'll have to talk about the climax ladder) and adjust accordingly.

Act 3

How are your loose ends? I know, a lot of writers want to be "edgy" or "creative" or "smart" and they lay out these intricate plots where you have to super-focus on some detail because it's the lynch pin of the whole book. And there's nothing worse than realizing that the detail that clinches the story is something you (or gamers, your players) overlooked because it didn't seem important at the time. Likewise, those characters you drop into a scene, just for the sake of the scene, they're only momentarily memorable. You're not breaking new ground in having that three-line-delivering guy from Chapter Six show back up in the end and play a bigger role. You don't need to tie EVERYTHING up in a nice (read: convenient) bow anymore than than you need to trim the number of loose ends down to the barest essentials. Just keep track of them. If you've got a few that don't go anywhere and sort of disappear, maybe they don't need to be there in the first place.

What's the resolution look like? So the climax happened. And now the story's emotional and action roller-coaster coasts back down to a normal range of possibilities. Here we can start to see things end both internally (the plot) and externally (the book is running out of pages), so what happens AFTER climax? You don't need to spend an equivalent amount of time bringing us back down to earth as you spent getting us into the heavens, but you do have to spend a little time so that we can catch our breath and start to organize ourselves to end the story. Again, mapping it out is CRUCIAL.

Is the door open or closed? The "door" here is whether or not you've explicitly or not created the possibility to revisit this world and these characters again. NOTE - I am not saying that all stories need to be serialized, I'm just asking you if this particular one is built for it. If the door is open, then we as readers are free to continue these adventures in our imagination, essentially taking the storytelling reins from you. If the door is closed, then we better be satisfied by how things wrapped up, else we'll just take the reins from you and pretend it didn't go down like that (I'm looking at you Sopranos, third Hunger Games book, Lost and the Mary Russell series).

That checklist will help you take your stories wherever they are, in whatever shape they're in, and help them go forward, so that you can too can go to your vacations (metaphoric and literal) fully confident that everything is awesome.

Happy writing. Enjoy your Cinco de Mayo.

See you Monday (now if there's no blog post on Monday, it's not because I partied too hard this weekend, it's because I know Monday is PACKED with work, some of which I can't yet talk about it.)

Forward Vs Lateral Movement

No, not football.

What I'm talking about today has both a writing/gaming component and a writing-lifestyle component. I'm not really sure where to start, so let's start with the broadest and work our way down. 

How's Your Life?

Lately, I've been doing two things differently -- I'm eating decadently (on a budget!) and paying for it afterward. I guess it's because I'm in my thirties now, so this shouldn't be a scientific breakthrough or great revelation for anyone, but I can't eat the same things or the same way I used to, say, ten years ago. 

I can eat pretty much anything I want, barring allergies, but not that doesn't mean, I'm discovering, that I should.  Big heavy meals weigh me down and put me in a fog. Meals that scream "Yeah I'm healthy, look how cruciferous I am!" often taste like lint and leave me ready to gnaw off someone's arm. I will even admit to getting way too freaked out that what I'm eating (which is seldom fried, seldom battered and seldom wrapped in other foodstuffs) is going to immediately kill me (thanks scare tactics of diets and nutrition, way to make me feel powerless). 

After one weekend where I ate far too much, I started taking stock of my food-life. Sure I'm getting the 8 glasses of water a day (sometimes more), and sure I'm avoiding too much junk food (because there just isn't any in the house), but I look over my life and see that I'm not in the best health. Forget the shape, forget muscles, I just want to be healthier. 

To that end, I'm making better food choices, eating regular portions, eating regularly and doing my best to stay hydrated. It's not a thorough diet plan, it's not a complete panic-inducing revamp of the food I eat. This is forward progress, I'm moving towards my goal.

Lateral progress was all that time I spent thinking about getting to the goal, but not taking any steps to get there - reading reviews, putting off going to the bookstore, listening to podcasts talk about the book, etc. 

This same question of lateral-vs-forward comes up every time I look at other things in my life.

My book -- GOAL: Finishing it

Forward Progress - Writing new pages

Lateral Progress - Buying/reading books about how to write those pages, watching movies and tv shows that demonstrate how scenes look, talking about writing pages.

The state of my office -- GOAL: Cleaning it

Forward Progress - Cleaning the desk off, filing papers away, throwing out/shredding what I don't need

Lateral Progress - Buying organizational racks, shelves and items to sort out things (while still leaving so many piles), thinking/feeling that I'll never make any headway

My income -- GOAL: Having more of it

Forward Progress - Being visible and helpful to others, finding clients, doing work, sending invoices

Lateral Progress - Bitching about how after I pay my bills I don't have much money left, scrounging up change out of laundry, swearing to never again buy stuff all week (see above)

See what I'm getting at? 

Sometimes, the lateral progress looks like forward progress, and for whatever reason, I guess because it's not difficult or changing the state of anything, it feels like I'm making progress to my goal. 

Forward progress isn't always fun. Forward progress on eating better means I have to amend my grocery lists, exercise some willpower and spend time actually cooking better things rather than settling. It takes work, but the goal is worth it, isn't it? So why not do it? That's the lesson I'm learning now. 

Forward and Lateral Around The Table And At The Desk

We revisit this idea of forward and lateral progress when we sit down to play a game. Board and card games aside, let's look at role-playing experiences. 

The Forward element is the plot of the campaign. Whether that's killing the dragon, solving the murder mystery, reaching level 10 or defeating the conspiracy against you, Forward comes in when the player(s) do things that bring them closer to resolving that goal. 

The Lateral element is a little trickier, since sometimes people will argue that the lateral movements are just as important as the Forward ones. For example, my brother and I spent WEEKS playing Final Fantasy X when it came out, maxing our characters' stats, acquiring all the items and weapons and basically lording over everything on the digital landscape. We didn't advance the plot too far while this was happening, because we were too busy in making it easier for that to happen.

You see, we had this idea in our heads that if we did all these side quests and branches off the main plot tree, the main plot would be easier. And while that's true (the items we got as rewards totally made the endgame simpler), it speaks to the underlying issue - we thought the endgame would be hard, and that we were too unprepared. 

As GMs we can offer players a lot of paths to follow, no matter the game system. We can give the paladin a sidequest to get a horse, we can tell the secret agents to spend some time protecting their family members from attack. Sometimes, the players jump at these actions because it's a break from the main story, or because it offers them a chance to be at the center of attention for a little while, but other times they take based on how it's sold to them.

If a side quest is sold with the same intensity as the main quest, you can't expect them to be able to make the distinction that one is superior to the other, and by extension, that they should or shouldn't throw their full weight of focus towards that new (and perceived important) goal. 

A lot of this has to do with how the hook is baited, and if the players are invested in their characters. A lot of this also has to do with the reward offered. Too great a reward, or if the reward is thought to be bigger, more immediate or more useful than the reward of the main plot, naturally the players are going to jump at it. How could they not?

Some games mechanize around this possibility by creating conditions that lead the hero(es) into side quests so that they gain material or knowledge they must apply to the main quest -- Link can't fight Ganon until he has all the pieces of the TriForce nor can Mario reach Bowser without first traversing the level(s) of the castle. 

Writers I didn't forget about you - many genres (detective in particular) hinge on the idea that the bigger case is related to the smaller case or its solution. Likewise, we can bog down protagonists with side quests that develop emotions or responsibilities or new character arcs outside of the change represented by the main plot. 

So What Can We Do?
Writers, it's time to face the possibility that you're going to finish your book. And that this book isn't going to be perfect, but it will be complete - with a plot and character development and all the trappings therein. Forget the idea that you have to X number of plots and subplots, that you have to have exactly this number of scenes that develop specifically this or that idea and that flashbacks all have to be a certain and specific length. Accept that you're going to finish the story, and it's going be a good thing, and it will get edited and become a better thing.

Gamers, take a good look at your players. (Designers, you take a look at your audience) There is a very good chance that they're not going to take the bait on many of the hooks you throw at them. The problem is that you don't know which hooks they'll take and which they won't, so you just have to keep putting them all out there. Sometimes they'll move laterally, sometimes they'll go forward. What you can do is offer them the best path forward (the most compelling, interesting, superlative story) and the most evocative path laterally (so that when they step off the plot, they're immersed in the flavor and the world(s) you've built).

Remember - this isn't a one-or-the-other, all-or-nothing prospect. You can do very well for yourself making steps forward while laying out side routes along the way. It's also not required that you sprint towards the finish line. We all want that end goal, we all want our work to be published, there's no reward for finishing ahead of other people, because the market(s) we're going into are wide enough to support all of us. Don't fall for that scarcity-trap. We can all "win" at this.

Happy writing

Writing/Gaming - Plot, Choice, & Characters

Over the weekend, I read a rather disappointing book about how to plot stories (I'm always looking for new theory and new ideas to incorporate into meetings, workshops, seminars and client opportunities), which I'm about to go give a one-star review to on Amazon, because not only did it take three chapters for the book to actually talk about HOW to plot something, but it's basic premise is one I completely disagree with:

"Plot is how the events in a story directly impact the main character."

Danger Will Robinson, danger. This way lies madness. Don't buy it. 

Here's what Plot is:
Plot is conflict.
Plot is the problem that causes the character to change (positively or negatively). 
Plot is the evolution of a premise (and premise is the thing that brought people to the story in the first place)

Here's what Plot isn't:
Plot IS NOT a series of impacts on a single character. (Plot has consequences far and wide, even if you're writing about a single character adrift in space)
Plot IS NOT the result of events happening (Plot is far too contiguous, interconnected and interdependent to just be a hodge-podge of "Oh by the way this happened")
Plot IS NOT passive. (Plot is a very active response to a changing (or possibly changing) environment)

What Plot boils down to is a choice in the face of a test. 


Plot answers the question -- "When this problem (we'll call it X) occurs in a created world, how does the world respond, in ways large and small?"

To this thinking, plot could be on the small scale: the bully in the classroom or it could go large scale: the appearance of malevolent aliens coming to enslave mankind through smartphone apps....or something.

But there's a problem, and like the song says, yo, I'll solve it. The "I" in this case are the characters, not just the singular (or possibly titular) protagonist but the whole cast of characters - everyone from the sidekick to the doubters to the assistants to the random people who inject realism in flavor-text paragraphs.

Gamers, I'm looking at you here - Plot is why you've got people around your table. What are they doing? How will they respond? Why are they compelled to act in this way or that? How loosely or closely you play potentiality, that is to say how much leeway you give your players, directly ties to the strength of your plot and the potential of that plot.

If it's a closed loop, or you're working on a small scale, then the plot's pretty linear -- the party assembles and puts a righteous hurting on the badguy of the week. A wider view shows the problem isn't just held to one instance of a certain badguy, or that taking out this baddie reveals a power vacuum that other nasties will rush to fill. The point here is -- think of the plot's consequences, both good and bad, and then see if the plot needs tweaks. And try for narrative options, rather than narrative solutions -- the players should be the ones patching the holes, not the NPCs.


Writers, this one's for you -- The resolution of the plot WILL/CAN/SHOULD change characters, for better of worse. The problem might be one of internal struggle, or physical injury or whatever (I am loathe to name options here, lest I suggest there can only be certain kinds of plots).

Yes the above quote that started this rant has implications that suggest we're going to find out what the consequences of decisions are, but that's not the plot. The plot is a freight train that intersects all the paths of all the characters - the injuries and damage of collisions isn't the plot, that's the consequence of plot.

The plot IS the decision AND the reactions, not just the impact. The proverbial explosion had to get there somehow, and that's part of the story.

When in doubt, give the characters/players/actors/participants choice, and trust their decisions (which is made easier if you've given them a core philosophy) to let them show you how they're responding (yes, it's an active process) to the challenge of the plot.

Note: I feel like this post got away from me, I may revisit this idea later in the week.

Happy writing.

Party Balance, Narrative Weight - Gaming/Writing

Today I'm going to try and explain a gaming concept that closely mirrors a writing concept. I can't say they're synonymous, but they're pretty close. Game designers and players, this one's mostly for you.

There's a sense, I think due in part to more recent editions of products as well as a great deal of MMO-play, that an adventure/episode/campaign/game should be forever balanced or scaled to the party, that is to say a 4th level party should almost always encounter things within the range of 3rd to 5th level (3rd level presenting no obstacle, 5th level to challenge them), because that's what a party can "handle".

I completely disagree and find this a cowardly way to create play opportunities. I say this quite strongly because I'm a player in a group that is currently at odds with the idea that a party of more-or-less 4th level characters is having trouble with essentially an apex predator in its natural habitat. Because we're not able to kill it quickly and celebrate gloriously then boo-hoo the game must be broken, or our GM must be an idiot.

This all smacks of selfish, spoiled play. And to go further and lob accusations that a GM is engaged in a game of "anything you can do, I can always do one better" is entirely the wrong attitude to take when your character struggled in a fight moments previously.

My opinion: It is the role of the GM and the players to work together to tell a story. The GM presents the plot, and the players offer characters and actions (hopefully) in line with the plot. The game, whether a single session or a campaign is a result of BOTH these things coming together. When one side believes they're carrying all the weight (a GM who has to pull teeth to get things moving, or players who just roll dice and deal damage, giving no interest in story), then play stops. And when play stops, it's a good chance to evaluate why and what can be done to make the process better.

Note: I didn't say 'empower' the players, because no one side of the table is subordinate or superior to the other. The whole table is in this together.

'Balance' is a tricky concept to handle in a game. Mechanically, you have to appropriately seed the possibilities of actions and reactions so that things work with almost a Newtonian elementary precision. Narratively, the story has to offer challenge and incentive for future challenge so that rewards may be had.

But, if you're looking to create either a realistic or immersive world, you have to chuck balance out several windows. The world is not balanced. Balance is not the focus of worlds that present great danger or texture. There will be times when players are out of their element. A game should seldom be locked into zones where low-level creatures cluster, then they may head down a road to where there are tougher creatures, and the further still live the stronger beasts. This is the legacy of MMOs, creating pockets of gameplay that emphasize a need for mechanics over story. It is unlikely that a low-level character will ever have a reason to wander to the dragon's lair, because they'll know they'll not survive - so they just won't do it. Although still an option, the game restricts the likelihood of it occurring by incentivizing alternatives - closer zones offer more immediate rewards without the problems of character death.

However, looking at fiction, the opposite is true. The "low-level" character embarks upon a huge quest where failure exists and seems likely, but through the application of skills and equipment, succeeds in the face of great danger: The peasant kills the giant, the squire eliminates the dragon, the farm boy blows up the planet-exploding superweapon.

At the heart of fiction lies something called "narrative weight", which is the idea that some portion of the character-pool (a single protagonist, a group of heroes, etc) is doing whatever is necessary to move the story forward from plot-point to plot-point, while the rest of the world keeps turning or while other characters go about their day/lives. The 'weight' refers to the decisions/reactions/consequences made at Point A that drive the character(s) to Point B. Often this can be traced down to a single character's action or decision (the one party member who needs rescuing, the one who commits the rest of the party, the one who charges into battle, etc), and it can be said that this one character carries the bulk of the weight.

What's funny is that when a single character carries more weight than others in fiction is that no one ever stops to question the balance. It's only in gaming, where egos bubble up, that people worry about balance, because there exists the chance that they're not getting heard or rewarded.

Example: You can argue that Lord of the Rings is as much Frodo and Sam's story as it is Aragorn's.The other characters serve a function, but it's usually to assist one of those two branches in the narrative. Were this a game, this would be unbalanced, since the the mechanically disadvantaged characters (the hobbits with no combat skills) are 'superior' to the wizard, the ranger and the fighters (the combat-capable characters).

This is the danger of 'balance' - it requires that the game be about who has mechanical rather than narrative advantage, because the party only moves forward when the mechanics make it reasonable, rather than possible.

And gameplay should exist more in the possible rather than the reasonable (since it's a subjective assessment), because that's ROLEplay rather than ROLLplay.

If the goal of playing is to create a collaborative story, then there needs to be a synthesis of mechanical potential and narrative merit. Sure, the party can stroll through the fields until they reach the dragon's lair on day 1. They have that option. If it makes for a good story, let them do it. If however the point of playing is to roll dice, feel superior to imagined scenario and gain stuff, then they should probably be dissuaded from moving forward and instead roam the fields and kill a billion mice until they gain the strength and prowess needed to make the dragon less of a foe, right? Which one sounds more fun?

I play a lot of level-less games, because without the emphasis on accruing improvements, it's a chance to focus on story and let that build and reflexively shape the character. My characters are not a pile of numbers that translate into which-die-do-I-roll-to-beat-the-imaginary-beast, there are feelings and ideas I'm trying to express beyond hitting things with sticks.

So what's a designer/GM/ST/DM to do? Take another note from writers. Just tell the story. If the party keeps hitting first and asking questions later, then perhaps its time there are consequences for those actions. A group of adventurers roaming the land killing creatures / endangering the peasantry is just a different flavor of danger to a nobleman's land, right? Will the players balk? Possibly. But if you're trying to reduce rollplay and insert even a smidge of roleplay, there aren't many easy balk-less solutions.

I appreciate you reading this long rant. We'll go back to more proper writing theory next post.

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