Category Archives: writing

Is This the Year for me and NaNoWriMo?

NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, which takes place in October when participants commit themselves to the lofty goal of completing 50,000 words on a manuscript between November 1 and November 30. (Couldn’t that have least selected a month with 31 days?) That comes out to an average of 1667 words per day, every day, including Saturday and Sunday.

I attempted this once before, on a lark, and experimenting with an idea that I was going to ‘pants’ all the way through. That did not work.

For reason that can’t be fully detailed here I may be producing a new novel here and unlike my other excursions into novel length projects this one may require speed.

However, my writing process is to write Monday thru Friday reserving my weekends as fun and recharge time. IF I want to commit to meeting NaNoWriMo goals that would raise my average daily word count to 2500.

That’s not undoable.

When things are going well, and I am not lolly-gagging I can maintain a production north of 2000 words per day.

Factors in my favor are that I have an outline broken down into the five acts, I have character notes and descriptions, I have world building notes and cultural details for the sub-cultures involved, so I am well prepared for this book.

Factors against me is that I’m lazy, I like playing my Xbox One, and there are too many movies to watch.

 

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The Central Dilemma of Economics

The central dilemma of economics is often presented as ‘people have infinite wants in a world of finite resources,’ and I would say that it is generally true, but it misses one vital aspect. That while there are in fact finite resources individuals are in general incapable of perceiving the limitations and emotionally react as though resources were in fact infinite.

Electricity is a limited resource, generated from limited resources and distributed by limited system but an individual’s relationship to electricity, at least in rich nations, is that it is always there in limitless amounts. Food, material good, are all produced in quantities so vast that it becomes nothing more than an abstraction in same way that a single death is a tragedy and 200,000 thousand a statistic.

However, when the resource limitations are stark and undeniable, survival and disaster situations, people do not act like engines of infinite wants. Contrary to most disaster and post-collapse stories people in general do not become self-centered engines of destruction and exclusion but often become more generous and supportive to others, including strangers.

On any scale beyond a few thousand people and with resources that feel infinite economics central dilemma applied in full force, but what happens if very tightly contained and constrained environments that last indefinitely?

That is one of the central questions in what is likely to be my next novel. It should be fun to explore.

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Outline Draft is Done

As has been very clear for some time on this blog I am a plotter. I can’t even write a short story unless I know how it ends and for longer form fiction such as feature screenplays and novels I must work from an outline.

Sometimes those outlines are highly detailed, one stre3cthed out an enormous 87 pages but usually they are more along the lines of 20 or so pages and that is exactly where my latest outline landed.

To construct my outline, I first break down my story into acts, usually five these days, with an understanding of where each act ends, the dramatic turn that propels the characters onto a new course for each act change.

Then when I wrote out a prose outline populating it with characters and their motivations I discover deeper level to these acts and while the locations of the act breaks occurs they often change from external events, Character A discovers the body of Character B, to decision points Characts A starts investigating Character C after discovering character B has been murdered. It is always better when the dramatic change at the end of an act is propelled by a character choice rather than a stroke of lightening from the author.

The most recent outline for a proposal going to my editor at Flametree has been a lot of fun to craft and the subject matter is exciting me. Here’s hoping my editor feels the same.

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Discovery During Drafting

One of the things I hear fairly often from pantsers, writer who compose their text directly without a synopsis or outline guiding their writing, is that creating an outline feels to them like something that drains away surprise and spontaneity from their work.

Fair enough for them but I find that even with my extensive outline and synopsis building the pieces still manage to surprise me with revelation along the way.

My current work in process started with just the barest idea of who got killed, who killed them and why. Okay, that’s the essential elements for a murder mystery but hardly enough for me to fully understand the world or the characters so I moved on to extensive notes about the world.

I created these notes to explain to myself how the ship, which would take generations to reach its destination, worked, how the various groupings of people coalesced into stratified cultures and how all that impact the formation of character and motivation. That itself revealed some subtle changes to the original concept that deepen the ‘reality’ of the world.

Next I produced a bullet pointed act break down of the story as experience by my protagonist. I like working with acts not because the structure is king over all but because understanding how structure emerges from story illuminate what I need for this particular tale.

The curious thing and the discovery is that when I started making the bullet points for Act 1 I had a very simple understanding of the antagonists point of view, a very reductive reason for their actions, but when I reached Act 5 and the protagonists and the antagonists clash in a final revelation of truth not only had I discovered a deeper relationship between the two but the antagonist’s motivations had deepened. It because easier to see how they were the heroes of their own story and discovering this at this very early stage will make the prose outline a richer and better document with its own surprised which will repeat with the novel itself.

Somehow, I always have discoveries inside my thoroughly plotted stories, discoveries that would have eluded me had I tried to ‘pants’ my way through it.

This is not to say pantsing is a wrong approach merely that surprise and discovery is part of every process and you need to find the process that works for you.

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Quick Hits Aug 20, 2020

Just a few quick thoughts and observations for today.

Democratic Convention: Despite being a former poli-sci major and minor political junkie I have not been watching the convention. However, from analysis and coverage from both the right and the left it seems that they’ve found a way to do their messaging in these strange terrible times. They are keeping their aim fixed on the prize, defeating Trump, and are showing a level of unity quite unusual for this party. I understand the frustration from progressive that Republicans have highly placed speaking slots at the convention but this election is unlike any other in our nation’s history and the first problem, removing Trump from office, takes priority over everything else at the moment. More than ever, policy must come after victory.

Agents of SHIELD: The series, with all its ups and down, completed its seventh and final season swinging for the fences and engaging in some seriously epic storylines. Overall, I really enjoyed the series and I have started a re-watch from season one. The hints and rumors of a tie-in with the next phase of the MCU are intriguing and we’ll see where they go.

Writing my Next Novel: I’m almost ready for the prose outline of the new and still untitled novel. I’m currently working on a bullet point outline, just the most critical points for each of the five acts but as I go each act has more bullet points than the previous indicating that the story is taking off on its own. For this murder mystery aboard a generations starship I plan to incorporate some of the story structure ideas advocated my screenplays writer and Chernobylseries creator Craig Mazin.

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Work in Process Nation

It’s a fuzzy line between patriotism and Jingoism but I think that divide lies along the capacity to admit error. A patriot can recognize that their beloved nation is in error, demand that the nation be better, and work to make it better, while the jingoist can only proclaim their nation is best and reject the recognition of any flaw. You might think of a jingoist as a narcissist whose narcissism is projected onto their country and not themselves.

While you are writing a book it is called a work in progress and it continue to be one until the final edits have been approved and the text goes to production. In a way the United States of America is a work in progress that never is submitted for publication and one where the revised text remains in the copy all the way through.

Our text started with some very good ideals that were executed terribly. It’s hard to be for freedom and equality when some are enslaved, some are disenfranchised, and some are nothing more than an occasional count. But with fits and starts and not a few bad chapters we’ve improved the work, gotten closer to the ideal and further from that terrible first drafting. There is more equality but not enough. There is more liberty but not enough. There is more justice, but not enough. The work continues and we are its authors.

Anyone who has been reading this blog knows that I am not shy about sharing my political views. it goes contrary to advise I have received that as an author trying to move product, convince more people to buy my books, I should avoid politics because I may offend some and lose those sales.

That’s true. It may cost me sales.

But I have a duty to ideals I believe hold to be true and to be derelict in that duty for mere money is something I simply can’t do. I have not always met my duty, my responsibilities, we all sometimes fall short but we have an obligation to try and my voice, however soft it might be, must still be raised for what I think is right and I must take my part in crafting this national work in progress.

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Joy in Creation

I have started the process of working out the details for my next novel. Now I had previously worked out a novel and its synopsis before, submitted it to my editor and after a very friendly discussion about it themes and ending, we came to the conclusion that it was not a novel for that press. I could have moved on to writing it, it’s a dark cynical story that is kin of adjacent to cosmic horror without being a horror novel but I decided to follow a new idea that had recently arrived in my brain and would be a perfect fit for the press.

So yesterday I began the note process where I do the majority of my world building. This is sort of like explain on paper to myself how the world works and how the characters interact with the world and its social structures. It’s me telling myself the background of the story without getting into the plot details. I have a clear understanding of the sweeping outline of the plot, I know the story’s central mystery, the protagonist, and the resolution, but within those grand sweeps are nearly countless details and tones that I have to nail down before I can outline the actual story.

What’s a joy is that the worldbuilding solves plot problems before I even get to the outline. This new novel will take place on a ‘generation ship,’ one that travels slower than light and generations of people are born, live, and die on the ship before it reaches its colonization target. How do you organize people as a society that both meets the needs of a ship, with a rigid command and control structure and meets the needs of a free people living their lives in a vast spinning cylinder? How do you direct populations to prevent any sub-group from becoming a dead end genetically preserving both diversity in the gene pool and freedom for the population? Answering those question not only helped me make, at least in my mind, a more credible world but also gave concrete solutions to plot problem I had already seen but not yet answered.

This is the fun puzzle solving stage of creation. There will be more challenges to overcome and new puzzles to solve but right now it is mostly slotting the framing pieces into place.

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YouTube Discovery

So, with movie theaters closed along with everything else I have been spending quite a bit of time streaming various channels on YouTube. In addition to my history and technology viewing there’s a lot of cinema YouTube and the algorithm recently suggested something that turned out to be quite interesting, The Russo’s Pizza Film School.

The Russo Brothers, Joe and Anthony, are responsible for my favorite Marvel Cinematic Universe films, The Winter Soldier, Civil War, Infinity War, and End Game. During this enforced lockdown they have been holding a virtual film school, focused on screenplay and structure, exploring films that influence their tastes and craft. The films are a diverse lot ranging from Blue Velvet and No Country for Old Men to genre and cult favorites such as The Evil Dead and 1980’s Flash Gordon.

They also bring on guests to help them discuss the movies ranging from film critics to actors and directors. It’s named the Pizza Film School because they suggest ordering a pie from a local shop, to support small local businesses, and enjoying a slice or two as they explore what makes these films tick and work.

If you have an interest in story structure and how these films influenced a pair of truly talented film makers check out the Pizza Film School, I’ll link to the Flash Gordon episode as a starter. The episodes mostly run about an hour long, mostly.

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Moments of Transition

I think that some of the most vital moments in a story, and it doesn’t matter if that story is told through a visual medium such a feature film or a narrative medium such as novel, are those moment when the character crosses a transformational threshold and enters a new phase of their journey of change.

The best stories are stories about a character’s change where at the end of the tale the character makes choices that would have been beyond them at the start. But along the way to those ultimate transformations the characters cross smaller thresholds that build upon one another until the full transformation takes place and those smaller moments of change are often powerful moments in the story. Here are just a few examples from popular films, and I am going to use older movies because it does dip into spoiler territory.

Jaws

Chief Brody’s transformation from a man who fears water to a man able to venture comfortably forth on the sea is clear but a vital moment of change comes at the hand of Mrs. Kintner. The fishermen have brought in their tiger shark and everyone is celebrating the end of the threat. The moods crashes when Mrs. Kintner slaps Brody because her son is dead, he knew the beaches were unsafe and left them open anyway. It’s a powerful emotional scene and Brody after it cannot go back to who he was before her accusation. It is crossing this threshold that propels him to do a ‘half-assed autopsy on a fish’ and make his first foray onto the ocean and stiffens his spine in encounters with the Mayor. Mrs. Kintner literal slaps his character onto a new path.

Alien

Alien is a tricky beast. The film’s opening acts it hides the identity of the main character. Ellen Ripley, and she didn’t get a first name until the sequel Aliens, a first presents as a person who avoids direct conflict and dangers. She doesn’t volunteer as part of the expedition to investigate the signal, and she’s evasive with Parker and Brett over the bonus situation. Ripley’s first moment of transformation occurs when Dallas and Lambert return with the stricken and ridden Kane. She makes the hard call and denies them access to the ship, almost certainly dooming Kane to death. This is a threshold the character had avoided but faced with an unknown danger she steps across it and after Ash violates the quarantine she is more willing to confront other characters over their misdeeds and actions. The sequence at the airlock is not only vital to the plot, getting the alien aboard the ship, but vital to Ripley’s character development.

When you are craft the important moments of your story look to the one-way door of transformation it is vital to your character.

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It is Okay to be Non-Productive

Perhaps this post is for myself more than it is for others but it is okay to be stalled and uncreative during this crisis.

A lot of people have been facing forced idle time as the pandemic shuttered their businesses, their schools, and their recreation and for the creative among them there has been a sense that this time at home should have been a time of productive expression.

That feeling is a false one and ignore a critical component of the creative processes, the artists mental health and well-being.

These are incredibly stressful times. A lethal disease is sweeping the world and if you live the United States of America the situation is made worse by Federally led bungling incompetence. Too many of us are vulnerable to the virus, too many of us have preexisting conditions to ignorantly approach this disease with careless caution and too many of us have already watched loved one die. This is not an environment for fruitful speculation and creativity.

If you are finding your creativity, that is good. Heaven knows that some of the inspiring, emotional, and comedic creations have helped many through these dark trials but that sort of creativity under pressure is an except not the norm.

My productivity as a writer has been nearly zero, and my day to day life has remained mostly unchanged. I have a day job that I still leave home to work so stifling cabin fever has not been one of my issues. But I have loved ones in this disease’s path and one who has been taken far too soon. I’ve found, aside from some large-scale plot concepts and one of those I really love, I haven’t been able to write and that’s okay.

It’s okay that much of my free time has been with movies, sessions of Call of Duty WWII, and puzzling out spreadsheet to making running my Space Opera RPG easier.

Be good to yourself and know that these times will pass.

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