I waited until 2011 to watch Oliver Stone’s 2004 movie Alexander, even though I’m a fan of Stone and a sucker for ancient Greece. Critics and moviegoers alike trashed the film, so I put off seeing it until I was sick last week and needed to kill three hours from the couch. I’m glad I waited, though, because now I can draw a critical storytelling lesson from this failed epic.

Critics slammed Alexander on many levels, but I saw one central problem with the movie: a tragic failure to give us a central character that we’ll want to watch for any length of time—not to mention for nearly three hours.

Stphen Hunter writes:

If you played a word-association game with “Alexander the Great,” you’d probably come up with “conqueror,” “king,” “warrior,” “legend,” “despot,” “wastrel” or “killer.” Unfortunately, Oliver Stone has chosen to build his epic of the Macedonian military genius around a word highly unlikely to make the list: “crybaby.”

It’s almost as if Stone set out to make one of the world’s most storied conquerers as weak and unlikable as possible. With a strong, charismatic Alexander, this film might have turned out fairly well. Without such an Alexander, it’s a disaster.

The first problem I found was that few characters in the movie actually liked Alexander. David Farland once pointed out in one of his free Daily Kicks that in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, one of the reasons we like Ferris is because everyone else does; he’s incredibly cool. Stone’s Alexander isn’t. His soldiers argue with him. His mom thinks he’s a “boy” even when he’s a grown man. His dad nearly kills him and frequently threatens to do it. His wife doesn’t respect him. Many of the finest men in his army think he’s a royal putz.

And you expect me to care about the guy? Maybe if Alexander seemed like a real victim–just a poor misunderstood guy. But that’s not what we get here.

Compounding this problem is Colin Farrell’s portrayal of Alexander (I liked Farrell in In Bruges, btw). His errors remind us that a protagonist shouldn’t make us want to slap the snot out of him in every scene. Desson Thomson writes:

Farrell puts a lot of energy into his role, but his character’s pulled and tugged in so many directions, we’re not sure what to make of him. He’s tough in the battlefield, anguished over mutiny from his soldiers, torn between lovers, impulsive and fearful, heedlessly brave and fitfully sensitive.

Hunter again:

His Alexander, as expressed through the weepy histrionics of Colin Farrell, is more like a desperate housewife than a soldier. He’s always crying, his voice trembles, his eyes fill with tears.

So, few characters in the movie really like Alexander and Alexander himself is a jittery mess. Can we at least feel sorry for him? I didn’t. Sure, he had a complicated childhood. But Stone and Farrell never gave me much to actually like about Alexander.

Alexander says he wants to do good things for the people he conquers, but this feels hollow when he seems to be driven by an ambition that comes out of his Oedipal psychology. Then he actually does some nice things for the conquered, but his men sneer at him for favoring foreigners. Even when he marries a sexy Persian dancer, Alexander gets no dap from his boys.

Our protagonist just wants to be loved, but even after he sexually conquers his tigress of a wife, he whispers something in her sleeping ear (or at least he thought she was sleeping) about her heart being a pale reflection of his mother’s. Meanwhile, Alexander doesn’t have the conviction to give himself to his true love (his boyhood friend and lover Hephaistion) in a passionate way; or, if he does, it happens off stage.

And then he wants his men to cross snowy mountains to die in India, while none of them seem to want to go along with him.

What am I supposed to feel now?

Pity? Meh. How many people has he gotten killed?

Admiration? What’s there to like?

On top of all of this, Alexander just seems bland. Roger Ebert writes:

Farrell is a fine actor, but on a human scale; he’s not cut out for philosopher-king. One needs to sense a certain madness in a colossus; … Farrell seems too reasonable, too much of ordinary scale, to drive men to the ends of the world with his unbending will.

Stone and Farrell gave us plenty of reasons to dislike Alexander and few (either unconvincing or undermined) reasons to like him.

As a writer, telling a good story with an unlikable protagonist takes great skill and creativity. When a story like Alexander’s depends wholly on that central figure then it’s even more important that the character works. When writing about a relatively unlikable figure, at least give us something to like or respect about the character, and at least define him well. Alexander wasn’t likable to begin with, we never quite figure out who he is, and he ultimately meets a tragic end without redemption. So I just watched a movie about someone I want to choke, someone I don’t understand, whom no one else seems to like.

And then he dies.

Note to self and kids: Don’t try this at home.

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While roaming the internet one morning (procrastinating, in truth), I stumbled across a great quote from Jenna Morris at Literally YA: Remember, not many people have died from editing.

How awesome is that? Say it again: not many people have died from editing.

This quote really rang true for me because as much as I enjoy editing and re-writing, I have no idea what I’m actually supposed to do. Editing, for me, usually consists of reading the manuscript over and over, changing a paragraph here, a word there, maybe adding in a scene or two. Yes, the manuscript improves, but it doesn’t sparkle and that’s what I need to learn: how to polish the beast-that-was-once-a-first-draft until it shines and glimmers and sparkles.

I’m taking some editing classes with the fabulous Kim Wilkins and I’m learning structure. I’ve learnt to start by searching for those words I know I over-use – “that” and “just” – and eliminate them. If I hesitate on whether I really need the word, it goes and I can usually admit the sentence is stronger for it.

Another editing tool I’ve learnt is the scene map. My hyper-methodical brain loves the concept of a scene map. It allows me to indulge my love of spreadsheets and organising information and yet also provides a lens through which to view the manuscript more methodically.

A scene map lists each scene, one after another. It’s not an outline to be completed before the writing starts, but a review of how the storyline actually unfolded. I have a column of scene numbers (which will eventually be grouped into chapters); next to that is a brief description of what happens within each scene and who the viewpoint character is. A third column is for my notes: heighten the tension here, or develop a relationship better in this scene, or there’s crucial information missing here.

The scene map helps me to view the manuscript more objectively and note where there are problems. Then I can work back through, scene by scene, and fix those problems. If I only have ten minutes in which to work, I can pluck a small task from my scene map and get stuck straight into it. I can’t wait to get to the end of this first draft and start applying my new editing tools.

So tell me, what editing tools do you use?

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Okay, so this is my first blog for Fictorians.  Bit nervous, and all that.  New territory for me, blogging is.  But, having agreed to do it, here goes.

As I understand it, this is supposed to be a blog by writers about writing, and that those of us who participate can write on most any topic that appeals to us.  That being the case, I’m going to spend a few words on the craft of writing fiction.  Oh, not on the nuts and bolts of it, the grammar and vocabulary, the sentences and paragraphs.  No, I’m going to wax at least semi-eloquent on what I think of to myself as the Four Elements of writing fiction:  Characters, Plot, Narrative, and World-building.  Others may disagree with me on the composition of the list, but to me these are the big four.

Different writers approach those elements in different manners.  For example, J.R.R. Tolkien, of The Lord of the Rings fame, did his world-building first.  He created the languages first, then after asking himself the question “What kind of people would speak these languages?”, created the world and the peoples (a/k/a Middle-Earth), and only then began creating the stories, the histories that morphed into The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and all of the other tales laid in that universe.

Other writers come up with the story idea first, then develop the characters and the universe.

Still others create a character first, and the story and the universe grow out of the question “What would this guy do?”  I fall in that category most of the time:  a character usually springs into my mind full-grown and full-blown, and I begin telling stories about him or her because I want to learn what he/she did.

Of course, an author is not locked into a single approach.  We’re free to adopt whichever approach works best at a given moment or for a given idea.  However, I suspect that most of us have a favored approach to the Four Elements.  As I said above, I’m usually character-driven, and my track record is that my best writing occurs when I have a bond with my characters.

But regardless of which door an author uses to enter the hall of the Four Elements, he/she can’t exit without having visited all four of them and incorporating them into the work.  There may be a few exceptions to that rule, but every story I can remember reading that I felt was written well and told a good story had all four elements present.

Of course, none of this is new thought.  Reams of written texts and countless hours of discussion in seminars and other venues have chewed on these elements.  And I don’t pretend to have distilled it all down to pure unalloyed truth.  But it is kind of fun to spend time chewing on  them some more.

Now, I’m going to tell you that all of the above was in the manner of introductory remarks, to set context, if you will.  What I really want to do is narrow the discussion down to one of the elements:  World-building.  But I’ve about reached the limit of what I can do in a single post, so I’ll leave that for my next post.  I’ll try to make it worth the wait.

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I’ve been seriously living the Writing Life for six years. Six incredibly long and impossibly short years. And the whole time, every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year, I had to decide whether or not I was going to write or do something else.
You can look anywhere and to anyone to be inspired and motivated. But ultimately it comes down to what you do with the time you are given.

My passion for telling stories is the reason I write. My passion to be a New York Times Bestseller is the reason I edit. My family and friends are very supportive. They accept and (mostly) understand this is part of who I am right now.

Sometimes I don’t.

And that’s when the weakest link in my chain forms a crack.

I’ve read a lot of author blogs and interviews and talked in person to some fabulous people. At some point, from what I can tell, all authors develop a crack in their chain.

Even Neil Gaiman.

Sometime I can spot weld the crack by writing – just get some words on the page, tell myself I only need 500 words on the page, and be pleasantly surprised by the time I stop typing, that there’s over 1000 words on the page.

Sometimes I let the link break, completely, and spend hours playing a computer game. This is my down time, I’m offline, unplugged, eating cheesecake before a pizza dinner and tomorrow is a new day. When tomorrow comes, I hook the chain together with a new link and decide I’m going to write.

James A. Owen said it best in Drawing Out the Dragons -

If you really want to do something, no one can stop you. But if you really don’t want to do something, no one can help you.

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The new My Little Pony show, “Friendship is Magic,” has attracted a significant number of adult viewers, including adult men.  Video posts on Youtube are laced with comments such as “why am I watching this pony show—and liking it?”

Characterization.

The previous direct-to-DVD cartoons promoting the third generation of ponies were mediocre and forgettable.  Giving a character a catchphrase might make that pony stand out, but it doesn’t generate interest or affection;  “Pinkie Pie loves parties!” is hardly a personality.  “Friendship is Magic” took a different approach.

Pinkie Pie still loves parties, but this trait is turned up to eleven, creating a kooky, eccentric prankster with a gift for making people laugh—and a struggle to get people to take her seriously when danger threatens.

Perhaps the greatest strength of “Friendship is Magic” is that each of the six core pony characters have flaws that are logical evolutions of their personalities.

Applejack is honest and hardworking, but stubborn to a fault.  Rainbow Dash is brave, athletic, talented…and  tends to brag about her abilities.  Twilight Sparkle is intelligent and magically gifted and spends so much time studying in her library that she struggles with ordinary social interaction.  Fluttershy is gentle, kind and timid, with a gift for working with animals and a surprising backbone of steel.  Rarity sidesteps the stereotypical fashionable, stuck-up, “popular girl” by being a skilled fashion designer with a generous heart.  Yet despite being so different from each other, these six ponies are the best of friends.

Friendship, however, is not always free of conflict and here is where characterization spawns plot.  Flaws and personality clashes cause tensions that can create problems—or exacerbate already tense situations.  What happens when the two most athletic ponies—Applejack and Rainbow Dash—find themselves competing against one another, when Applejack’s stubbornness clashes with Rainbow Dash’s ego?  What happens when “rough and tumble” Applejack and “prim and proper” Rarity start driving each other nuts—and are forced into close proximity?  What happens when Fluttershy is the only person who can stand up for her friends?  What happens when Twilight Sparkle fears that showing everyone just how gifted she is will make her look like a braggart?

The visually distinctive character designs don’t hurt, nor does the expressive animation, but in the end it comes down to characterization.  Much of the show’s humour comes in watching these strong personalities bounce off each other, and with such a variety of characters it’s easy to recognize a bit of yourself in at least one of them.  The characters are appealing, engaging, and actively relating with one another—for better and for worse—and it’s this dynamism that makes viewers care about them, and find entertainment value in watching them.  Entertainment value sufficient to make grown men watch this pony show, and like it.

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One of my favourite writing adages is by a Canadian author named Alistair MacLeod, who noted that “writers write about what worries them”. I happen to believe this is true, although I’m biased, as most of my writing tends to involve medicine in some way and I’m terribly worried every day by the thought of misdiagnoses and worst-case scenarios.

I like this statement because it contrasts with the standard advice given to writers starting out, which is to “write what you know”. I’ve never found that to be profoundly helpful, mostly because I feel that people know lots of things and end up writing about things that don’t particularly interest them simply because it feels familiar. To write about what worries you, though – that makes more sense. As science-fiction and fantasy writers well know, writing stories in a setting removed from our day-to-day surroundings leads to richly inventive stories that transport and entertain, but the best of these genres also make us think about issues that matter. The best speculative fiction has been written by people who have things to say about our society, and who use the fantastic or the futuristic to make readers think about problems and their possible solutions. (The worst can do this, too, if the writing is clunky and heavy-handed enough, but that’s another matter.)

What does this mean for people starting out in the business? I don’t mean to imply that every story written needs to have a Message, something important that will change the world if only the right people read it, damnit, and I would even caution against starting out with the idea of holding a mirror up to the world at large. But I do think that adage may help people to hone in on where to start when they stare at the blank screen, trying to call to mind all those tips and tricks about worldbuilding.

Why does this story matter to me? Why is it that I want to tell it? What is it that makes this the story I want to have people read?

For me, thinking of these questions makes it more likely that I’ll be invested in what I write, and that my attention to the craft of characterization and plot and conflict will be that much stricter because of my emotional involvement.  I’m worried about trying to fix people, trying to change the story that they’ve been telling themselves about who they are so that I can offer a treatment plan that will prevent that next stroke or delay that move to the nursing home. Therefore, in my first novel, I am writing about someone who can change people’s stories, for better or for worse, and what that does to the people around him and the people who might want to take advantage of that. If ever I get lost in the details, I can always come back to that worry, and that helps keep me going to the next part of the actual writing.

I’d encourage you to do that, if you’re starting out. Think about why you want to write that story. Think about what worries you, and start from there. It won’t help with the grammar or the editing or the elusive publishing deal right away, but it will make the story matter, and give it that extra bit of meaning to push it down the long road of publication.

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What do you do when the garbage needs emptying, the litter box needs cleaning, and the bills need paying?

You’re two weeks overdrawn and the only thing you got going for you is a few fleeting moments of relaxation time.

For most aspiring or beginning writers, the perils of reality always like to set in and rear their ugly little heads at the most unsettling times. How do you kill the distraction demons?

After my slump, I did a whole lot of real life reorganizing. I just ended a three year committed relationship and now it was time to move on. Truth was, I forgot why I even started writing to begin with.

Sure, it’s nice to get lost in the limelight and the big dreams of winning a million dollar contract, writing the next breakout bestseller, and finally being able to quit your day job and be a real writer.

Money had never been  a strong point of mine. Truth is, I can’t balance a checkbook without needing a calculator. I have a full time public service job that I most certainly didn’t take for the salary.

Did I dream of being a rich successful author? I’d be lying if I said no. I’m sure there are a lot of other people out there with similar aspirations. But, the visible minority are not the whole of the matter. For every Amanda Hocking and Stephen King, there are a million other Tobias Buckells, and Daniel Abrahams.

There was a while where I thought I was the most awesome person in the world and New York would be knocking down my door to get me to sign on the dotted line. I got so lost in the chance that I might win something, that I forgot to do anything. I would lounge around, plucking grapes off the vine and discussing with myself whether or not the Muse was planning to come over for a drink.

And then I thought about reality and the whole writing life seemed to slide off into oblivion. I let the rest of the world distract me that I forgot to make time for me. And that made me forget why I started writing when I was in 7th Grade.

It was because I liked it.

It made me happy. I told stories that I wanted to read.

It wasn’t to seek some sort of gratification or a self-fulfilling prophecy of making a million dollars. It was because I was having fun.

So? What’s the best way to kill the distraction demon? Don’t forget that you’re having fun.

If you’re finding yourself lounging around, waiting for the Muse to come visit, go out and find her. We think of writing as a passive activity: Sitting at the desk, relaxing on the couch, laying in your bed while you balance a laptop on your legs and plug away at a keyboard.

But there’s so much more to it than passively listening to yourself bang away on keys. Go out on an adventure, watch the sunset, climb a mountain, or hike a trail. Have yourself an adventure and let your mind wander. Think back to the simpler times when distractions weren’t an issue and all you could do was run and play.

Read a book. Work on something or anything else. The more you work to quiet the voice that says “you can’t”, the better chances you have of hearing the one that says “I believe in you.”

Write!

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I’m a fervent believer in the old adage Show Don’t Tell. We’ve all heard it. We all hate it. We all know it’s essential for good fiction — the writer’s Golden Rule. It reminds us that simply telling a story isn’t enough. We have to bring the story alive through choice details that make the simple statement redundant and useless.

So, why do I say that it’s for losers?

Because, lately, I’ve come to realize that the adage doesn’t do the work. I’ve been reading a lot of works in progress by unpublished writers, and I repeatedly come across the same issue. It’s an issue, I myself, have to deal with. It’s not that we’re bad writers. It’s not that we don’t know the adage and put it to good use. The issue is that we don’t use it as widely or was deeply as we should.

First, lets look at the adage itself. Show Don’t Tell only mentions one of the senses. While our mentors might mean to use all the senses, it’s not evident in the statement — and as we all know, words are powerful things. They work on us even at a subconscious level, and the amount of times new writers forget about the other four (or five depending on the story you’re telling) backs me up. As many of us have heard before, genre fiction is immersive. Our readers don’t just read the worlds we create. They live in them. If we were writing scripts, showing the world might be enough. But novel and short story writers must use every sense to make their worlds real. Readers must smell the newly turned earth of the farmer’s field, taste the smoke of the soldier’s recently exploded bunker, feel the slick sweat of the rebel about to be put to the question.

Second, the adage doesn’t encompass the most important aspect of putting across a powerful story — emotion. You can’t show emotion with any power anymore than you can tell it. For example, showing a facial expression is about as informative as just saying that someone’s happy. And depending on how it’s carried off, saying that someone’s happy is easier to understand. But you can imply emotion. When we describe the smell of our farmer’s new turned earth, we imply the satisfaction of  the fruits of a plowed field. When we describe the feel of our rebel’s slick sweat as he awaits his torture, we feel his terror, his discomfort. Emotion, my friends, is the universal language. A reader may not understand a character’s political or religious views. They may not understand how a character’s background may motivate their actions, but they will understand a character’s emotions. Emotions are the true connective tissue between a character and a reader.

For this reason, I’ve come to think that the adage should actually read Imply Don’t Tell. I mean, that is what we’re talking about when we Show, right?

Which brings us to my third reason that Show Don’t Tell is inadequate. Show Don’t Tell is primarily a tool for narrative. We use it for description. We use it for action. But when was the last time someone told you to Show Don’t Tell a piece of dialogue? Doesn’t really work, does it? And when was the last time you realized, or were told by a reader, that your dialogue is flat, repetitive, overwrought, over-simplistic, or just plain unbelievable? That’s happened to all of us. Great dialogue implies subtext, motive, tension without saying it allowed. Great dialogue implies physical and/or emotional danger. When one character asks a question, the person answering doesn’t give a direct answer. They answer a little to the side, in a round about way. And even when they do answer directly, they do so with loaded words that imply more than they’re saying.

So, I put to you all, when you’re writing or revising and you come across a telling statement, don’t wonder how you can show it. Wonder how you can imply it. For, when you think about it, implication is what we’re best at. We can’t in reality, make other people see what we see, feel what we feel, no matter how good a wordsmith we are. If that’s what you want to do, go become a movie director. Writers can only imply with these paltry things we call words and hope the reader get’s somewhere close to the point. By implication, we leave a few cracks for the reader to fill in the gaps, and that is half the fun of reading.

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It is now widely accepted that the publishing industry is changing–or rather, has already changed. Electronic books have been gobbling up an increasing share of the market, and the brick-and-mortar bookstores that have dominated in the past are struggling to stay afloat. Of course, such a huge change also affects how new and aspiring writers must conduct their own business–getting in.

The bad news first: the traditional publishing path is getting harder to break into. Even before e-publishing, big publishers were affected by the worsening economy, just like any other industry, and have had to become pickier when taking on new talent. And as I discovered talking to agents and editors at World Fantasy Convention last year (something which I highly recommend you do, if you can), not only are they becoming pickier about the talent, but also certain aspects of the goods you are offering. Book length, which wasn’t much of an issue ten or so years ago, is becoming critical in many of the eyes of these agents or editors. Doorstoppers, they say, are no longer in vogue in the marketing and accounting departments. Of course, exceptions apply, but one must keep in mind that they are exceptions.

It gets worse. E-publishing, which has garnered tremendous success for authors such as Amanda Hocking, isn’t a sure thing either. In traditional publishing, you get a fleet of editors, artists, publicists, as well as advertising–for free (in fact, they pay you). In self-publishing, you have none of these things unless you do them or pay for them yourself. While self-publishing has become far more attractive since the advent of e-publishing, you might still sink a hundred bucks into the cover art, only to make fifty bucks selling your book online, all the while thinking that you would not only profit from your venture, but become filthy rich. While I don’t have exact figures to back up my claim, I’m sure that people who have had that experience far outnumber those who have had successful careers e-publishing, even more so than the rockstars like Hocking.

Worse are those stuck in the middle, unsure of which path to take. Some people in the know claim that it is unwise to sell your e-publishing rights to big publishers, that it will end up costing you in the end. But that assumes you will achieve success, and how does one do that all by himself? I, myself, am plagued by these doubts, and I know other authors in the same position.

But despair not. There is a silver lining to these changing times. While publishing seems to have become a dangerous frontier where anyone can get lost, in it there can be discovery, and with that, opportunity.

Solutions can be found with perseverance, as well as something we all should have in excess–creativity. While it seems that there is an either/or type of dilemma–traditional publishing or e-publishing–one need not be bound in such a way. I shall describe to you what I am planning. It is untried, for me anyway, but I think there is a lot to recommend to it. Feel free to adopt it as your own, should you find value in it.

I am writing a novel which I hope to sell to a traditional publisher. But while I’m doing that, I am also writing a collection of short stories which will serve as an introduction to the world of the novel which I plan to release in electronic format in the very near future, at a low price. While this approach may not seem, ahem, novel, consider the implications.

If and when the novel is published by a traditional publisher, my potential readers will have an opportunity to check out my writing without spending $30 on a hardcover by reading my collection online. Also, anyone who reads the novel and likes it will be able to get more of the same by purchasing the collection as well. All the while, I’m using the publisher to indirectly promote and support my short story collection without them getting a dime from it–ever. All the rights and most of the money for the collection, I retain. Success in one venture feeds into success into the other.

Good idea or not, recipe for success or not, what this should show you is that there are ways of standing above the norm in these turbulent times. All you need to do is apply your mind to the task of building a world in which you achieve success.

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Six months ago I started a novel, and in that time I’ve written enough words for most books–somewhere in the realm of 185k though 23k now lives in a deleted scenes file–but I’m only just beginning to know my characters.  I mean really know them. This might be due in part to my penchant to discovery-write the majority of my story rather than meticulously plan every scene out in advance. I’m a Gardener, not an Architect, and that means I’ll be prone to much more rewriting.

Oh, I know the ending and several key events, who dies, who lives, and a few other elements of the story, but for me, I enjoy the process of discovering the nuances of my characters as I write. As a result, I’ve recently decided to start over. That is to say, I’ve decided to begin my second draft before finishing the first.

It’s not unheard of; David Farland–bestselling author of the Runelords series–has said he writes through the first half of a book then does a rewrite before tackling the second half. Granted, he’s a self-proclaimed Architect, but the practice seems sound in my opinion, especially since I’m doing it for the sake of character. I finally know much more about the motivations of my characters, their voices, how they would actually handle certain situations–which, in some cases, is different from what I wrote originally.

Many authors talk about how it takes them a few thousand words to truly get into the head of their characters–longer for those like myself writing Epic Fantasy since we’re often dealing with multiple POV characters and, depending on needs of the story,significantly larger casts. But it’s extremely important to know your characters. A good plot is important, key scenes that might be depicted in cover art are important, but, when you think about it, what you remember most about every book you’ve ever read or every movie you’ve ever seen are the characters. You remember the Vaders, the Gollums, the Tyrions, the Moiraines.

Every character should be the hero in their own story. Their motivations should make sense even if we as impartial–or even biased–readers disagree with them on a moral level. This is especially true of antagonists who can become flat and one dimensional if they are not at least some variant of gray. My primary antagonist just happens to be one of my favorite POV characters. He also happens to have the most complex motives, and is the main impetus for my decision to rewrite what I’ve already written before pushing on to the end. In many ways, he’s more a protagonist than antagonist in the true sense of the word, though he does work against the main protagonists’ goals.

So how does one accomplish the task of creating memorable characters? It starts with knowing them yourself, as their creator, the writer who gives flesh and blood to the ink of their existence. Learn their habits, their quirks, their wants and desires. This, I’ve come to discover, can only be achieved by writing in their heads for long enough to begin thinking as they think, acting as they act, loving or hating as they do. You must know them as well as you know yourself for ultimately, they are a part of you.

Another way to breathe life into a character is through physical description. I love to people watch, everywhere I go, looking for the tiny idiosyncrasies that make us all unique and which I might be able to apply to my own characters. It might be something simple: a limp, an incessant cough, the way a woman tilts her head when confused or a man clenches his fists when challenged. It could be something more subtle like speech patterns, grammar–or lack thereof–the amount of eye contact one person chooses to give versus another. We are all of us different, and so too should your characters be different from one another.

Perhaps the most important thing is to like your characters, even the antagonists. Robert Jordan used to say his favorite character was whichever one he was writing at any particular moment, something I took to heart. After all, if you don’t care about your characters–even the baddies–no one else will either. Give them something to strive for, something to long for, something that, if they don’t get it, will bring their world crashing down around them.

These are the things I’ve only now, after 180k+ words, discovered about some of my characters, and why I’ve decided to begin draft two of my novel. I was always going to do another draft anyway–perhaps many more since I’m more Gardener than Architect–so I do not feel like I’m going backwards by starting it now. I’ll be building stronger, more memorable characters, and that will go a long way toward getting this novel published. And who knows, maybe somewhere down the line, some other aspiring writer like me will mention Bos Illur in the same sentence as Vader, Gollum, Tyrion and Moiraine. One can only hope!

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For most of my life, I have been striving to become a writer. One day, I thought, I will be a writer. Of course, I know this was wrong thinking. I have constantly been told, “Writers write.” Writers don’t simply begin writing one day when they finally hit the big leagues; they have to put pen to paper for years before anything comes of it.

Armed with this common knowledge, I did just that. Ten years ago, I began developing a science fiction epic. I finished my first draft, entitled Colony, last December. Five years ago, I began a second story. I finished my second draft just this past week.

I thought I was getting busy. I thought I was being preemptive, practicing my craft and preparing for the day when my career would begin.

I was wrong.

As a creative type, I’m not so good at math, but let’s add up my progress so far. In the ten years that I’ve been “committed” to being a writer, I have written two novels. On average, that’s one novel per five years – and 90% of those words were written in the last twelve months. This means I’ve been pretty unproductive for someone who intends to somehow make a living at this.

Well, my two novels are done now. They’re fully birthed. I would like to pat myself on the back for having churned through so many words this year, but the reality is that I have to get much faster at this process.

Ideally, I need to be writing two books per year, and I can’t take five to ten years to conceive of them, which means it’s time to get going on something new. I need to get going yesterday, to be honest!

But there’s something stopping me.

I’ve got a bad case of “Empty Nest Syndrome.” You know what I’m talking about, right? After parents finish raising a family, their children go off into the world, leaving them alone for the first time in twenty years or more. What are these parents supposed to do with themselves? They clutch to their children as long as possible, fearing the separation anxiety they know is just around the corner.

Well, the metaphor only goes so far. I’m not worried about separation anxiety. I am worried, however, that I won’t be able to have any more kids. Do I have another two books in me somewhere? How about four or five? Ten?

A lot of writers have great ideas coming out the yin-yang, but I’m not sure I’m one of them. Most of my writing time has been so obsessed with nursing the babies I have that I haven’t spent much time grooming new prospects for the future.

Well, the future has officially arrived.

I have become a little spoiled. Writing a first draft is fairly easy when you have ten years of background research in hand. However, my new babies are barely embryonic. If I’m going to meet my two-books-per-year goal, I don’t have time to spin my wheels in development.

The question is this: how does one write from a blank slate? How does one develop a workable outline from an idea that’s only partially formulated?

At this point, you might be waiting for me to offer up a sage piece of writing wisdom, some neat and tidy advice to get you on your way if you’re in a similar position.

But that’s not the kind of post this is today. Rather, today’s post is a call to action.

Starting today, I’m going to ignore the blindfold over my eyes that represents my creative uncertainty about the vast terrain of untold and unconceived story laid out before me. Starting today, I plunge forward into the unknown, step by step, word by word.

It’s hard to believe that, in six months’ time, this baby is going to be headed off to college.

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