Guest Post by Gregory D. Little

So what genre do you write in?

I always inwardly cringe at this question. Genre is an inescapable part of fiction, and for good reason. It’s a useful tool. Necessary, even. Trying to talk about fiction without touching on genre would be like trying to describe the color red. The fact is that the human brain is hard-wired to simplify and categorize. It’s a necessary short-cut, one that keeps us from burning excess energy trying to remember too much detail.

Genre is just another means to that end. It’s a time-saver, a chaos-reducer. We all have limited time and money. Will I like this book? Well, it’s an epic fantasy, and I’ve liked other epic fantasies. Automatically your bet is safer. You pick up a book, quickly discern its genre, and are comforted. You can even tailor your decision to your mood. A mystery when you want to be thrilled. An epic fantasy when you want to feel wonder. Erotica when you want … well, you know.

So the genre of a story tells us what to expect. More than that, the tropes inherent in each genre know the shortest paths to evoking feeling. Every trope that exists does so because it’s tried and true. On some level, it works. When you select your fiction by genre, you are investing your money and time in that sense of certainty.

Yet the same part of our brains that excels in categorization short-cuts can lead us to prejudice and bigotry. And the certainty and safety of genre can quickly become a prison for the unwary writer. Must all noir begin with a mysterious woman entering the shabby office of a hard-bitten detective? Must epic fantasy always sprawl across many volumes and feature a world overflowing with detail? You’d be forgiven if you sometimes thought so.

Even more confusing, most genres have fluid definitions. Is Star Wars science fiction or fantasy? It has space travel, laser swords and aliens, but also magic. Most people would describe it as space opera, but I’ve also heard it referred to as a fantasy set in space. So it turns out the definitions of the various genres can’t even be agreed upon.

Yet fluid or no, the pressure to conform your writing to those genre labels is still there. Publishers love such labels. Categories make marketing easier, which makes selling things easier. Think how many times you’ve heard “If you liked X, you’ll love Y! It’s basically X with a new twist!” I think a lot of new writers feel compelled force-fit their writing into rigidly defined genres for the purposes of pitching and selling. I know I’ve felt that way.

Yet as I’ve started writing more frequently and regularly, I’ve begun to feel stifled if I try to color only within genre lines. It began with a shift in my reading habits. I still read plenty of works that fit comfortably within genre lines. But the books that really get me excited are the books that cross genres, blur the lines between them, or even actively subvert and reject them.

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville is a good example of what I’m talking about. Is it steampunk? Secondary world fantasy? Extra-dimensional horror? It could be all of these or none. All I know is that it blew me away when I read it.

Finding and reading such works is one thing. Writing them can be another. The tracks that familiar tropes wear into your mind over time are often so deep they are hard to notice. If you aren’t careful, you’ll find yourself tending to slouch lazily into those tropes even when you don’t mean to. Breaking out of them at all can be difficult. You’ll have to cultivate a healthy mistrust of your own brain, shooting down first, second, third ideas, anything that feels too comfortable. Because the brain will naturally default to ideas it’s seen and liked in the past. Learning when to trust such instincts and when not to takes practice.

Even if you succeed, there are pitfalls. Crossing genres in the wrong way can create problems with mixed tones. Avoiding or subverting too many tropes can undermine the emotional core of the work. If you tap into too few emotional shortcuts, the story will fail to satisfy the reader at all. It’s a balancing act, but in this writer’s opinion, it’s worth the risk. Because when those genre-busting stories work, there is—by definition—nothing else like them. And because the only thing more fun than reading such stories is writing them.

So by all means, experiment. Strike out in unexpected directions with plot, setting or character. Abandon your story’s genre entirely. Or if that thought leaves you too far adrift, pick out your genre’s more useful elements and lay them within your story’s foundation. Keep that foundation below ground. Then try to build something amazing atop it, something beautiful for its strangeness, something so different it worries you. Even frightens you. Follow your story wherever it takes you, even if that’s out across trackless ground.

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Hey diddle diddle

the cat and the fiddle

the cow jumped over the moon

the little dog laughed to see such a sport and

the dish ran away with the spoon

Okay, it’s all fun and games when the dish runs away with the spoon, but not so much when it’s your character who’s running off with your story. Or at least what you thought was your story.

As a discovery writer, I tend to have my stories overtaken by events. I’ve had a character yell at me that while he could be a cold blooded killer, there was no way he was going to kill that girl for that reason. When he refused, it changed everything. I have to say he was right when I looked at it, but still, what do you do?

Moments like that when my characters talk to me, heck, when they rebel are part of the reason I’m a discovery writer. For the most part, I let them take me for the ride and then see what I ended up with in editing. But sometimes the tangent the characters want to travel down isn’t one they should. Or, as often happens to me, my short story becomes a novella, becomes a novel, becomes a trilogy. Sigh. I’m in the middle of that now with New Bohemia: Just One Night.  When I started that story, it was a short that kept interrupting my ability to work on a novel. So, I figured what the heck, I’ll write the short and get it out of my system. That was months ago. At 60,000 words, the story isn’t so short anymore because I decided I needed to kill off my main character’s parents in a way she’s going to feel responsible for the deaths.  The story didn’t derail so much as I added a twist to make my characters’ break-up make sense.

 As I see it, the trick is knowing when the diversion adds to or deepens the story and when it doesn’t. If in Chapter 12, Rafe is suppose to have a have a fight with the love of his life and the relationship is supposed to look like it’s over, but, instead, if Rafe decides to go hunting with the guys and finds a magic sword that happens to be Excalibur, you might have a problem or, at least, be writing a different story than you thought you were.

If you’re an outliner, you probably know almost immediately when your characters stray and can assess whether in the overall plot arc if the diversion is a complication that should stay or navel gazing that needs to be cut. It’s a bit harder for us discovery writers. After all, we often don’t know where the story is going. (Yes, I acknowledge that this is the way to madness for some.) It could be that the first 100 pages is wrong and not the “diversion”. Been there, done that and it stinks.

So, you have a couple of choices when the characters try to run the show.

1.  Go with it. Since the characters are only the writer’s unconscious mind, they might be on to something.

2.  Assess the detour and see if it’s a path the story should travel.  If not, stop or see #5 below.

3.  If it’s a main character mutiny, write it and worry about whether it works in rewrite. This is often what I do.

4.  If it’s a minor character, cut, paste and save the ”new” story for a sequel or related story.

5.  Cut, paste and save in another document, and keep on your plan or outline.

Sometimes when your characters decide to turn left instead of right, you discover wonders. Sometimes it results in the never ending story. The latter isn’t good. You must finish the story. Any story. Every story.

Remember, you need to choose what’s important for your story. If the track your character wanders onto doesn’t advance the story you want to tell,  stop, hold a character intervention and get back to the plot line you want.  If the path through the forest isn’t well defined, don’t be afraid to leave it and smell the flowers along the way. Just watch out for the big bad wolf, and Hades.

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Have you ever had a great idea for a story that thrilled you with the possibilities, only to struggle to develop it into a fully realized manuscript?  You have that scene that burns so bright in your mind, but just can’t seem to expand it into a full novel, or that character you know as intimately as yourself, but lacks the right scenes to shine? Or, maybe you just finished a work and you’re searching for the next big idea, but aren’t sure where to start?

Whatever stage of your project you happen to find yourself struggling in, there’s a simple yet powerful tool you can always turns to for inspiration.

The “What if?” game.

This game casts you beyond all bounds, out into the realm of pure imagination. There are no limitations, no hesitation. No idea is too crazy, no disaster too terrifying that you cannot consider it. Don’t hold back when playing the “What if?” game. Ask yourself, “what’s the worst possible thing that could happen in this scene, or to this character?” and then explore the possible answers.

The results can be a little scary. We need to torture our heroes, but sometimes we cringe back from the awful reality of just how bad we can make things for them. Or we hesitate because if we follow the newly illuminated road our ideas have revealed, it’ll mean a lot of mental struggle to figure out how to guide the heroes through the new difficulties to their eventual triumph.

Don’t hold back.

These are exactly the moments to take a second look and ask “what if?” again. That new, twisted, crazy idea might just be what our story needs to drive it from mediocrity to excellence. It might require more work on our part, it might torture our characters until we cry out with them, it may challenge assumptions we’ve made.

It may be awesome.

Of course, it may kill our story too by taking it off a cliff. In that case, discard that idea, ask “what if?” again, and explore a different road.

Sometimes we play the “what if?” game in the middle of free-writing a scene, when we’re struck by a sudden burst of inspiration and type a few lines that veer the story off the expected course. Again, we need to explore it, consider it, and decide if it was a false start or an exciting new twist.

In one manuscript, I wrote a scene where one character’s powerful magical weapon, which was critical to the plot, unexpectedly fell into the sea and was lost. I hadn’t planned it, but while writing the scene, I realized this was the worst thing that could happen, and I wrote it. The resulting scene became more powerful by entire magnitudes, although it left me quite literally shaking from the shock. At first I wanted to delete it, to shy away from the disaster I’d revealed, but that would have weakened the story and been the easy way out. Eventually, I figured out how to deal with it, and the story proved the stronger for it.

Recently I played the “What if?” game with a friend to explore the deep back story of a current work in progress, and after traveling far afield, we came up with some wonderful ideas I never would have considered without casting myself out into the world of limitless possibilities opened through “What if?”. Those answers now tie in aspects of the plot that were hanging a bit loose, and the resulting whole is consistent and far more powerful.

What experiences have you had with the “What if?” game? If you’ve never tried it, what are you waiting for?

What if it revitalizes your story?

What if . . . ?

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You’re tired of writing the short story before you’ve even finished it. You’re 40,000 words into the novel and are falling asleep at the keyboard. You’ve worked hard on your world building, done the research done your character profiles and have the main elements of your plot chart, the writing should come easily but it doesn’t.

Don’t panic! The inability to write because your work doesn’t feel interesting at this moment doesn’t mean that you’re a bad writer. It means that you’re stuck and that you need to answer one simple question to get through this:

Are you bored or are you burned out?

Burn out happens when we’ve been at it too long – our brains need a rest from processing information and creating a work of art. Writing takes lots of energy – physical, creative and emotional.  That’s when you need to give yourself a break But sometimes when you’re feeling bored it’s   your brain’s way of telling you that information is missing.  I had that experience when I was doing the world building and background work for my new series. I had had so much fun world building and I wanted to write the novel so I could share it. No matter how hard I tried, it wouldn’t happen. Three times I started the beginning and each time I set it aside. It wasn’t fun anymore. I grew bored. So, I let it rest and when I reviewed my research, I realized that I hadn’t thought through a critical element. My brain, in the form of boredom and frustration, was telling me that I was missing something.

Sometimes I write three to ten pages of background material (important but boring stuff) because I need to get grounded in the setting and characters. Once I’ve done that, then the story begins. So, write, write and write some more. It’s not boredom per se that you’re experiencing, it’s simply that you’re going through the first step of needing to become part of that world, to unclutter your brain by getting information and relationships out of your head.

What happens when you’re genuinely bored with what you’re writing? When you’re sick of the plot and the characters? When it’s not exciting anymore and it feels like work and not fun?

Sometimes, it’s not fun and when that’s the case we need to simply write our way through it until it becomes fun. There may be technical reasons why this is so but many times those aren’t apparent until we’ve finished the novel and are revising it. So don’t stop writing. Write through the scene or section and get to the fun part!

Feeling bored may be the result of not getting to the interesting parts of the story. You’re missing mood, emotion, action and reaction because there’s too much inconsequential description, the reader isn’t an idiot and doesn’t need that level of detail, it reads like a technical manual, and yes, it’s simply boring writing! So in this case, the problem may not be with you but with what you’re writing.  Again, get it out of your system, then write the real story.

But what if you’re bored because you’re derailed and don’t even know it? Check your plot chart. Write out chapter summaries or summarize your scenes in point form. Ask yourself: where does the story begin and what is the disaster in the opening quarter that compels my charter to act? What is the story goal? What is the climax? What is happening to the protagonist between the middle and the end which makes it challenging for him to achieve his goals? It may be that somewhere in the swampy middle that you need to increase action and tension, up the stakes in order to make things dicier for your character and more exciting for yourself. This solution also works if you’re bored because your characters and plot feel boring.

Boredom may mean that you need a break. We get tired – it happens. Do something different for a bit: write a short story or a poem; paint the fence; go to a movie; bake something – give your brain a break and do something fun! Beware though that you aren’t using boredom as an excuse to procrastinate – that it’s an excuse to do the fun things and not write! If that’s the case, the surest way to quell boredom is by applying the BICFOK cure – Butt in Chair, Fingers on Keyboard.

Yawn! I’m not bored – I simply need a nap!

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We’re writers, so we write, right? Absolutely.

But that’s not all we do, and honestly the actual writing of a manuscript is far from the most time-intensive part of creating a novel. In fact, the writing of a viable manuscript is the culmination of a great deal of preparatory effort. We might spend months working on a story before we sit down to write that viable draft.

That final manuscript is like a beautifully crafted building we hope will stand firm for ages, so it must be built upon a firm foundation. Few people visit any architectural wonder just to say, “Wow, great foundation.” Most of us have eyes only for the finished product. Leave it to the architect to know all about the foundation.

Same principle with writing. A great foundation allows a manuscript to reach its full potential. Careful preparation allows a writer to pound out tremendous word count. For example, just yesterday I wrote about 13,000 words. During one writing retreat this year, I wrote 50,000 words in one week. And they were good words, not throw-away fluff.

So, can I write 10,000 words a day, every day of the year? Of course not. Those kind of word counts are not possible unless you’ve already got the foundation set. Much time is spent preparing for those burst of productivity. I’ve discussed those burst-writing times in detail in the past here.

What are some of those foundational items we as authors, the architects of our stories, need to understand? What are ways we can prepare for productivity?  The specifics of the list will vary depending on each writer’s style, but regardless of how we get there, we still need to end up with a firm foundation, or the story will fall.

Some common items that apply to just about everyone writing fiction include:

World building. What is our setting? Where is the story taking place? In what environment, what culture, what physical reality? Are characters human or animal or robot or jelly beans? Until we know these things, either written down or firm in our minds, we cannot begin a viable draft.

I write fantasy, and I generate copious notes about the world, the nations, cultures, religions, geography, climate, magic system, value systems, etc. Until it’s real for me, I cannot make it real for my readers.

Characters and conflict. There is no story until there is a conflict. For a conflict to exist and to matter, we need to have characters to torture. Before we craft scenes that will capture readers and draw them into the story, these elements must be clear.

One thing I do at the beginning of a story is to generate a list of names I feel fit this project. In my YA fantasy novel, I chose Scottish names for one nation and German names for another. Behind The Name is an excellent site to find names. Then when I need a name, instead of losing productivity trying to invent one, I just turn to my list, choose a name I’ve already decided will work in the context of this story, and move on with hardly a pause.

For those who are planners, who like to outline and craft a story before sitting down to write that viable manuscript, the list of preparatory items gets a lot longer, including:

Timeline sketches. Particularly for complex stories with multiple characters, charting out the timeline and how the various POV threads will interact can be invaluable. Even if you only have one main character and one main protagonist, the exercise of plotting out when and how they’ll intersect over time can spark new ideas or identify holes in the planned plot.

For me, this helps particularly in complex endings. When tons of things are going on and the action jumps from one POV to another, and from one quick scene to another, weaving all of that in together into a tight, constantly escalating climax is daunting. A high-level timeline sketch keeps it all under control.

Character profiles. Who are your characters, what is their backstory? What do they want? Why can’t they have it? What are they going to do about it? Knowing all this for every main character, and even for important supporting characters provides fodder for tremendous depth and complexity of your story.

Character development and depth has been a challenge for me, and this exercise has helped tremendously.

Outline. How is your plot going to roll out? What scenes will you write to drive the story forward? How exactly will you generate empathy for the hero in the beginning, reveal the true conflict at the first plot point, illustrate the stakes, etc? For planners, the outline is the skeleton, the frame upon which you build the story. This is where great energy and time is spent as you explore all the possibilities.

My outlines keep getting longer. This is where I spend the bulk of my creative thinking time. It’s so much easier for me to explore different options and look for ways to ratchet up tension or stakes or conflict up front than it is after I’ve written 50,000 words and realize something is missing.

For those who prefer to free-write, to discover their story through the act of following the muse down the rabbit hole, the preparation process is more like exploring the back roads around your city at night. There’s a certain excitement to driving into the darkness, not entirely sure where the road will take you. The trip may take a lot longer then expected, you’ll take wrong turns, and have to back track. You may end up needing to return to the very start of your trip and begin anew.

For those free-writers, or pantsers as they’re often called, the early drafts of a story are like those late-night drives in the darkness. This is where you discover the story, just as a planner discovers their story through the outlining process. This effort can take a great deal of time, and through this process, the free-writer is building the foundation of their story. Once all of the necessary elements are in place, only then can the free-writer begin a viable draft that can stand successful.

This list is not exhaustive, but it’s a good place to start. Writers must think about it, particularly as we begin a new novel. Understanding the foundation we must build, regardless of how we choose to get there, is one of the most important things writers need to grasp.

This knowledge, and understanding how we individually approach the foundational elements in our story, allow us to become truly productive. Once we have these elements in place, we can dive into that manuscript, and the words will flow faster than we can write them. I type pretty fast, but sometimes I can barely keep up.

I started as a free-writer, and over time and as I’ve come to better understand these foundational requirements, I have slowly drifted across the spectrum to becoming more of a story planner. I free-write within each scene. This hybrid approach, which I think is fairly common, provides the most focused, most productive result for me while still allowing for some of those midnight drives.

How do you approach these foundational elements in your own stories? What other foundation blocks would you add to the list?

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It seems every author has at least one book on writing they feel every other writer needs to read. For me, this one rises head and shoulders above all the others. Larry Brooks‘ often blunt and always brilliant exploration of what he calls the physics of storytelling is game changing.

I actually read two of Larry’s e-books that were wrapped up into his final, polished product known as Story Engineering. They were Story Structure – Demystified, and The Three Dimensions of Character. They can be downloaded separately as PDFs from Larry’s site for only $3 each, but just buy the full Story Engineering book. You won’t regret it.

What makes Story Engineering so brilliant? It’s clear, it’s easily understandable, and it works.

I’ve read several other great books on writing, but never did any of them strike me with such power as this one. The journey toward becoming a professional writer is much like climbing a high mountain. We hit peaks in our journey that only reveal another peak rising behind it, a peak we couldn’t see before. We can get stuck on those smaller peaks, not sure how to proceed or to climb higher.

That was where I found myself when I discovered Larry Brooks’ physics of story telling. I had already completed two manuscripts, but I was stuck. I knew there was a problem with my story, even though it was so much better than anything I’d ever written before. Unfortunately, I couldn’t identify the issue, so I couldn’t fix it.

Then I learned about the underlying structure that needs to exist in any successful story. Larry lays it all out: The four-part structure, which I had heard of before, but with the mission and context of each part clearly explained, and the reasons why the story must shift at specific points to maximize its power. I’ve never found another explanation that so clearly lays it all out in a way that any story can be measured against it.

Some things the book answered for me were:

Why can’t we have the first plot point in chapter 1?
What needs to exist after the first plot point, where the hero learns his true mission, the stakes involved, and what force of opposition stands in the way?
What needs to happen at each of the other major milestones of the story to maximize its power?
How do I know if a scene really belongs in the book, and where it should be placed?
And much more.

In his Story Engineering book, Larry adds to the foundational structure, or physics, of a great story, by explaining what he calls the other ‘core competencies’ of writing required to make a story great. These include:

Concept
Character
Theme
Structure
Scene Execution
Writing Voice

If you can’t explain exactly what each of these are, particularly in context to your manuscript, you need this book. As he points out, the first 4 are elements of a great story, the raw material you craft your story with. The final two are the process of execution, where the art meets the physics.

Larry is clearly a proponent of story planning and outlining. I’ve moved in that direction myself  and found I can reduce the amount of rewriting substantially. However, for authors who are free-writers or discovery writers or ‘pantsers’, this knowledge is still vital. The early draft(s) for discovery writers are the search for story, just like story planners’ outlines. Only when they know the story they need to write and understand how all these core competencies fit into their story can they finally write a draft that will work.

I can’t recommend this book enough.

Another aspect of craft that Larry explores in his Story Engineering is found in the Three Degrees of Character. I’ve read other great books on character, but again I found Larry’s blunt, clear style incredibly powerful. He drills deep and lays truth bare in a way that authors can use it instantly. Within each of those three degrees of character are seven categories that need to be defined. Once an author understands these, they can be mixed and combined in almost infinite combinations to produce memorable, unique characters.

The three degrees of character are powerful. He explains them as:
1st degree: Surface Affections and Personality – what we show the world externally.
2nd degree: The inner landscape, the reasons why the character chooses to express themselves as they do to the world externally.
3rd degree: The very inner soul of the character, perhaps not known even to them in advance, where they show their true nature under extreme pressure. This is the dimension that ultimately defines character.

For example, if anyone has watched the Firefly SciFi series, the captain of the Serenity is a great example of a complex character.
1st dimension (the face he shows the world): He’s a tough-as-nails, no-nonsense character who will kill without remorse, and engage in illegal activities for a living.
2nd dimension (why): He fought against the empire that rules the galaxy, but his side lost. He does what he does to stay free and gain little victories against an enemy he still hates.
3rd dimension (true character): He will risk his life to save people he could easily justify sacrificing. He’s a man of honor who will risk everything to save those he loves or to fight tyranny. But he’ll punch you out if you say that to his face.

This is powerful stuff, and liberating when an author understands it. I need to review it again since character development is still one of my weaker skills, but the toolchest is there. I just need to train myself to use it.

For any author who really wants to master the toolbox we use to craft great stories, get Larry Brooks’ Story Engineering book and study it carefully. It will open doors of understanding and illuminate the path to the next peak in your writing career.

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Everyone loves those moments of inspiration, when we get that light bulb flashing in our brains like a cop car in a high-speed chase. There’s nothing like those electric moments when it seems like the heavens open for us and the words write themselves. They are epiphanies that make life as a writer so magical.  They make us feel gifted and help us believe that we might actually have a shot at this crazy creative enterprise of writing fiction.

But, they don’t happen every day, do they? And you’ve got pages to fill and transitions to make to tie those multiple moments of inspired text come together into a cohesive whole. It’s hard when the muse has taken a coffee break and the fires of inspiration go cold. And to wait for that next inspired spark doesn’t get the words on the page, does it? Call it writer’s block, or a lack of motivation, those dry spells can really put the brakes on our egos and make us wonder if we really have what it takes to make it in the publishing world.

I’ll confess, I’ve been going through that second phase a lot lately. I suffer from periodic bouts of depression, and if you don’t know, that can make it really hard to be creative. Of course, my primary defense mechanism for fighting my depression is to wander off into flights of fancy that, when the bout passes, can make for some pretty cool story ideas. But most of this summer, I didn’t write a single word. Even getting a post up for this blog, at times, was a struggle. I started to wonder if maybe I should just put a cap on the idea of chasing that publishing dream.

But struggle doesn’t always have to be a bad thing. I don’t know about you, but there have been times when writing felt like pulling teeth. It felt forced and flat because the words just didn’t flow the way I thought they should. The prose fought me because I wasn’t in one of those inspired moments, but I had to soldier on to get the work done. The crazy thing is that, on re-reading those difficult patches later on, they tend to be far better than the stuff that flew out of my fingers.

So, here’s what I’ve learned. Maybe those moments of inspiration are just as fantabulous as they seem, and maybe the uninspired ones are hard, but we should never let our writing be guided only by inspiration. Love the gifts when they happen, but never let a reliance on those moments hamper our productivity, or make us doubt that we can or can’t do the thing we love—write a darned good story.

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Life is busy. We all have tons on our plates: family, day jobs, church, hobbies. Amid everything else, we aspiring writers struggle to squeeze in time to write.

Just about everyone I know is racing full speed ahead, myself included. Many of us fall into the trap of taking ourselves too seriously, and when life hits those ever-present road-bumps and fails to meet our expectations, we get stressed and cranky.  Not only does that make life unpleasant for us and anyone unfortunate enough to be around us at the time, tension and anger usually serves to block access to the creative side of the mind.  When trying to write, this kills productivity, which results in our becoming more stressed, and leads to a downward spiral that usually ends with any pages we’ve managed to write in that state having to be thrown away.

It’s time to lighten up.

Dr. Richard Carlson, in his best-selling book Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff, said, “People are frustrated and uptight about virtually everything – being five minutes late, having someone else show up five minutes late, being stuck in traffic, witnessing someone look at us wrong or say the wrong thing, paying bills, waiting in line, overcooking a meal, making an honest mistake – you name it, we all lose perspective over it.

The root of being uptight is our unwillingness to accept life as being different, in any way, from our expectations.”

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Sure, life is busy and there’s a lot to do. As authors it’s far too easy to think about all the pages we haven’t written, or to curse the fickle muse who led us astray, resulting in yet another draft.

But that’s no fun.

I’ve decided to focus on the other side of the coin. When I get in ‘the zone’, focused on nothing but the story as words fill the page as fast as I can type, all those worries float away.  Those moments can be magical, and productivity soars.  So despite the fact that I’ve been writing for seven years with nothing yet published, I choose to focus instead on the skills and mastery of craft I’ve developed that I didn’t even know I needed to know when I started down this road. I now have three viable manuscripts in various stages of editing, with clear goals to work them to completion.  It’s been a long, difficult road to get this far, but it’s also been a wonder-filled journey I am deeply grateful I experienced.

Like Dr. Carlson says in his book, if we can learn flexibility and stop trying to control things we cannot control, we can evolve from battling life to dancing with it. Challenges will come, unforseen edits will be required, life will throw unexpected curves in our path. It’s going to happen anyway, and we already know we can’t control it. All we can control is our reaction.

I’ve decided to dance more and fight less.

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I recently attended the LTUE (Life, The Universe, and Everything) conference in Orem, Utah at the UVU campus.  I sat in on the book trailers class more out of curiosity than any real expectation to learn anything useful.  After all, I had never heard of book trailers.

This turned out to be an extremely insightful session.

Book trailers are a growing phenomenon.  Just like movie trailers, some authors and publishers are now developing book trailers.  This was news to me.  I had never considered making a trailer for a book.  But as was stated in the panel, today’s world is a video-centric world so a book trailer could draw a very wide audience.

What a brilliant idea.

Who doesn’t love a good movie trailer?  When done right, they can drive moviegoers into a frenzy to see the movie.  Book trailers can do the same thing.

Then again, a bad book trailer can be the stake through the heart of your book.

My first thought was, “Book trailers?  That’s great for publishers with a marketing department and deep pockets to pay for expensive graphics design or live actors.”

But, book trailers can be more affordable than you may think.  The panel at LTUE gave us some useful tips.

First, for the do-it-yourselfers, there are some great sites to download photos, music, and even video clips royalty-free for very reasonable prices, like iStockPhoto.  With a little work, you may be able to piece together an excellent trailer with very little cost.  Please remember, no matter where you find your material, make sure you have permission to use it.  One author mentioned that they produced a book trailer independently.  When they signed with a publisher, they were forced to take the trailer down because they could not guarantee that all of the images they used were royalty free or used with permission.

A couple of points were stressed repeatedly:

1. Find the right music.  Great music can make your trailer.  Bad music will kill it.  Again, there are lots of resources online for royalty-free music.  Or, if you know a musician, they might just let you use their music for free as a way to increase their own presence on the web.
2. Don’t underestimate the importance of asking.  If you want a piece of music, or a photo, or even live actors, ask them.  Many people will give permission for their work to be used, or will offer to help free of charge because they see your trailer as a way to highlight their talents.

Another idea is to check with local colleges, or with any college students you might know, particularly those involved in film production or any related field, including acting or modeling.  You may be able to get high-quality assistance from students looking for a good project.  Again, they want their names out on the net, and this provides a way.

One example of a good book trailer is the one for Dan Wells’ new book, Partials.  You can view the trailer here.  It had only been out a month when I watched it, and the YouTube link had already received almost 3000 hits, plus all the hits on the official web page.

I also found this one for Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters,  that was very well done.

Other links of interest:

On Darcy Pattison’s web page, she lists a Book Trailer Manual for sale as well as many links to other resources on book trailers.

Book-Trailers.net shows some existing book trailers

BlazingTrailers also has existing trailers to watch.

From the little research I’ve done to date into book trailers, I don’t find a ton of trailers yet.  I find that encouraging because a good trailer might just get a lot of attention.  The sobering flip-side is that of those trailers I’ve watched so far, many of them weren’t very good.

So if you’re going to do a trailer, make a good one or don’t bother releasing it.  You don’t want to hurt your sales.  If you can develop a really good trailer, it might play a major role in your marketing plan, especially if you e-publish your own novels.

This is an idea too powerful to ignore.  I know I’m going to look into it this year.

Does anyone know of any good trailers to recommend?  Do you know any authors who have successfully developed trailers?  Are you planning to release your own trailers with your books?

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A while ago, I was at a book reading by an intriguing new fantasy author at one of my local bookstores. I’m naturally curious about how ideas originate and evolve, so during the Q & A period I asked him what other authors in the genre influenced him. I had expected a laundry list of the classics of old—Tolkien, LeGuin, Eddison—or at least some mention of today’s bestsellers. But the stammered and confused response I received was along the lines of, “I don’t have any influences, I don’t want to talk about it.” I left the reading feeling a little perplexed and disappointed, yet not fully understanding why.

This wasn’t the first time that I had this kind of response. I’ve heard similar questions fielded at conventions with similar answers given. It’s not something that’s made sense to me—I’m always quick to spout off my favorite authors and the things they do that I think are amazing—and given my inclination for seeking the origins of ideas, I wanted to know why people were refusing to admit that they have been influenced.

Of course, there is the fear that of being called derivative. Many, if not most, authors fear this, myself included. In any genre, but especially in speculative fiction, originality is of paramount importance. After all, isn’t that what writing is? The creation of something new? This is a real, and I think legitimate, fear, but I don’t think it adequately described what I had been seeing with these authors’ reactions, since many authors who fear being labeled as derivative have no problem discussing their influences. Deeper digging was required.

I believe the answer lies with how many people view creativity.

On a superficial level, creativity is the process by which something new comes about. That’s not controversial, but there is dispute about where this new thing comes from.

The common view of creativity is that it is intuitive, that an idea is not truly new unless it plucked from the ether, and not at all associated with anything else in existence. This follows suit with how many of us actually experience a new idea: sometimes it just pops into your head, and you don’t know where it came from.

But if that were true, every new idea would be completely incomprehensible since it would be divorced from any context we could comprehend (which is much the state of nonrepresentational modern visual art, and why it turns so many people off). In order for this new creation to be meaningful to us, it has to have some place in the world as we understand it, and thus it has to relate in some way to the things we have experienced before.

I think that creativity works the same way, but in reverse: the creator takes elements of their experiences and combines them in new ways.

Einstein’s development of the theory of relativity is often considered to be a work of staggering genius and the pinnacle of scientific creativity, and rightly so. Most people have difficulty understanding relativity, and can’t imagine how anyone else could conceive of it. But Einstein certainly didn’t pluck it out of the ether (especially since relativity helped destroy the very concept of the ether); he developed it as an answer to the problems that had been found in Newtonian physics. He combined his knowledge of physics with observed measurements in a way that resulted in a completely new theory. Far from being divorced from reality, his achievement attempted to describe it totally.

Other forms of creativity are no different. The unicorn, for example, is a mythical creature that has permeated cultures throughout the world for hundreds if not thousands of years, and is often a symbol of the fantastic. Yet ultimately, the unicorn is just a horse with a horn on its head and magical powers. It is nothing more than the combination of these attributes, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a completely original creation.

Imagine asking the creator of the unicorn to describe it. “Well,” he would say, “it has a horn, and magical powers, four legs, hooves, a mane and a tail… but it is definitely not a horse or related to horses in any fashion.”

This is akin to what many of these authors are saying about their own works in their frantic scramble to distance them from those of their influences.

Some of the greatest works of literature have clear influences. Tolkien was influenced by mythology (no, he didn’t invent the idea of Elves, though his Elves were nonetheless a remarkable creation), The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan can in many ways be seen as a fusion of Dune and Arthurian legend (the Aviendha/Chani connection), and Steven Erikson proudly declares that he was shaped by Glen Cook’s writing, and a side-by-side read of Gardens of the Moon and The Black Company supports this (can you tell I’m biased toward fantasy?). Despite the fact that their works were influenced by many things, they still stand at the high-water mark of creativity in fantasy fiction.

Now, I’m not at all suggesting that you should become a complete hack. Tolkien already wrote The Lord of the Rings; we don’t need you to write it again. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t let him or anyone else inform your own stories, so long as your stories and the elements that comprise them are your own.

Nor am I trying to diminish your creativity as being unoriginal. Utilizing what exists in the world and combining it in new and fresh ways is really hard work. Just ask Einstein.

So if you find yourself famous someday and asked who influenced you, feel no guilt as you give us your laundry list, and honor those giants upon whose shoulders you stand.

*

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” – Isaac Newton

P.S. My epic fantasy novelette, Dark Tree: A Tale of the Fourth World, is now available for free on Smashwords! I hope you’ll check it out!

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Knowledge + Experience = Wisdom.

Great writers develop a deft touch and an extensive toolkit of skills to draw upon. They marry their knowledge with their experience to produce something more. The good news is that we don’t each have to discover every skill ourselves in a vacuum.

I enjoy reading. I always have. It is one of the reasons I turned to writing as a youth. I find reading to be a great escape, which is probably why one of my favorite genres is fantasy. I love getting lost in a good story. However, as a writer there’s so much more a good story can provide than just the escape. Great authors teach those willing to learn from their experience, those able to see. I struggle sometimes to do that. I tend to get sucked in too deep to analyze as I read. Usually I have to go back and study after I reach the end.

In a recent post, Leigh talked about how she learns from great authors. I haven’t yet tried the technique she recommends, but I think when I do it will help cement even better some of the lessons I learn from authors I enjoy.

In my own writing, I’ve developed some strengths, and am working to identify additional areas for improvement.  One strength of mine is action scenes. I’ve spent a lot of time working on these, and I’ve studied some great authors to learn ways to improve delivery of a good action scene. Matthew Reilly, author of Scarecrow, is one example. This book is an excellent military thriller that delivers non-stop action from page one to the very end. From him, I learned the importantce of keeping sentences and even paragraphs short in action scenes to ratchet up the tension. That simple change in structure has a huge impact. Another critical element for writing great action scenes is to use multiple senses to really draw the reader into the action and help them feel the danger. Too many authors gloss over action scenes at a high level and miss delivering that visceral experience to the reader.

On the other hand, an area I am working to improve is character depth/complexity/arc. Since I write fantasy, not thrillers, I need more character development and depth than a pure thriller might worry about, so I’ve turned to other authors for insights.

I recently read Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind. I thoroughly enjoyed the novel, and learned some lessons from it. The book is very interesting, but not really very action packed. Despite the lack of lots of action, it did not bore me or let my interest wander. That’s because it is a great example of a fascinating, complex world brought to life with excellent descriptions, and a character we really root for. These are things I can learn from and add to the solid structure and explosive action scenes I already know how to write.

Another book I recently finished reading was The Warded Man by Peter V Brett. This is a dark fantasy with a brilliant concept and truly high stakes. Again, the action scenes were not what jumped out at me in this book. Instead, the magic system and precarious situation of the characters sucked me in. The worled was well defined and exotic, and all the main characters were complex and compelling. I plan to study this book again with an eye toward developing stronger, multi-faceted characters.

I’m on the hunt for other books that are great examples of particular skills. What books do you consider landmark novels that have taught you or given you insights to lift your craft to a higher level?

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On a quest to recharge my writing energies, I sit on a sandy beach of a lake in northern Saskatchewan. After two days of billowing clouds, flash lightening and rain storms, the blistering sun bakes away all cares. But not all cares disappear.

Guilt.

Guilt for not writing every day niggles me – taunting, chastising. The niggling stops when a loud splash in the lake is followed by a wild cheer! A young boy is no longer the monkey in the middle  – he caught his dad’s poorly thrown ball. And I watch the young lad struggle to throw the ball over his dad’s flailing arms so his brother can catch it.

A cooing mom adjusts the umbrella over her toddler so she can comfortably play in the sand. A beer can snaps open. A sunbather sprays tanning oil across her almost naked body. Knee boarders leap in the air behind speeding boats while kayaks bob in their wake.

Guilt suddenly disappears when I realize that I’m honing my writing skills amidst summer’s languid frenzy.

Pacing.

It’s all about pacing not only my stories but myself.

We call our characters to action, ramp up the tension, put them into mortal danger and write them into such tough spots that only the ingenuity of imagination can save them. We twist their lives, beat them and those closest to them by raising the stakes in ways no mortal can survive.

And we do the same for ourselves. Yes, we writers set the stakes high thinking that if we do not remain faithful to those lofty goals, and if we do not meet our self imposed expectations that we as masters of our fate, will fail miserably.

Yet, like our characters, we need to pause to recharge, to reflect, to consider our options, to find help where we can get it – take the detour, the side road which may reveal its own treasures.

So I sit in the shade, nursing tender pink skin, watching children and adults play in the lake, dogs taking people for a walk, and I sip my wine, absorbing the stillness.

And I am thankful, that the writer of my life found the pause button, set the pace a little slower for a moment so that I may reflect and recharge. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll be a little kinder to my characters too.

Have a happy summer!

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Last week, I completed an extremely successful Burst Writing retreat.  I wrote 50,000 words in five days, even though I lost almost 8 hours to travel each on Days 1 and 5.

I’ve spoken of Burst Writing before.  I define it as an intensely focused period of time in which to write significantly higher word count than normal.  This is not free-writing time with throw-away word count.  A successful Burst Writing session takes a lot of preparation and produces well-crafted, effective scenes.

Most important is to know what you’re going to write before you sit down to pound away at the keyboard.  There’s little time for blank staring out the window.   For me, that meant scheduling the retreat only after several weeks of focused effort to develop the story fundamentals and outline the scenes I would be writing.

Last year, the first time I tried Burst Writing, I managed 50,000 words in 7 days, and finished half of that book.  I’m now currently planning the third revision of that novel.

My goal is to eventually prepare well enough to where I can crank out huge sections of a clearly defined story that won’t need multiple major revisions afterward.

Last week, I wrote about 35% of a new novel.  I believe I did a better job defining exactly what each scene needed to include from a plot and characterization perspective.  We’ll see how that holds up once I complete the book.

I get a kick out of tracking stats.  So, here are the stats for last week’s trip:

Day 1:  8 hours travel time.  1.5 hours writing time.  New word count:  2700

Day 2:  10 hours writing time.  New word count:  13,500

(Day 2, evening, couldn’t sleep.  Wrote another 1800 words in the middle of the night)

Day 3:  6 hours writing time.  New word count:  12,000

Day 4:  10 hours writing time.  New word count:  15,000

Day 5:  3 hours writing time.  New word count:  5,000.  Travel time:  7 hours

As you can see, I started slow, but once I got in ‘the zone’, I cranked out far more words each day, as high as about 2,000 words per hour, which is twice what I can normally produce.

So, what did I do to prepare?

1. Outline.  I spent a great deal of time working out the characters and plot of the novel.  I had some advantages in this book over the last one because this is a sequel to another novel, so the world and many of the characters are already very well defined.  Even so, I had to wrestle with some difficult plot issues in the second half of the novel that required changes to the first half to resolve.  If I’d started writing chapters before I had the plan complete, my productivity would have screeched to a halt, and I would have been forced to throw away a lot of good work.

2. Find the right writing retreat.  This year, I found the Colonyhouse, owned by the Oregon Writer’s Colony.  Signing up to be a member was inexpensive, and the house was exactly what I needed.  It was comfortable, located within driving distance, with a beautiful location (about 100 yards from the ocean).  I experimented with several different locations in the house and settled on a layout that was comfortable for writing long periods of time.

3.  Set lofty goals.  I honestly did not believe I would hit 50,000 words.  I wrote 12,000 words on my best day in last year’s retreat, so this year’s goal was a stretch.  I hadn’t really factored in the travel time correctly, so when I arrived I realized I was way behind right on day 1.  By staying focused on the goal, and motivated to reach it, I produced far more than I would have otherwise.

4.  Set the right duration.  Five days turned out to be an excellent length.  Last year I took seven, which was honestly a little too long.  I found that the four days in the middle of the trip were the most productive.  This year, I had been planning a three day trip, and managed to squeeze in the other two at the last minute.  I’m glad I did.

5.  Reduce distractions.  I did walk the beach a few times when I needed a break, but other than that, I did very little but write.  On the drive out to the house I stopped and purchased all the food I would need for the week so I could pretty much lock myself away and not get distracted shopping or running errands.  Once I got in ‘the zone’, I was able to stay there for a long time, which is so much more productive.

And, as always, I learned a few lessons about what to do better next time:

1.  Bring spare batteries.  I learned last year that having a full size, comfortable keyboard is key to cranking out high word counts for me.  This year, I brought my cordless keyboard and mouse.  And of course, on Day 2, the batteries died.  I did not have spares, so I wasted an hour running out to the store to get some (the only excursion I took other than walking to the beach).

2. Sleep.  One of the biggest challenges for me when I’m away from home is sleeping.  I just don’t sleep well.  I know I have this problem, but I forgot to bring any kind of sleep aid.  As a result, I did not sleep well most of the week, and returned home very tired.  I did bring some movies to watch in the evenings when I needed to unwind, and that did help.

3.  Have the first chapter or two already complete.  I started the retreat on chapter 1 of a new book.  The first chapter is always the hardest, and I wasted a bunch of time trying to set the tone, description, and locking in the characters in the setting.  Luckily, I spent a lot of time on the drive up the coast working some of this out in my head so the writing time wasn’t an entire waste.  However, by the time I hit chapter 3, I had things flowing well, and I could just roll forward at full speed.  Next time, I’ll try to get the first couple chapters complete ahead of time.

I’ll be writing a series of blog posts on my web site www.frankmorin.org, discussing each day in more detail, for those who want to know more specifics.

What have you found helps boost your productivity at home or during a writing retreat?

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Pretty much this entire year, thus far, I have been struggling with depression.  I’m doing better now, but I had to shed a lot of responsibilities that I had over committed myself to in order to get there.  That’s another story, and I won’t bore you with it here  :)

  But, during all this, I wasn’t writing.  Wasn’t doing research, wasn’t brainstorming, wasn’t journaling, wasn’t working on my story – nada.  The only writing I was actually able to make myself do was the few blog posts I had committed to doing – like this one. That’s it.  This was not helping my depression either because I felt guilty I wasn’t working and I felt, acutely, the loss of my creativity.

I was talking to a friend (thank you, Wendy), who had just come out of some rough times herself and is also a writer.  What she had done and suggested I do was to listen to a dark song and write a character sketch for an antagonist with no intent to necessarily use the character.  Just to get dark feelings out.  Any song that took me to a dark place would do.   It took me a few songs and I had to get some suggestions, but I found one (Closer by Nine Inch Nails – the uncensored version – if you’re curious) that was sufficiently dark to me.  So, I listened to it a few times and started writing this antagonist.

What happened half way through was that I could see all the potential for a story using this character.  When I finished with him, I started sketching out the hero and heroine (I write romance – remember).  Already, I was feeling better and inspired.  Then I started writing some rough plot points, followed by the intro to the story.

And now, I’m writing.  It worked.  I hadn’t done any writing in months and through one cool exercise, I was back.  It is such a relief to be feeling more like myself and being creative.  So, I would suggest this exercise to anyone who needs to shake off some darkness from within.

How do you get through rough times when you’re struggling to create?

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Why do we write?

Well, I can’t answer that question for the world at large. I can, however, answer that for myself and the other writers I’ve asked that question. We write because we have to, and because we love it.

Lately, I’ve been noticing a lot of overlap between my day job as a lawyer, and my night and weekend job as a writer. As a lawyer I write nonfiction (although some detractors of the profession might claim what lawyer’s write can only loosely be labled nonfiction). The lawyers I know who are in the profession for the money, because someone thought they should be, or because they want the prestige of those three magic letters (“Esq.”) after their names are miserable people. They are burnt out; they fight for the sake of fighting.

The writers I know of who write because they thought it was easy, or easy money, or because they wanted the prestige of being an “author” are miserable. They are burnt out; they are depressed, and they give up. They are overly critical of others’ stories.

Now let’s look at the lawyers who aren’t burnt out, depressed or on the verge of quitting. While they may hate a particular part of the process, they love the overall system. I love being in court. I love researching and finding new ways to combine existing law to my client’s benefit. I love helping people. My practice reflects this. I don’t sleep or eat much the week before trial. I do my best work when I’m passionate about my client’s position. I’ve jumped up and down behind counsel’s table when arguing a point (my husband, who was observing that argument, had to fight laughing out loud as I bounced around).

The last statistic I heard was the average advance from a traditional publisher is about $8,000. E-publishers pay better (up to 50% of net sales), but they don’t generally pay advances. It takes the sale of many thousands of 99 Cent e-books to lift you above the poverty level, much less replace most people’s regular income. Self-publishing means you spend a lot of upfront money hoping you can recoup it and make a profit. Except for the precious few, writing will never be a “get rich quick” career.

So, why do we do it?

Love.

In the movie Shadowlands, Sir Anthony Hopkins, who plays C.S. Lewis, tells a fellow Oxford Don that he (Lewis) can’t stop praying because the words pour out of him. He could have been speaking for any writer. The words pour out of us. Stories beat on our minds and distract us from other concerns.
I love filling the screen with words; creating new worlds; and that moment when a character is real enough to talk to (and fight with) me. When a story first takes hold of me, my hands shake, my heart races, I have trouble sleeping and I’m constantly thinking about my new world and characters. Sounds a lot like a first crush, huh?

That someone else likes reading what I write is amazing. That someone is willing to pay to read my stories is humbling.

This business is hard. We hear a lot of “no” before we hear “yes.” If you aren’t passionate about writing, you won’t write. It’s just that simple.
Find the story that makes your heart race, and get writing.

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