Resolve or Resign?

So our Writer’s Ramble this month is supposed to be about our writing goals and resolutions for 2014. Before I can get to that, I have to address a challenge that I’m currently faced with.

See, I’ve been writing pretty consistently since 2006. Almost eight years. I've written dozens of stories. And in all that time, I have exactly one publication to show for it. A publication that only came late this last year, in September 2013. And even then, it was a “paid by exposure” publication, for which I earned no money, and have seen no “exposure” benefits from. No one has contacted me to tell me they liked the story, my blog traffic remained as pitiful as it has ever been. Nothing has come from this, my first publication.

Except: Proof that I can do this. Someone out there enjoyed my writing enough to include it in their magazine. So I have hope, and believe me, I’m eternally grateful to Promptly for giving me my first boost.

Unfortunately, that boost hasn’t been enough. The end of 2013 saw my biggest writing slump to date. In the last three months, the most I’ve written are a few Drabbles (100 word stories) and Twabbles (100 character stories excluding spaces) on the Drabblecast forums. Don’t get me wrong, writing these ridiculously short stories is highly entertaining and extremely challenging, but they’re not really publication material. They’re just for fun. I haven’t written a serious story in months.

I started a new job recently, which I would love to blame for my current slump, “It’s not my fault, this new job is so demanding, I just don’t have the time or energy to write…” But it would be a lie. In reality, this new job gives me ridiculous amounts of free time with nothing to do but sit in front of the computer. ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD TO WRITE. And what do I do? Watch Netflix and play browser RPGs. (Card Hunter is a great one for anyone interested.;))

I try to write, really I do. But every time I start, I very quickly find some excuse to do something else. Why am I having such a hard time? Who knows? Maybe eight years of rejection is getting to me. Maybe the freedom at work is more than my willpower is able to withstand. Maybe there’s something in the air here that just sucks all my creative juices right out through my ears. I don’t know.

But I do know one thing: I’m not going to quit. I’m never going to quit. I love writing. Maybe not as much as I should. Not enough at this point to convince me to choose writing over playing the Xbox when such free time at home allows. But I still love it.

So here are my goals for 2014: Quit being lazy. Quit coming up with excuses. Quit not being paid for my stories. Quit sucking.

More specifically, I have some exact goals I want to accomplish as well. Penumbra Ezine is running a Superhero issue in May. I want my Superhero story, Lullaby (the name will be changed before submission) to be in that magazine. If/when EscapePod runs their next flash fiction contest, I want to win. I want to have both a Drabble and a Twabble accepted and read on episodes of the Drabblecast. And, as always, I want to win the Writers of the Future contest.

Now, I may not accomplish all of these in 2014, but I’m sure gonna try.

On the Escape Artists forums, someone recently started a topic entitled “6-Word Memoirs” challenging everyone to write a summation of 2013 in six words. Mine was this:

“Too much Xbox, not enough writing.”

I followed that up with a 6-word Resolution:

“Write more, game less, be successful.”

And that’s exactly what I intend to do. Even if it takes me all year; all decade; all of my life.  

Are you a Pantser?

If your response to this question is, "What in the world is a Pantser?" you're probably not a writer. You're also probably normal. 

This month's Writers Ramble topic is Outlining vs. Freewriting. What works for you and why? 

When it comes to writing fiction there are essentially two ways to do it, plan everything out before you ever type the first word, or sit down and make it all up as you go along. The former is known as "outlining" the latter "freewriting" or "discovery writing" also known as writing by the seat of your pants. Hence the term, "Pantser". 

Are these two schools of thought all inclusive, you're either one or the other? Not at all. In fact, most authors I know are a combination of the two, with some planning before hand, maybe a few notes about what scenes will go where, then the rest freewritten as they go along. 

Think of it as more of a spectrum. At the one end, you have absolute outliners like Brandon Sanderson, (though even he'll say he discovery writes when under odd sorts of pressures). On the other end you have Stephen King who said, “Outlines are the last resource of bad fiction writers who wish to God they were writing masters' theses.” 

What's the difference? Well, discovery writing is all about letting the story go wherever it wants. It seems silly, speaking about the story like it's a living entity, but to many writers their stories are just that. The story is a living, breathing creation that goes where it wants and does what it wants. Discovery writing is all about creating the setting, characters, or situation, then just exploring a train of thought along those lines, letting your imagination run wild with the possibilities. You have no idea where the story is going to end, but you can't wait to get there.

Outlining is a lot more structured. It's taking the idea, setting, characters, and writing down everything they are going to do so you know exactly what's going to happen in your story. This still is, in a sense, discovery writing, because you have to explore the ideas and see where they take you, but in this case the discoveries occur mostly in the author's mind, explored, rejected, accepted, until they know where they're going. Now, there can be different levels of outlining. Some authors, like Dan Wells, outline a basic plot structure, and have an ending in mind, then free write all the stuff in between keeping in mind where it all has to end up. Others will outline down to every scene of every chapter. Then the writing just becomes filling in the details. 

What do I do? A little of both, actually. I never write an outline down, but instead I mull an idea over in my head, thinking up more and more details, and even plan the ending until I have a pretty solid mental outline. Once it's basically complete in my head, I sit down and try to transfer all those thoughts into a coherent manuscript. That's where the discovery writing comes in, because I know what I want my characters to do, but most of the time I don't know how they're going to do that. 

Of course, once you start freewriting all of your plans and outlines are subject to change without notice. I recall a story I wrote once where at the end the hero, heroine, and heroine's father were facing of with the villain, who had a gun on them. I knew that by the end of the scene the villain would enact a terrible event and the hero wouldn't be able to stop him. But they couldn't just sit by and let it happen either, someone had to try to stop him. At first I started to write it that the hero would lunge at the villain, but the hero was injured. The heroine couldn't do it either because she was holding the hero in her lap. That left the father, who was most affected by the tragic event anyway, so of course he would react. But the villain had a gun, so of course he would shoot... and then the father would die. Until that moment there'd been no plan to kill the father character. But as it played out on the page it completely fit and was so emotionally charged due to the situation that even I got a little choked up as I was writing it. I was sad that this character was suddenly dead because that was not supposed to happen. And in the end I had several readers tell me that was the best part of the story. 

So there's merit to both outlining and discovery writing. Take the best of both practices, find your point along the spectrum, and make them work to your advantage. You never know where a story will take you.

PodCastle Flash Fiction Contest

I currently have a Flash Fiction story (500 words or less) in a contest over at the Escape Artists forums. This time it the PodCastle contest which means the theme is "Fantasy". My story has already survived the first round of voting and is now in the semi finals. The field has been narrowed from 121 stories down to 30. There are some great stories in this contest, and all are well worth reading.

The rules of the contest forbid me from revealing which story is mine, but I am allowed to point people who are interested in supporting either me, or the contest, to the forums with instructions on how to participate. From there I can only hope that my stories are the ones you end up voting for.

So, for those who like fantasy stories, and want to (hopefully) support my writing, here are some basic instructions:

First, go to forum.escapeartists.net. From there you will see a place to login or register for the forums. You'll have to register in order to access the contest, but it's a simple registration, all they want is a username, email, and password. Once you've submitted your info, you'll receive a verification email. Follow the link in the email to complete your registration.

Once you're logged in, scroll down until you find the category "The Arcade". Beneath this category is a subcategory entitled, "Contests" with a child forum called, "Flash Contest III - PodCastle". Click on this link.

Before you can actually view the entries, you have to quickly prove that you are not a spambot, so click on the forum called, "New Members: Please post if you want to vote in the contest" and on the right hand side, click "Reply" and add a simple comment such as, "Hello"; anything just to enter a post. Once that's done you'll automatically be granted access to the contest groups, which will appear above the Contest Rules group.

From there, read the entries and vote for your top three in each group. You're welcome to read all of the entries through the first ten groups, but the voting is already concluded on those. At the bottom of the list you'll find the "Semi-Final" rounds. My story is currently in one of those

Voting for the Semi-Final Rounds will probably close around October 21st, so if your going to participate, get going.

Thank you to everyone who chooses to participate in the contest and for your willingness to support me and my writing. I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I have. Have fun!

This is a Call

Of course I have to name this post after one of my favorite Foo Fighters songs. Our Ramble topic for this month is the Hero’s Journey; specifically, the first stage of the Hero’s Journey, "Departure", which is comprised of five steps;

1. The Call to Adventure
2. Refusal of the Call
3. Supernatural Aid
4. The Crossing of the First Threshold
5. The Belly of the Whale

For my part I will be discussing The Call to Adventure. To read more about the other four steps of this stage, see the other entries over at The Writers Ramble.

So, how exactly is one “called” to adventure? Is it a physical summoning that lures us out, such as a siren’s song, or perhaps the call of nature? Or is it more metaphysical, like a spiritual prompting or emotional drive?

Honestly, it can be any or all of these. The call to adventure is whatever draws us from our comfort zone and drives us to make a difference either in our own life or in the lives of those around us. In real life, it can be the desire to join the military and embark on worldwide experiences, or it can be a prompting from God to undertake a mission to spread His word. Perhaps it’s merely the desire to find love and hold on to it with both hands.

In fiction, it can be all of these and so much more. Like Wendy, following Peter Pan to Neverland in search of a “grand adventure”. Or Indiana Jones deciphering the clues that lead him to the Ark of the Covenant. Even Ray Kinsella’s urge to build a ballpark in the middle of a cornfield. These characters felt the call, and answered it willingly, even eagerly.

But sometimes our hero may be a little—or a lot—more resistant to the call. Luke Skywalker, Bilbo Baggins, Mrs. Frisby. These are the characters who find themselves drawn into the adventure whether they want to go or not. And oftentimes these are the heroes we relate to the most. Why? Because, like them, we are reluctant to seek adventure.

Think about it, if we truly sought to answer our own Call to Adventure, we would. We would join the military, backpack across Europe, rob a liquor store, or climb Mt. Everest. Yes, there are a lot of people who do these things, but there are even more of us who don’t. We’re content to sit at home and experience adventure vicariously through the lives of the characters we read about or watch on the screen. Yet we still dream about these things, these adventures. And we imagine that, if someone or something forced us into action, then we could be the hero.

So when Jack Ryan is sent out to help hunt the Red October, even though he’s just an analyst; or when Jen embarks to find the shard of the Dark Crystal even though he knows the Skeksis will try to kill him; or when Dotty joins the Rockford Peaches so that her kid sister will be allowed to play; we cheer them on. We understand their reluctance, we don’t want to leave the comfort of our homes either, but we also know, as they do, that they must go. And we love them for it. Why? Because they don’t answer the call for greed, or power, or excitement. They do it because it’s the right thing to do. It’s that quiet nobility, and humility, that endears them so strongly to our hearts.

So the next time you put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, take a long look at your characters. Find that nobility within them, and then send them out to save the world. Not because they want to; but because they have to.

It was a dark and stormy night...

The cheesiest and worst opening ever, I know. Yet it does serve its purpose, which is to create the setting. What is setting? The question seems easy doesn't it? It's the location of your story. Duh. But is it really that simple? In a word: No.

Setting, or milieu, is one of the four basic factors that make up every story. When creating a scene, the setting is everything that surrounds the characters; and I mean everything. Here's a list of various aspects of the setting that need to be taken into account in order to create a believable setting:

• Location: This can be anything from the room your characters are in to the planet they're on. It includes the physical objects nearby as well as the scenic skyline afar off. It is everything the characters will interact with during the scene. If your character is going to get in a bar brawl, the bottle he grabs is a piece of the setting right up until he shatters it on the edge of the bar and points it at his opponent.
  
  Location is the most common aspect of a story and the one that most people get right... for the most part. It's easy to describe a room your character is in, as well as the objects he or she will need throughout the scene. But what about the scenery? Make sure to include descriptions of items that will set the mood of the scene. This could be the dying embers of the campfire, the meaty scent of the roast in the oven, or the vast collection of family portraits hanging on the walls. These "background" objects go a long way to showing your reader how the setting feels to your characters.
• Culture: This includes the laws of the land, village customs, city attitudes, the social roles of your character and so on. You can describe a city all the way down to the shape of the cobblestones in the streets, but without some culture your city will be just a flat collection of buildings. If your character is walking down the street, describe the way the citizens around him act. Maybe a couple is arguing loudly outside their home, or a patrol of foot soldiers is making the rounds, eying everyone they pass. The point is, give your locations some personality, some quirks, and some vices. This will bring them more to life than simply describing the buildings reaching for the sky.
• Environment: Weather can have a strong affect on the scene you set. Is it raining? Sunny? Does the wind nearly blow your characters off their feet, or does the heavy fog obscure everything outside arms length? Weather is a great way to set the mood of your scene. Sunny days will typically portray hope or joy while rain can be depressing or even romantic. Fog is a common way to create an eerie feeling.
  
  This applies even if you are writing an indoor scene. What's the weather like outside. Does the soft pitter-patter of rain on the tin roof of the shed drive your hiding protagonist insane? Or does the bright rays of sunlight streaming through an open window fill her with hope for the first time in ages?
  
  But weather is not the only environmental effect to take into consideration. How about day or night? Which season is it? It doesn't even have to be of this planet. The vacuum of space can be a terrifying prospect for your character. Space is cold, lonely, and deadly. If you're a sci-fi author creating a new planet, design some crazy weather or other environmental effects that will fill your readers with wonder and your characters with dread. Have fun with it.

In the end, setting is just as important as your plot, your characters, and your ideas. Take the time to flesh out your world and make it really come to life on the page. Your readers will thank you for it.

Challenge Accepted
I haven't given a writing prompt at the end of a post in a long time, but this seems like an appropriate post to pick up with again. So, here's the challenge: Take a scene and rewrite it three times, with all the same characters and plot points, but in each scene, change the weather, whether it's indoors or out, and see how rain, wind, and sunshine change the way characters think, act, and feel. As always, I did the same and you can read my Challenge here.

Until then, have fun, and write something.

WIP it Good!

"When a problem comes along... you must WIP it." -Devo

Ok, so that's not quite what we mean by WIP in the writing world. This month's Writer's Ramble is about the current Work In Progress of each of our members. Many of you know that my current goal is to win the Writers of the Future contest. If you don't know about that, I have a separate page all about my journey here. But, to be more specific, I can't really talk about my actual current WIPs without risking disqualification from the contest. So instead I'll break down one of my recent stories that didn't win.

Herald of Salvation (Disappointing Title)
This is the story I submitted last quarter for the contest. It's about the crew of a messenger ship in the distant future where mankind has ventured out among the stars and settled many planets. However, though they can travel faster than light, communication is not so fast, hence the use of messenger ships that travel the expanse of human space delivering needed information. Mankind then encountered an alien race of superior strength and technological advancement. This alien race, know as the Hostis, seem to be interested in only one thing: the annihilation of the Human Race. Every attempt to communicate with these warrior beings has fallen on deaf ears, and any attempt to decipher their language has failed.

The story focuses on the crew of the Herald, a small messenger ship assigned to wait silently on the edge of a solar system where a cloaked human spy ship, the Scarcity, has inserted ground operatives on a Hostis settled planet. When the spies come up with useful intel, the information is sent from the Scarcity to the Herald, which then jumps out of the system to deliver the information to human military leaders. The Herald has just received a packet of information from the Scarcity that could very well turn the tide of the war, but before they can leave the system, there is a malfunction with the engine core and the Herald is left sitting dead in space. At the same time, the planetside spies are discovered and a Hostis warship has tracked the information transmission and is bearing down on the Herald at top speed.

Can the crew get the engines repaired in time? Can they decode the data packet and use this new information against the Hostis? Time is running out.

Hehe, that turned into a movie trailer, which was not the plan. I had a lot of fun writing this story. The original idea was based upon the thought of a ship waiting on the edge of space for a spy transmission. Of course, the ship has to break down just after they're discovered, it needs some tension. But the real intrigue of this story to me is what information is contained in the data packet that could turn the war around for the humans. I won't give any spoilers here, but let's just say those who've read it are polarized between loving the idea and hating it. I've taken kind of a risk including this aspect of the story because it's a heated argument in the science fiction community.

Unfortunately, I don't think I got this controversial reveal quite right because the story didn't even make honorable mention in the contest. Which is ok. I rushed my edits of the story to get in into the contest on before the deadline and I think that's what hurt it most of all. There's a great story here told poorly and I think I just need to break it down, see what's working and what isn't, and figure out how to make my reveal work within the context of the story.

I could use some fresh opinions on this story. If any of you would be interested in read the Herald of Salvation and giving me some feedback and suggestions (especially for a better title), I'd be willing to send it to you. Just comment on this post with your email address and I'll send it right over.

In regards to the contest, I just yesterday sent off another story for 3rd Quarter, a light-hearted ghost story that I wrote based on a writing prompt from the website Prompt and Circumstance. It was fun to write and includes some humor, which I don't do a lot of. I'm also currently working on a story set within a community on the moon which discovers that nuclear war has just destroyed the entire planet Earth and they may very well be the last human beings alive. Dun-dun-dun!

For those who are interested, feel free to follow my progress toward winning Writers of the Future on my Journey page.

Wait, you did what? With who? WHERE??

This month's Ramble topic is about Getting to Know Your Hero/Heroine, (not heroin, that's a whole different subject...)

If you're writing a story, there's a pretty good chance you have characters in it. Even if your tale is composed entirely of inanimate objects, there's going to be some personality, some history, some purpose to those objects. So how do you make them believable people? How do you portray them in a way that will make your readers not only understand them, but care about them?

Starring:
There are several ways I go about this in my own writing. One way I find effective is to picture my story as a movie that I'm watching in my head, and then try to decide which actor/actress would play the role of that character. Then I develop my own character as played by... Robert Duvall, or Al Pacino, or whoever fits what I'm writing. Now, typically I don't base my characters after the Hollywood stars themselves, (unless I'm writing a contemporary story about drug addicts and alcoholics.) Instead, I pick a role they have played in a movie I've seen and loosely base my character on the character from that film. I say loosely because I don't want to straight up steal someone else's character... more like I just suck the soul of them and create my own monster.

Thanks for Taking the Time:
Another great way to create and get to know your characters is to interview them. As the creator of their world, you're already imagining your characters in all sorts of situations, scenes, and relationships. It shouldn't be too much harder to imagine them sitting in a chair across from you answering a list of interview questions such as:

• What's your name? Do you have a middle name? A nickname? Where did your nickname come from?
• Where are you from? What was it like growing up there? Do you have any favorite stories from your childhood?
• Do you have any secrets? Any that you're willing to share?
• How did you end up where you are today? Do you like your life, are you satisfied? What would you change, given the chance?
• What are you looking for in life, in relationships, in employment? What are your inner dreams and deepest fears?

You get the idea. Now, chances are, 90% of the answers you get from your characters will not end up in the story. At least, not directly. But now you have more than just the cardboard cutout of a person. You have a fully fleshed-out, living, breathing human being with fears, hopes, a past, a future, etc. (Side Note; I recently learned that "etc" really stands for: End of Thinking Capacity, hehe) So even if you don't use most of the answers from you interview, you've created the information so that, as you're chugging along in your tale, if a detail suddenly pops up about your character, say someone wants to know his/her middle name, you've already learned that fact in your interview and can more readily plug it into the story and move on.

That Was Supposed to be Me?
Another way you can create believable characters is to base them--again, loosely--on people you know. This is the easiest, and I think most common, way for new writers. After all, they say, "Write what you know" and who do you know better than your friends and family?

However, this is dangerous ground to trod. You may think you're portraying someone you love in the best light possible, but the fact is, you can never truly know someone else's inner thoughts, feelings, motivations. You may think you got the details right, only to find that your loved one doesn't see themselves that way and is offended at their portrayal.

So, two suggestions if you're going to model characters after people you know: Don't tell them, and don't ask permission. If you tell them, they may be offended at what you wrote. If you ask them first, they may then try to take over your writing and say things like, "I wouldn't react that way" or "Man, it would be so much cooler if I..." The bottom line is, this is your story, and these are your characters. Don't let someone else try to control what your characters are doing. Your plot will suffer for it every time.

So what if someone recognizes himself in your story? Simply say, "Wow, I'm glad you found that character so believable that you could relate to them."

In his book, "Character and Viewpoint", Orson Scott Card warns against using loved ones as character models and talks about how to create characters who've done things that you don't know anything about, such as murdering someone. He says:

"There is one person you can always interview, however, who will tell you much more of the truth than others ever will--yourself. You can imagine what it would take to get you to behave in a certain way. 

So what if you've never murdered somebody? Haven't you ever been blindingly angry? Haven't you ever longed for cold revenge? You've felt all the emotions, all the motives. All you have to do is imagine those feelings and needs being even stronger, or imagine you inhibition against violence being even weaker."

As the author, you need to know your characters. Be they people, animals, spirits, rocks, or whatever your story needs, there should not be a single person in existence who knows more about them than you . After all, they're going to change the very world you've created for them. Take the time to get to know them.