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The Uncle Karl Fix Pt. 1

06 Friday Jun 2014

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Okay, all the way back in March I talked about being objective about your writing and about the process of writing. As an example of objectivity I mention a character I called Crazy Uncle Karl and being attached to him even though he might not be the best thing for the story. If you don’t remember, or haven’t read, that entry go ahead, I’ll wait.

Now that we’re all caught up I want to talk in detail about the fixing of the Uncle Karl Problem. I want to clarify that the Uncle Karl Problem, as I like to call it because I like pithy names for things, doesn’t have to be just a character. It could be a character, a location, a scene, an object, or a concept. For instance in my most recently workshopped piece my “Uncle Karl” was the fact that I really wanted to tell the story from this one character’s point-of-view. It worked until about half way through the story and then because of the POV everything sort of doesn’t make sense and the people reading it had too many questions about what exactly was going on in the story, instead of just enjoying the story (which is really what I wanted). So the Uncle Karl wasn’t the character it was the fact that I wrote from that character’s point-of-view.

So let’s talk about how you know you have an Uncle Karl Problem. In the same post I mentioned that you should have more than one or two people read your stuff. It’s so you can more readily identify the Uncle Karl(s) in your story. For the sake of argument let’s say you have a group of six people to read your writing.

If one person in that group doesn’t like Uncle Karl: What are you going to do? You can’t please everyone all the time. Don’t worry about it.

If three people don’t like Uncle Karl: It’s a good idea to look at Uncle Karl. Maybe you can pull back on how crazy he is. Maybe only have him in the couple scenes no one really commented on him being in. At this point it’s a minor deal that people don’t like him. Still fifty-fifty is a good balance you don’t have to worry too much about him.

If four or more people in the group don’t like him: Okay, that’s a majority. I’m not going to lie to you it may be time to let Uncle Karl go. Look, he was fine in the first draft, you had a good time writing him, but if he’s getting in the way of the story he’s got to go.

At this point I’d like to disclaim that this system is just a guideline. I use this guideline and it helps me a lot in determining if something (or an entire story) is working or not. It is just a guideline though. It’s possible (very slimly) that you just so happened to beat the odds and stacked your writer’s/reading group with people who specifically don’t like Uncle Karl whenever he pops up in any story not just yours. It’s impossible to know that until you sit down and take a good hard look at Uncle Karl and what he’s doing for the story (suggestions and techniques on how to do this will be discussed in part 2).

Of course you don’t have to listen to your reading group. You can decide they don’t know what they’re talking about and not do anything with Uncle Karl. You are in charge of your writing. But then again, if you didn’t want their opinion why give them your story to read?

The All Ameri-Con 2014

21 Wednesday May 2014

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Oh, that’s right! Your favorite author will be attending this convention. So anyone in the Warren, O of the hio, area on July 6th should swing by the Packard Music Hall. I’ll have a table where I will be selling, and signing for those of you who’d like, copies of Superiority Complex and The Man With the Invincible Gun. Hopefully, I’ll also have a small book collecting the novellas I have on Amazon.com (presses willing). So come on down if you have the time. I won’t be hard to find; I’ll be the guy in the Hawaiian shirt. You can find out more information on the All American Cards and Comics Facebook page about the event.

And sorry that I haven’t been posting more regularly lately Life and things. I’ll try to get back on a schedule soon.

Until then, have a great summer!

I’m Coming to You Today FROM THE FUTURE

07 Wednesday May 2014

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I’m so excited. My story, Warm Blooded, is getting an honorable mention in L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future contest. We’re all very excited here in the land of notating hemlocks.

If you haven’t heard of the contest (or have but have never taken a look at it) I encourage you to check it out. It’s a free to enter contest which is always good, and it’s judged by some of sci-fi’s top names. It’s also not just a writers’ contest it’s also for illustrators (if you’re into that thing). The contest accepts the longer-ish stories too so that’s also a plus for those of us that don’t have a handle on the short-short.

An honorable mention isn’t a win, but this means I can keep sending them stories until I do. And I hope you guys decide to join me.

The Subject of Objectivity; The Object that is Subjectivity

21 Friday Mar 2014

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Being a part of a writing group is very insightful. One of the things it has taught me is that a writer can only be objective about other people’s writing.

That’s not to say it won’t make a person more critical of their own writing, but I’m going to be honest with you, it won’t be enough.

No one is quite as objective towards something as someone who has nothing invested in what they’re doing. After spending hours upon hours of figuring out your characters and your stories, and then hours upon hours of writing them and putting the story together the way you want it, there’s going to be a ceiling of objectivity for you.

This is absolutely fine. You shouldn’t be objective about your writing. It’s your baby. It’s a piece of you. At the end of the day we write because we have something to say. Let’s face it there are easier ways to get fame and money. So the fact that you can’t see that crazy Uncle Karl character is too clichéd and cluttering the scenes is to be expected.

What you have to do is stay objective about the process of writing. When you give your story to someone else and they tell you that crazy Uncle Karl is clichéd and clutters the scenes he’s in you have to be able to hear that critique, go back, and look at Uncle Karl with the eyes of your reader. Maybe the fix is as simple as just having Uncle Karl in the background; maybe the fix is fusing Uncle Karl with another character; maybe the fix is getting rid of Uncle Karl altogether.

The point is: you have to be open (and objective) about the process of your story’s development. To that end you have to pick the right readers. Inevitably our loved ones become the first ones to read our stories. This is good and bad. The positive: they have a vested interest in you and in encouraging you so there’s that. The negative: they have a vested interest in you and in encouraging you, so they might not be as harsh on your story as someone else. So be sure you’re having the right people reading, not that your loved ones shouldn’t read your stories, but you should have others too. You need other people to read your stories, because you’re going to need someone to be harsh on your stories for them to get better.

There’s an inspirational sports poster I remember seeing in my high school: Pain is weakness leaving the body. The same can be true of the harshness of a critique. The reason for editing is to get the best story possible.

Who doesn’t want to put out their best work?

So stay open to the process (no getting mad at people for helping). And remember, very few books are their best on the first draft.

Nutrition and Processed Writing

07 Friday Mar 2014

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“It’s a meat process.”
–Doublemeat Palace, Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Season Six

Okay, we’ve been building to this for a while now. Today I’d like to discuss the writing process. Almost every writer gets asked what their writing process is. I haven’t been asked much, but I like to joke that it involves a lot of internet porn.

I’ve been avoiding talking about it because it seems like such a big thing to talk about. “Kids, sit down. It’s time for “the talk.” When a man, or woman, feels a building urge inside them to tell a story they go to the drugstore to buy some things they’ll need…” Yeah, that type of big.

At the same time the phrase “writing process” evokes incongruous images. Such as, an assembly line where cars get built, or a recipe for baking a cake. As if a writer, because he/she is popular and making money, or is critically acclaimed, has found the right setup of ingredients and/or procedure to write.

I’d like to say right now: the writing process is not a magical formula for writing.

A colleague in my writing group finds he writes best at the Barnes & Noble Starbucks a few miles from where he lives. Another colleague writes between midnight and two in the morning. Laurie Hallse Anderson’s husband built her a cabin in the backyard where the only electronic thing out there is her computer. J.K. Rowling wrote exclusively in coffee shops.

I have a loving and understanding wife who let me have my own office. So when I write I go into my orange office with black trim (that’s right it’s Halloween all the time for me), sit at my black table (not a desk; desks are claustrophobic), turn on my Dubstep playlist entitled: Medreadation (‘cause I’m a dork), and write. Furthermore, if I’m writing on the computer I change the color of the page to black and the color of the letters (I wrote this blog post in green). Sometimes I come in, turn on the music and just can’t take it. So I turn it off, put in my ear plugs, and shut out the world. Sometimes, I can’t take looking at the computer screen, and I whip out a notebook and pen. When I write long hand I use a variety of pens and notebooks (right now I’m on a legal pad kick; but white paged legal pads, the yellow pages annoy the fuck out of me). Black or blue ink depends on my mood, and a red pen on standby for on the spot corrections.

To point out the obvious: all of these “writing processes” are different. Here’s the secret to the writing process: it’s just a way for you to feel comfortable enough to write. It’s almost anti-climactic in a way. Innit?

Clarification: When I say comfortable I don’t necessarily mean relaxed. My one piece of advice for the writing process is that you find a space/place/environment that’s stimulating without being distracting. When I say comfortable I mean: a place where you feel you can sink into the story and express it in the form of words via writing. Some people feel comfortable floating along the background noise of other people in coffee shops, others find shutting out the world so it’s just them, their brain, and the world of the story. Whatever works for you is what’s good for you.

One thing to keep in mind about the writing process is you. As I stated above: the writing process isn’t some magical formula. The writing process is a tool to help you write. It is not set in stone. If you find that you’re not writing as much, or are being distracted more, by what you were doing, try something else. Sometimes I write stories on the computer, and sometimes I write them long hand first. Sometimes I switch back and forth between the two. Don’t be afraid to change what you’re doing. You’re going to change as a person, so too will the way you write.

Turtle Soup or Rabbit Stew: the tortoise and the hare revisited

22 Saturday Feb 2014

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Alright, we’ve discussed the writing habit, or muscle if you prefer. Now I want to talk about something that is closely related to “the habit” and “your process”: output.

BA-BA-BUUUUUM!

As writers, as people really, we like to see what we have to show for our work. Being able to look at a screen/notebook/printed pages and say, “wow, this is what I got done today,” is a key part to our esteem as workers, as writers, as creators. Eventually this question might also cross your mind: “How much should I be writing?”

In his memoir of craft On Writing (2000, Pocket Books) Stephen King mentions that he does ten thousand words a day. For those of you who can’t do the conversion from words to pages in your head that’s forty (OMG!) pages a day. Author of The Phedre’s Trilogy Jacqueline Carey, in an interview with Writer’s Market, mentioned that while writing the first book in the series she made a deal with herself that she couldn’t shower until she got at least a paragraph…and some weeks she went days without one.

Recently I overheard two of my colleagues in my writers’ group talking about writing. One of them asked the other how long it takes them to write. Of course I perked up and listened doubly hard. The other one answered: “I take about three to four hours,” and I thought this was reasonable, “per page.” My mind was blown. I couldn’t believe the person takes that long for each page.

For me, if I’ve spent 3 to 4 hours on a page it’s a bad day. I’m not feeling it; I know I have to admit I’m beat and take a break. The project I’m working on with my writers’ group I wrote over the summer. I wrote it in full lit-jock mode so not only was I hitting my five page quota easily I was averaging between 12 and 20 pages most days.

There are two very different amounts of output associated with working like this. I want to stress that my colleague’s pages have beautiful language (they better), but this is a stylistic choice that wouldn’t necessarily change if he worked faster. In the writers’ group we usually deal with a couple people each week with no more than a maximum of thirty pages. The last time we looked at this colleague’s pages he turned in 10 and those were a couple days late. My pages don’t have beautiful language, but then I didn’t write that type of story, and I’m done with the whole novel, in fact I finished in the summer, I turn in 30 pages every time I’m up for the group.

Now before you think I’ve thrown down the gauntlet, or I’m condemning my colleague, I want to clarify a few things. First, I’m a 10 on the personality scale (my scale only goes up to 10) so every story I write I’m excited about. Second, I have a crazy work ethic and if I don’t get at least five pages a day I feel like I’ve wasted my time. Third, I believe in the power of editing. One of my favorite things to say is: Editing lets you craft the story you thought you wrote the first time around.

Some of you might be thinking that taking 3 to 4 hours per page means you can cut down on the editing process. Well, that’s a false premise, because the 3 to 4 hours per page factors into that. Obviously my colleague is taking the time to make each sentence perfect (or near enough) before moving on. So there’s still editing, it’s just built into the writing process. Secondly, it cuts down on the editing on a basic, sentence level, but not necessarily when it comes to the story itself. Do you know that old military saying? “No plan survives contact with the enemy.” Well, no manuscript survives intact after first contact with readers (agents/editors/focus groups/what-have-you). So you still might have to change the story multiple times to clarify things or flesh things out.

Again, I’m not drawing a line in the sand and saying writing slowly is bad. I’m not even saying it’s less or more work, taking less or more time. What I want to make clear is if you write fast or you write slowly it’s roughly the same amount of work either way. I want everyone to be aware of that.

The point I want to make with this post is this: all progress is positive. It doesn’t matter if after 4 hours you have three pages or twenty, you’ve done a good job. If you’re only getting a few pages after hours of writing it doesn’t matter. Seriously, your process, your style, your output will change, should change, as you mature as a writer. The important thing is you’re writing.

And to put it simply: if you want to write more, write more.

If You’re Reading This You Should Be Writing

02 Sunday Feb 2014

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“If you only write when you’re inspired you may be a fairly decent poet, but you’ll never be a novelist because you’re going to have to make your word count today and those words aren’t going to wait for you whether you’re inspired or not.
You have to write when you’re not inspired. And you have to write the scenes that don’t inspire you. And the weird thing is that six months later, a year later, you’ll look back at them and you can’t remember which scenes you wrote when you were inspired and which scenes you just wrote because they had to be written next.
The process of writing can be magical. Mostly it’s a process of putting one word after another.”
Neil Gaiman, talking with Chris Hardwick

People always ask me: how do I go about writing the actual act. Neil Gaiman’s words sum it up. I sit down and I write. That’s what you have to do if you want to be a writer.

This is for all you beginners out there. For those of you who “have a great idea but I’m just never in the mood to write” people. The act of writing isn’t some divine rite. The stars don’t need to align in just the right way for you to sit down and write. The physical act of writing is like any other hobby or skill, you have to make the time to do it.

You need to carve out a time that you decide is time for you to write. Even if it’s just an hour on Sunday afternoon, that’s fine. When Sunday rolls around you grab your laptop/computer/paper and pen, go somewhere and sit with it. For the next hour that’s all you do.

Seriously, for the next hour do nothing but stare at the blank page or computer screen and thinking about your writing (whatever it is your writing). You may even write something, but don’t be discouraged if you don’t. And don’t do anything else.

Just you.

And the computer/paper.

And the story.

At the end of the hour you’re free to go. When the next Sunday rolls around grab your laptop/computer/pen and paper and go somewhere for an hour. Again you sit there with your computer/paper and you think about your writing.

Again, if you write something, that’s great. But don’t be surprised if you don’t. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t write anything (or if you write only a paragraph or two). This isn’t to gauge yourself as a writer, and it’s not about developing the process by which you write. It’s much more basic than that, it’s about developing the mindset, the habit, of writing.

When I started writing my first novel, Superiority Complex, I would get up in the morning, eat breakfast, and then sit down in front of my computer to write. Up until this point I’d only written short stories; these are relatively simple, I could sit down for a couple hours (up to six) and pound them out. The task of the novel is a different animal. I would sit in front of my blank screen staring at the blinking cursor. I’d type a sentence. Delete the sentence. Type another. Delete that one too. Sit in frustration hating the white screen. I wouldn’t move though. I wouldn’t play computer games. I’d cheat every forty-five minutes or so and check my e-mail, but then go right back to the blank document.

It was the most frustrating thing in the world. I had all these ideas about what I wanted to say and what I wanted my characters to be like but it was all stuck in my head. Eventually I’d attack the keyboard and write out of pure frustration. I was frustrated that I was wasting time I could have been working to help my wife support us. I was frustrated that a blank screen was defeating me. I was frustrated that my awesome ideas weren’t out there for everyone to enjoy.

Most of what I wrote like that I ditched. It wasn’t as awesome as I hoped, but some of it was good and I kept that. My point is two-fold: frustration is part of the writing process (especially at the beginning), and you have to develop the habit of writing so you can write. It got to the point where I was writing every day and I felt great.

Once you’re writing consistently every Sunday for that hour, you can work on finding more time to write and even on finding your process. First and foremost though, you have to get in the habit of writing.

Zen and the Art of Writing Mechanics

14 Tuesday Jan 2014

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It’s been said by better people than me (over and over again) about many, many things: you have to have a firm grasp of the fundamentals to be able to do anything well. Why people think they can ignore it about writing and language is beyond me.

I recently joined a writing group. I was shocked by myself when I started reading others’ writing. Honestly, I didn’t think I was that guy. I thought I was more concerned with the stories than the grammar rules. However, I found myself floundering to get to the story because of the misuse of the words involved.

This is not another rant about comma use. No this is much more fundamental. This is about the misuse of language.

For instance (and every writer struggles with this one), passivity. Passive verb forms keep an action from fully forming (and people could argue that they keep a character and, more importantly, a story from fully developing as well). Examples of a passive sentence: Jenna was starting to understand. Active sentence: Jenna started to understand. Even better: Jenna understood now. You need your characters doing things otherwise you have a story that might have been instead of a story that is.

Another specific example of things that can muddle the pace of the story and put off your reader is prepositional phrases. Not that you shouldn’t use these, but over using them can cause sentence to keep going well past their intended point. Example: “ It’s not my fault,” said Johnny, who had to let the ball go in order to hang on. This is a speech tag, yet the sentence doesn’t just tell us who’s talking it goes into action too…except it doesn’t, because there are three prepositional phrases strung together. This is an example of overcomplicating a sentence.

Like I said, I really didn’t want to be this guy but I found myself missing the story being told because of constant misuses like these. It’s like seeing someone with matted hair, dirty t-shirt, and ripped jeans walking down the street. Is that a person you’d randomly stop so you could talk to them? It’s entirely possible that this person is a sensitive poet who’s had a bad couple of weeks and is on the way to do laundry and a shower, but are you going to test those odds?

The story actually has it worse than the afore mentioned person. If you did take the chance and stop to talk to the person, and they did turn out to be a down on their luck poet you might be able to look past the unkempt appearance. With the story though (and this is my point), the words are the story and the story is the words you use to tell it. Make sure your story is presentable.

This is NOT the Weirdest Thing I’ve Ever Posted

02 Friday Aug 2013

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Okay. For those of you who have stumbled onto this site (and you should watch where you’re going), I’m going to tell you a little bit more about my writing than what I already have on here.
Most writers have a concept of who they are when they write. It can be as simple as: I’m a Fantasy writer, or I’m a Science-Fiction writer. But it should, and probably does, go deeper than that. As with most things in life, the answer gets better with layers (think about it, jelly on a plate isn’t a sandwich). There are nuances to consider.
So here we go. The nuances of what I try to do (which is: write an awesome story).
I like to say that there are two basic types of stories that I write. One: extraordinary people in mundane circumstances. Two: mundane people in extraordinary circumstances. “Circumstances” in this case doesn’t necessarily mean what’s happening to them in the story (though that’s part of it), but also the overall tone of the characters’ lives. Using the examples of Snowfall and Amsterdam and the Murder Twins (if you haven’t read them—shame on you! they’re good stories). The Woodsman from Snowfall is definitely a mundane character in extraordinary circumstances. Amsterdam, on the other hand, is an extraordinary person in, relatively, mundane circumstances.
I like playing around with dichotomy (a division into two especially contradictory groups or entities). I like the idea of a normal, everyday guy like the Woodsman deciding he needs to take down the corrupt government who just so happens to have magic powers all by himself. Or the idea of a powerful psychic using his powers to be a private investigator, and having to worry about paying the rent.
So that takes care of the type of story that I write. Now on to what got this whole thing started: my writing concept. Here’s how I’ve come to see myself (you are free to disagree). I see myself as a pulp-fiction writer with way less camp and way more bite.
I’ve been made aware by my wife that that description of my writing is loaded, since pulp fiction tended to be exploitative to…well, just about everyone. To that I say: I try not to be exploitative to anyone in my writing. Douche-bags are douche-bags not matter what race or creed they are. And my heroes…okay, most of my heroes are douche-bags too. Maybe slightly less douchie than the bad guys since, you know, they aren’t trying to destroy the world/the universe/innocence/an innocent. My heroes aren’t exactly people you’d want to hang out with though (most of the time). I spread the douche-ness around is all I’m saying.
What I really like about pulp-fiction (and in this case I’m talking about the sci-fi and horror stuff) is the high concepts of it all. The planet spanning (sometimes galaxy spanning) threat that only this one guy, and he might not even be the best guy for the job, has the responsibility of overcoming it.
A lot of the James Bond movies are like that. Oh there’s an entire agency out there, but only 007 has the one piece of information no one else does, or the veracity not to quit one everyone else does, to save the world from nuclear destruction (it’s usually something nuclear in those movies). Or (and now I’m dating myself) The Mummy movies with Brendan Frazier. An ancient evil awakens in the desert and it’s up to the one dashing adventurer to vanquish it, even though he’s not terribly educated or well informed. Oh he’ll gather a rag-tag band of similar adventurers along the way to “help,” but we all know it’s up to him to defeat the evil in the end.
This is my point though, the stories are very high concept, but the execution comes down the old grit and hard work of those people involved. It’s just good fun. And at the end of the day reading is a form of entertainment. I want to write a story that someone enjoyed reading.
I hope I didn’t confuse people too much.