Monthly Archives: May 2012

Is It Too Soon to Think About NaNoWriMo?

29 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by in Ann, Experiences, Inspiration

≈ Comments Off

Tags

, , , ,

Last week, Mike talked about NaNoWriMo and getting started now in your planning. Since every writer has a different process, I thought I’d throw in my thoughts, too.

I started doing NaNoWriMo in 2002, and continued on steadily until about 2007, “winning” each year and setting new challenges. Over the next couple of years following, I tried it and stalled out, and then eventually decided that NaNoWriMo wasn’t a good practice for me anymore and I haven’t even attempted for the last three years.

Being a chronic overachiever, I wanted to do more than just 50,000 words; I wanted to write a whole novel–usually in the 80-100k range for me. In my second winning year I achieved 50,000 words in about 10 days, and finished the novel at 100k words in 22 days. It was a rush, and a lot of fun and I’m glad I did it, because it taught me what I could do when I put my mind to it. (Even if I never touched it again.)

During Novembers, I always went in with a plan–some kind of outline. Unlike Mike, I didn’t start thinking too hard about it several months ahead (I was working on other novels the rest of the year). I like to write while the fire is hot–if I’m feeling passionate enough about a story that I can write 50k in a month, then if I start planning it in May, it’s going to be written long before November rolls around. I’m fickle and when I’m invested in a story, I turn out the first draft quickly. Any story I started planning now, well, honestly, I would probably be bored of by the time November rolled around, and I’d start on a new idea instead.

That said, the years I faltered, I didn’t have much of a plan, and I’m certain that’s one of the reasons I didn’t complete. (Another reason was burn-out, and that’s what fed into lack of planning.)

So, I agree with Mike in that a plan is going to make your trip through November easier. I usually started digging into my planning and research in September or October, and inevitably during November, I would make changes to my outline as I ran into issues or had new ideas. But I had something going in, and that’s important. My outlines ran anywhere from 2 pages to 20 pages, and some stories worked well that way and others didn’t.

As we get nearer, I’ll talk about varying story-survival techniques that have (and haven’t) worked for me, and maybe you’ll find something that sparks an idea for you.

***

So the question, of course, is do I plan on doing NaNoWrimo this year? Truthfully, I haven’t decided. I don’t have any burning stories that scream “write me in November” at the moment. If I do between now and then, I may dive in. If I don’t then I’ll cheer on Mike and the rest of you from the sidelines.

Never Too Soon For NaNo!

25 Friday May 2012

Posted by in Experiences, Inspiration, Mike

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

National Novel Writing Month hits this November (just as it does every year). Are you going to write a novel for it?

“But Mike, that’s still five months away. It’s way too early to think about it for now.”

If you’re really considering writing a novel (and more power to you if you pull it off), you probably know by now that it’s not something most can just sit down and do on a whim. Think about the novels you read and the time investment you must put into them (even if you’re a fast reader). Now think about how much harder it is to compose than to consume.

Short stories are relatively easy to read and significantly easier to write. Yes, you probably need to do a bit of research and planning for a short story, but when you consider that most are a sixth to a tenth as long as the average novel you can get an appreciation for the added complexity of novel writing.

So why am I suddenly talking about NaNo here at the end of May?

Well, as you might have guessed, I’m considering throwing my hat into the novel-writing challenge again this year. Unlike my first foray into NaNoWriMo in 2009, where I went into the challenge with minimal preparation–I wasn’t even exactly sure of where I wanted to set the story until I was already writing it!–if I’m going to do a massive writing project this November I want to be really ready for it.

Yes, I completed the challenge in 2009 and wrote my 50,000 words, but I wouldn’t exactly call it a success. I’ve not looked at those words since. They weren’t a complete waste, though, as I generated some ideas for other stories out of them. For this year, I’d like to get a stronger result.

If you feel the same way and you’re considering doing NaNoWriMo this or any year, it behooves you to put in the work before you put in November’s work, whether it a be a month or five months. Writing a novel isn’t something most people can just up and do in a month on a lark.

I’m sure Ann and I will talk more about NaNoWriMo before, during, and after November, but let this column be a reminder that it’s going to be here sooner than you anticipate. Start preparing for it now and you’ll undoubtedly find it easier to succeed in November. That’s my plan, anyway!

All that said, I need to practice what I preach and get myself ready for November, and I’ll be sharing my experiences in the process with you as I go.

Right now, this is what I think I need to have ready before November 1st. This list is subject to grow over time:

  • Research (mostly 17th-19th century France)
  • Outline (I’ve never been any good at this, but it will help)

That’s not a very helpful list, is it? Well, I’ll keep revising it and, as I said, expanding it.

Are you anticipating NaNoWrimo?  How far in advance do you want to start your planning?

Where to Start?

18 Friday May 2012

Posted by in Advice, Meta, Theory

≈ Comments Off

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Start at the beginning, continue through to the end, then stop.

That’s pretty decent advice for storytellers (although it precludes more experimental narrative structures, like in the movie Memento) but if you’re struggling with where to start your story it doesn’t actually help. “Where do I start?” “At the beginning.” “But what is the beginning?” “Um…”

In real life, a person’s story begins at birth and ends at death. Or does it? Even for most of us, whose tales will likely not extend beyond our own personal terminal points, the beginning of our stories are not so clear. Is it at birth? Conception? When our parents met? What about the other direction? High school graduation? Military enlistment? The day we met our long-term partner?

A story, an artificial narrative, should be easier to define. Right? Maybe. Just like the question of where our personal narratives begin, we must ask when the story of our protagonist actually starts. Is it the birth of our main character? Probably not. Yes, a story about a person’s life can work (just look at Forrest Gump or The World According to Garp, but it’s a risky proposition. Maybe I’m just not exposing myself to the right stories, but the “person’s life as a story” seems to be a pretty rare narrative. Most people are simply not interesting until at least their mid-teens, anime and manga protagonists notwithstanding.

So, okay, I’ve established when we shouldn’t begin our story, but I haven’t really helped with advice for when we actually should.

One consideration to determine the start of your story is medium. Simply put, what form are you going to use to tell your story?

Let’s start short. For a short story, you want to begin your story as close to the end as possible. A general rule of thumb I was taught in my fiction writing class is to keep your short story all in the same day (or, you know, 24-hour period, if it happens at night). Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”–an amazing story, by the way, that seems to have at least partially inspired The Hunger Games–occurs over the course of a few hours. But what a few hours those are!

For a longer narrative, say a novel or ongoing webcomic or serial, you want to start at the point the primary protagonist’s life changes in and intersects with the presumably longer narrative. Often, a longer narrative begins when someone enters or exits the primary protagonist’s life. If you’re going to make your main character an orphan, the day he or she becomes one works pretty well for this: it worked for the stories of Harry Potter and for Nobody Owens. On the other hand, if you want your protagonist’s life to change because something (or someone) entered it, the day that person (or thing) is introduced is also an excellent place to start. That’s what happened to Frodo Baggins and Antimony Carver, for example.

This, of course, is a very broad bit of advice, but it should help you at least conceptualize where in the narrative you start your story. If you’d like, we can revisit this topic in the future and look at more specific advice for starting out. I already plan on revisiting the topic at least thrice more: once to talk about the pros and cons of starting in medias res, once to talk generally about starting out in games, and once more to talk about starting games in medias res.

The start of your story is an important topic, after all, since in traditional print storytelling (short stories and novels) the beginning is absolutely the most important part. Without a good, solid beginning, you won’t be able to pull in an audience.

So definitely let me know where you’d like me to go with this idea in the future. And maybe I’ll share some of my own struggles with starting stories.

Come back next week when I look at the start of game narratives.

The Star of the Show

15 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by in Advice, Ann, Gaming, Inspiration

≈ Comments Off

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

This last weekend, I was an at excellent live action roleplaying game. The theme was a pulp adventure, so there were lots of high stakes and drama, but one thing that occurred to me as we ran through the adventure is that there were approximately 25 main characters in this story. They were all unique characters with their own motivations and depth, and watching us all funneled through a storyline was quite the interesting experience.

LARPs are an art form all their own and nothing I say here should be taken as a criticism of it, but it got me to thinking about story media in which there are singular–or at least smaller sets–of stars in the show, and how we define them.

One of my particular weaknesses in building characters is that I like to make plain Janes who have interesting people they support around them. I think this tends to be because I, personally, prefer to be in the role of a supporting cast and crew (which I’ll talk more about next week). That’s all fine and good in life, but when you’re building a star for a particular story, you’re looking at a different spectrum of qualities.

For example, one of my first LARP character ideas for this game was a young woman who had basically been raised on an salvage/mercenary airship, who had an eccentric godfather as the captain and lead of this crew. She was a sometimes adventurer, and otherwise jill-of-all-trades support. I mulled over this idea for a few weeks, but knew it was missing a spark. Ultimately, I realized she was a support member for a cast of more interesting NPCs who would not appear in the game.

Now, in her own story, she could emerge as the star of the show, or perhaps I could take a deeper look at the cast and have someone else emerge as the star of the show and let her remain as support, but none of this would have worked well in a LARP, in which there are 25 stars of the show–each with their own wildly divergent personal storylines. So I’ve kept the idea for a later story.

In an archaeological fantasy novel I was plotting some time ago, the main character was a concubine who had a secret an archaeologist very much needed. I puttered on this story for a while as well, and eventually when talking to a friend, she succinctly said, “So your main character is basically just a plot device?” and I realized I needed to take a deeper look. In that case, I decided she would make better support cast to the archaeologist, who had more at stake in this story.

Even in an ensemble cast, such as the trio from the Harry Potter books, there is a primary character, even if the supporting characters are just half a step away. Harry, in those books, has the most going on, and he has the highest personal stakes among the trio. In the Lord of the Rings, there is a huge cast, but eventually they are broken into smaller groups with their own emerging leaders. I’d say Samwise Gamgee and Aragorn emerge as the stars of the show when all is said and done. (And I suspect others have convincing arguments for other characters in the lead.)

It’s possible to have multiple stars of the show, but I believe one is likely to be slightly brighter than the others, and the star is not always the Point of View character. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are classic examples of this: Watson is the point of view because he is someone the readers can identify with, whereas Sherlock is not.

All that said, how do you find the star of your show?

Consider:
1. Which protagonist has the most stakes or personal investment in the story?
2. Could story/end result happen without that protagonist?
3. Are there specific, important things that character does in the story that can’t easily be replaced by or delegated to someone else?

These might not be the only litmus tests to define your star of the show, but they should help you get on your way. Do none of your characters “pass” the test? Or one specific one you want to be your star? Consider the star qualities, and rework that character so he or she can shine.

Know Your Story

11 Friday May 2012

Posted by in Advice, Mike, Theory

≈ Comments Off

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

On Monday, Ann and I watched a British movie called Centurion. We… weren’t exactly sure what story they were trying to tell. We were both kind of at a loss to figure out what the movie is really about, and the best I can come up with is that it’s trying to tell too many stories all at once. On the one hand, it’s about the focus character—first his quest for vengeance, then his less grandiose struggle for mere survival, and finally his love for a woman he meets along the way. But it’s also about the lost Legio IX Hispana, the inability of Rome to subjugate the Picts, and the political machinations of Roman Britain. In other words, for a 90-minute movie it’s just too much.

Now, this post isn’t actually a deconstruction or review of that movie, and I’m somewhat picking on the writers, but it gives me a launching point for today’s topic. And that is this: When you’re getting ready to tell your story, make sure you know what it is. Said another way: If you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you get there?

I don’t mean you can’t have subplots or multiple weaving main plots. You most certainly can, as long as you know what the story is you’re trying to tell, you remain primarily focused on it, and you communicate it to your audience. This doesn’t mean you can’t throw your audience a curve ball and change what you present as being the story, as long as it’s a natural evolution in the narrative, you planned for it all along, and you provide a proper conclusion for your actual story. China Miéville’s Un Lun Dun is a perfect example of what I mean.

And if you’re telling a multi-part story, or think you might be, you need two main stories to tell for each part: the overarching one and the individual one of each piece. If you’ve ever considered writing a series of novels (for example) you might have heard the suggestion to make each book stand by itself, because you can’t control how a reader discovers your series. Assume that I’m echoing that advice here, because discovering an ongoing series in the middle (without realizing it) and not being able to follow along is extremely frustrating. I think the Harry Potter and Star Wars series do this well; conversely, Lord of the Rings, the Matrix trilogy, and The Hunger Games series do it poorly (although I thought Catching Fire did this a little better than Mockingjay).

Depending on the length of your story, you might need or want subplots to feed into the main story, and that’s not only fine it’s probably desirable. But keep in mind that these subplots really do need to feed into the main story and not detract—or distract—from it. A short story, for example, has no room for subplots. Anything longer needs them. Usually, these subplots will come from supporting characters (because, presumably, the primary plot is about the focus character) and will often expose their backstories and be a part of why they become a part of the main story. And, really, the most important subplot in a longer piece, at least in genre fiction, and if it’s not already the primary plot, will almost always be the motivations of the primary antagonist.

This is a problem that even I run into with some of my story ideas. For example, off and on over the past few years a friend and I have been developing a webcomic; the characters are designed, the world is mostly built, and the subplots are largely lined up. I even have some story arcs to take the characters through (my friend is the artist; I’m in charge of writing). What I lack as the storyteller, though, is an overarching story. Sure, since it’s a webcomic I could just string along a bunch of unrelated story arcs, and for a while I think our audience would be okay with that. But at some point everyone, especially I, would want to see the story go somewhere. So since I haven’t figured out yet what my story is I’m not ready yet to begin it. Once I do figure it out, though, you’ll be among the first to know.



What’s Your Motivation?

08 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by in Advice, Ann, Inspiration

≈ Comments Off

Tags

, ,

Why do you tell stories? Why are you telling this story?

  • Is it because you want to see your name in print (or the screen)?
  • Is it because you want to be a New York Times Bestseller and retire early?
  • Is it because you have a story that won’t let you be alone until you write it down?
  • Is it because you love telling yourself the stories you can’t seem to find already written?
  • Is it because you enjoy seeing your story come to realization from a seed in your mind?
  • Is it because you enjoy hearing from the readers and sharing your experience?
  • A combination of these reasons?

There are infinite motivations to go to the trouble of telling a story–for yourself; readers; or even in the case of more interactive storytelling, the shared experience. None of them are right or wrong or better than one another, but I think knowing your motivation as a storyteller, and of your story, is a key component, not only to reaching that goal, but to maintaining your passion while doing it.

If you are telling your story because you can’t get it out of your head otherwise and it’s been churning in your brain for years, you might be writing for your own peace of mind. It might not even require you to write the whole story from beginning to end (although telling part of a story, for me, usually creates the next part of the mind worm); it might not even require you to revise the story or show it to anyone else. Another motivation might be secondary, or even non-existent.

If you’re writing in hopes of widespread (or even self-) publication, then there are other steps involved–editing, revision, market research, submission, etc. If you’re writing to become the next NYT Best Seller, then you’ll need to do a lot of market research and work at getting your story interesting to a broad audience.

***

Each of these motivations could (and probably will) comprise a whole host of columns on their own, but I feel a key to enjoying and thriving as a passionate storyteller is to know your motivation. Just as motivation drives your characters, it drives you as a storyteller. If you know why you want to tell stories (or that particular story), then you can make sure that the stories you tell fit both your motivation and your process. If your passion for storytelling is flagging, and you don’t feel, well, motivated, maybe it’s time to look into yourself as much as your story and see what drives you.

Expose Yourself

04 Friday May 2012

Posted by in Advice, Experiences, Inspiration, Mike

≈ Comments Off

Tags

, , , , ,

I’ve mentioned before how much I dislike the old “Write what you know” advice and instead advocate “Write what you want to read.”

Expanded out a little, that becomes, “Tell the stories you want to experience.”

But to know what kinds of stories those are, you need to do some homework. What, homework? Yes. I know it will be terribly rough for you, but you need to expose yourself to stories.

Note that I very specifically avoided saying “…but you need to read a lot of novels.” If you want to be a novelist, you obviously should be reading a lot of novels, but you shouldn’t limit yourself to just them. Watch movies. Read webcomics. Try graphic novels. A story is a story, and although the way they are told varies by medium, the basics of good storytelling transcend those limitations.

When I wanted to be a fantasy novelist, oh so many years ago, I heard the further piece of advice, “Read a lot of novels, including those outside your genre.” To this day, I believe this is excellent advice for all storytellers, from novelists to webcomic artists to screenplay writers to graphic novelists.

Why?

Well, a good story is a good story, regardless of its medium or genre. Regardless of the often arbitrary category in which it is filed. Don’t be embarrassed by these labels assigned to stories by publishers, bookstore owners, or movie theaters. There are amazing stories told in every kind of genre, in every kind of medium.

Want examples?

When I was an aspiring fantasy novelist and heard that advice I went to my mom and asked her to recommend a good romance novel. She went through her collection and found me a historical romance. I read it. I enjoyed it. I remember little about it except the lead character’s surname, which I later co-opted into my own stories because I thought she was cool. The story was inspiring in at least some way, even though I was so far outside the target audience.

Except I am, because I’m someone who enjoys a good story. And that’s another related point: as a storyteller, you are the target audience of everything.

Let’s go with another example. I have a friend who recommended The Hunger Games trilogy to me, although he was a little embarrassed, because they are YA. I told him it didn’t matter, because of my mantra, “A good story is a good story.”

So go forth, friends, and expose yourself to stories. Not just those in the genre you want to write. Not just those in the medium you want to create in. Experience stories all across the spectrum, from dystopian YA to historical romance to mainstream tales, as novels or movies or sequential art.

Does It Count?

01 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by in Advice, Ann, Experiences

≈ Comments Off

Tags

, ,

Several years ago, a friend asked me what I’d been reading lately. What I had been reading at that time was another friend’s novel manuscript for critique. When I explained this, he said, “That’s not a real book.” I said, “I think reading 200k words of story constitutes as a ‘real book,’ whether or not it’s published.”

“Oh,” he said, and dropped the subject.

With the growth of the Internet, we see serials and other web-stories on the rise, and we read them and enjoy them. With social sites like Goodreads, blog networks, and Twitter, we now have public challenges, like “read 52 books in a year.” These are well-intended challenges, trying to get us reading more and widely.

I’ve tried these challenges, had the little counter images, but then found myself trying to figure out what “counted” What is a “real book?”

  • Does it count if I’ve read it already?
  • Does it count if it’s a manga or graphic novel?
  • Does it count if I listened as an audiobook instead of print?
  • Does it count if it’s not yet a collection, or I read it while it was being serialized?
  • Does it count if my friend’s unpublished novel or fanfic?

I’m not sure why these things plagued me, but I wasn’t the only one asking themselves, or others, “does it count?”

Depending on the challenge, maybe it doesn’t count. And it shouldn’t matter, but we like these widgets and memes, and being part of a community doing something together.

Since I took up knitting and spinning, my reading time plummeted as I found myself having to choose to do one or the other. Sometimes I watched television shows and movies instead because I missed stories, and eventually I rediscovered audiobooks, which I’d always been uncertain of before.

I started listening to them while I worked, while I knitted, while I did chores, and I grew to love them. But then I got worried–was I less of a reader because I listened to books instead of reading them in print?

Truth is, I don’t think so. Print versus electronic versus audio–they’re all the same story, all the same words. Whether I’m reading them in print or on a screen, I still hear the story in my head. When I’m listening to an audiobook, it’s still the same words coming into my head–it’s just through my ears instead of my eyes.

Stories are stories. Enjoy stories, and when you worry about whether or not they “count,” ask yourself whether your goal is to enjoy more stories or “read” 52 books this year of a particular kind.” There’s no right or wrong answer here, it’s just a matter of your anxiety about it. If you’re like me and worry about whether or not things “count,” maybe you, too, need a new “counting” system.

Did I enjoy that story? Did I learn something from it? Then it counts.