Category Archives: Inspiration

Morning Pages–Or Just Journaling

20 Wednesday Jun 2012

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Julia Cameron is probably most well remembered among creative people for her introduction of Morning Pages.  This is a daily exercise in journaling–or brain dumping, really.  I’ve done Morning Pages on and off for the last several years, and it’s something I highly recommend to other creative people of any sort–wordsmithing and far beyond.

So what do you write in morning pages?  Anything.  Lists, rambling, rants, whatever is going through your mind.  The goal is to get out the junk and get your creative juices going in about 3 handwritten pages (or, in the online incarnation, 750 words).  In recent months, my practice of writing morning pages got me through a lot of jumbled thoughts regarding my day job, whether or not I wanted to move, and how I wanted to prioritize my life.  I also used it to get out my story bits that were running through my head, until I ran out for a particular story (and then I knew whether or not I had full stories going around my head, or just bits).

The hardest part about morning pages for me was being candid and honest to myself and not worrying about whether or not anyone else was going to read the blandest, ugliest, or most confused of my thoughts.  This in itself is a good practice, because in writing we can’t hit our readers the hardest if we can’t be honest with ourselves about the story.  (And, of course, the importance of being honest with ourselves–many of us lie to ourselves more than anyone else.)

Most days, my morning pages took about 15 minutes.  Sometimes more, rarely less.   I believe all of us have time for this, or should make time for it.  That said, (speaking of honesty) I fall off of doing mine for large chunks of time.  It’s not about the 15 minutes… well, really, I don’t know why I’m not doing it.  I think because of the concept of them being morning pages, I get busy in the morning and then forget until the evening.  And they are morning pages, right?

Still, if it’s a little thing that’s getting me hung up, then maybe I should just call it journaling, and say that I try to journal regularly.  Whatever it is you do, I recommend spending some time with your daily thoughts and recording them–brilliant or bland–in a private forum for which you are the only audience.  Many people blog publicly to do this, but I don’t feel it’s the same–blogging is a public forum with an audience that is not you.  Try going back to private diaries for a while–online or offline; morning or night–and see what happens.

Do you journal?  Do you feel it’s critical to your creativity?

Is It Too Soon to Think About NaNoWriMo?

29 Tuesday May 2012

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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

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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?

The Star of the Show

15 Tuesday May 2012

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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.

What’s Your Motivation?

08 Tuesday May 2012

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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

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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.

Seeding Your Story

17 Tuesday Apr 2012

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Last week, Mike linked me to this article about 8 tips on writing from Kurt Vonnegut. For the most part, I agreed with these tips.

On the other hand, I didn’t fully agree with this one:

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

This information can be interpreted many ways: does he mean go crazy with the info dumps? Be blatant with your plot points? Indeed, if there are so many pieces of information that I can see the ending coming without finishing the story, then why would I read it? Isn’t that in direct violation of tip #1?

Some stories–particularly horror–just don’t function with this advice at all. I mean, if we saw what was coming in a Lovecraftian piece, would it be nearly as interesting? Would it even be Lovecraftian?

So what does he mean here? Well, I can’t speak for Mr. Vonnegut, but my take on it would be the following:

Seed your plots with enough information so that when your readers get to the end of the story they can see the progression, and the conclusion makes sense. Conversely, if they could not finish reading the story, they could, with some consideration, create an ending for themselves (whether or not it was your own).

(This still doesn’t work with some specific niche story types, but it does fit on a broader level.)

What are your thoughts on the matter? Should you give it all away at the beginning, sprinkle throughout, or wait until the big reveal at the end?

Finding Inspiration

13 Friday Apr 2012

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Where do you find inspiration? What makes you want to sit down and tell a story?

This past weekend I attended Sakuracon, a Japanese-culture convention in Seattle mainly but not exclusively dedicated to anime and manga. Although I’ve been a bit out of touch lately with the Japanese pop-culture meta-fandom, I still found parts of the convention to be very inspiring, particularly as a storyteller.

The greatest inspiration came from the AMVs (or anime music videos) I saw. An AMV is a fan creation that marries a song to a collection of clips from one or more video sources (usually but not always anime).

I don’t know about you, but music alone can be very inspiring to me. Sometimes I hear a song and I get a great swelling of emotion and thought and some story element pops suddenly into my mind, even if I’ve heard the song hundreds of times before.

What’s that got to do with AMVs at Sakuracon?

Sitting in the AMV room at Sakuracon (or, I imagine, any anime-related convention) exposes you to a lot of music and animation (both of varying quality), at least some of which you’ve inevitably never heard or seen before. Every few minutes there’s an entirely new mix of sound and images, and your mind is under a constant barrage of creative energy—the song, the animation, and the mixture of the two. For a storyteller (or any creative person, really), the combination of disparate pieces can really excite the imagination.

Neil Gaiman once said the secret to this creativity is combining two things that have never been combined before, and although I’d like to talk more about that someday for now I can tie it in with this topic. While it’s definitely possible to find inspiration in the work of one creator, I would encourage you to find places where the creative endeavors of multiple people come together to create something entirely new. If AMVs aren’t your thing, I understand that similar things exist for non-anime shows, like live-action television programs. If that interests you more then you should hunt those down instead.

Ultimately, what I’m getting at with all this is that you can find inspiration in a lot of different places, some familiar and some not; some created by a single effort and some a combination of multiple creators. The most important thing is to keep looking for inspiration and to remember to act on it when you find it!

Start Again?

10 Tuesday Apr 2012

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We as storytellers often get very attached to our words and ideas. We write something, and even if we’re willing to revise it, we still won’t change it that much. If we’ve written words, we want to fix those words. If we have written a character or a plot point, we try to shape those over and over again, to get the right image.

What if you started over completely?

Author Jodi Meadows mentioned recently that she had wholesale “deleted” the first draft of the third book in her series. Why? She had made so many changes to the first and second books after they were edited and revised for publication that the third book would require an intense amount of revision just to fit with the other two books. Instead, she decided to start over.

Are words sacred? Sometimes it feels like it, especially when we’re carving out time to tell our stories and just starting. Every hundred and thousand words feel like they were written in blood. But the truth is, they weren’t. Storytellers are creative people, and although it might not always feel like it, our creativity is endless. However, that creativity can be stifled, and it can be stifled by our own stories when we stubbornly hold on to a story that isn’t quite right.

A while back I realized many of my stories had the themes or plots or other elements in common. The stories themselves probably wouldn’t be recognizable as “same” to someone else (unless they were really analyzing them), but I saw those similarities. I realized–no, not that I had a limited amount of stories in my head and I was completely unoriginal–but that there are themes, plots, and other elements that I will hammer out over and over. Why? Near as I can tell, it’s because there is this formless, unspeakable idea in my mind, and I keep writing it over and over again in different ways until I finally hit upon it in a way that will satisfy my subconscious and my muse. Then I will theoretically move on to something else.

(It might also be that you’re attracted to a certain theme or story type. The advice still holds true.)

Are you stuck on a story that just doesn’t seem quite “right?” Try approaching it in a completely different manner. Change characters, settings, or story arcs, and see what happens. (If you’re feeling really brave, you could even change your medium.) You aren’t wasting words. You’re exploring ideas. You might not keep one or the other, or you might keep both. What you discover in your multiple versions might help another, or they might be completely distinct to one another. You might even find yourself able to take a story, such as Jodi did, and restart it from the beginning–same world, same characters–and turn it into something new.

Be brave. Every time you challenge yourself, you improve yourself as a storyteller and you are not wasting your words.

What You Know Can Help You Write

06 Friday Apr 2012

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On Tuesday, Ann talked about six techniques you can use to interact with your story without working on your story. Her post inspired me to change my plans for this week and write today’s subject. I’ll come back to finish up my thoughts on antagonists some time in the future.

It’s possible–likely, even–that you possess detailed knowledge about something, be it a hobby, an academic subject, or a specialized (or not) occupation. That is knowledge you can include pretty easily into some stories you might tell. It can even be the background, inspiration, or major element in a story.

Now, before I go much further let me clarify that I’m not advocating the old advice, “Write what you know.” No. I think that is generally terrible advice and instead advocate the “Write what you want to read” approach introduced to me by my friend Sean (who I think heard it elsewhere).

What I am saying is “What you know can inform what you write.” Some extreme examples of what I mean are John Grisham,  a lawyer who now writes bestsellers about lawyers doing stuff, or Tess Gerritsen who is a doctor most famous for her mystery novels starring a city medical examiner. You needn’t go quite that far, of course, to find inspiration in what you know, what you’ve done, and what you’ve lived.

Whatever you know, whatever you do (both occupationally and leisurely), you can integrate something from your life into your stories to give them that added touch of realism–or to heighten the drama.

The things you know and do might not be appropriate to all stories, genres, or media, of course, but you can almost certainly pull from your experiences to add gravitas, weight, and depth to your stories.

Let me indulge here in a personal example. Some years ago I worked in the on-call courier business in Portland, Oregon. I have all kinds of stories–vignettes, really–from my five years on a bike, in a car, and behind a desk in the Portland courier biz. For the longest time, I considered that universe–of snarky beer-swilling bike messengers and bitter beer-swilling car couriers–as a background to a movie screenplay, novel, or other long-form narrative. In truth, though, the nature of on-call delivery is more appropriate for episodic narrative. Were I to go back to that time I’d consider turning my experiences–and those of other messengers and couriers in Portland and elsewhere–into a webcomic or other short-form storytelling medium.

Instead of writing about being a courier, though–instead of writing what I know (or knew, really; I imagine much has changed in the past nine years)–I use those experiences to feed into my stories and settings I create today. No, I don’t focus the action around couriers, but over the body of my work it’s hard to not see couriers and messengers sneak in here and there–almost always in important ways. It’s something that is, or was, a significant part of my life, and it’s something I feel comfortable going back to and talking about.

Your own knowledge is probably very different from mine, of course, but my base advice remains the same. You know something you can include in a story. Slip it in when you can!