Inkpunks

The great thing about having guests of honour like Dan Wells at your local convention, is you get to hear words of wisdom from the best in the industry right in your backyard, so to speak. At VCon this year, Dan did a work shop called How To Scare People, something he does often in his novels. With Dan’s permission, I’m going to share what I took away from his workshop.

1. Establish normal and then break it

Fear is our response to something that goes wrong, so make sure your readers know what is normal for your world and your novel. Then go ahead and break that.

2. Familiar becomes unfamiliar

Dan gave the example of a scene in the movie Zombieland where there are little girls in princess dresses running around. Cute, right? No, because they’re zombies and that’s creepy. People can also become unfamiliar. Think of when someone you’re in a relationship with says, “we need to talk.” You don’ t know what’s wrong, but something has changed. That’s scary.

3. Make them wait

A group of people are sitting around talking about baseball, then the room erupts in an explosion. Interesting, but not a lot of tension or fear built up. Contrast that with letting the audience know there’s a bomb under the table, while the group talks about baseball. It completely changes the scene.

Another way to make them wait is to magnify a moment by dragging it out, perhaps by describing something in great detail that doesn’t seem like it should be given that much attention. It’ll make your reader nervous.

4. Push fear buttons

“Sometimes, a spider is all you need.” –Dan Wells.

We’re all afraid of different things, so it’s not always easy to trigger those fears. Generally speaking, our common biggest fear triggers are our vulnerabilities. In the workshop we easily came up with a long list of things most people are afraid of such as: paralysis, darkness, betrayal, illness, toxic relationships and many more.

5. Show the monster

Finally, you need to show the monster. How many times is the reveal of the monster a let down compared to the build up? Dan says to never try to meet expectations, but either exceed them or subvert them.

In Jaws, we’re shown a shark at the beginning, it’s small and it’s dead. When we finally see the real one, it’s is HUGE, very much alive and covered in blood.

Hannibal subverts our expectations. We’re first introduced to him by the other characters talking about him, about how awful he is, the horrible things he has done, but then when we meet him, he’s calm, well spoken and doesn’t “look” scary. That’s what makes him completely terrifying.

I hope this helps you in your writing and good luck scaring your readers! Thanks to Dan for allowing me to share his tips with you.

Dan Wells writes in a variety of genres, from dark humor to science fiction to supernatural thriller. Born in Utah, he spent his early years reading and writing. He is the author of the Partials series and the John Cleaver series. He has been nominated for both the Hugo and the Campbell Award, and has won two Parsec Awards for his podcast Writing Excuses.

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Ya know, these inkpunk people have written a lot of really smart stuff. I remember when I first started reading the blog a few years ago each new post was a breath of fresh air and inspiration. At the time I was trying to restart my own creative life with ambitions to write an epic fantasy novel or maybe create a webcomic, or at least start drawing again, SOMETHING! Every post left me feeling energized and ready to do it.

So today I decided to select a few inkpunk gems from the past, focusing on inspiration, setting goals, style, writing exercises, etc. Whether you are gearing up for NaNoWriMo* next month, looking for motivation to start a new creative endeavor, or full tilt in your current WIP, may this help fuel the fires and release the madness.

From Adam Israel:

Learning To Say No: “There was a day, not that long ago, that I’d jump at any opportunity for volunteer work in the speculative fiction field. I was eager, willing and capable, even when my workload was already spilling over the edges like a good bowl of french onion soup… ” ~read more

 

Working Through Self Doubt: “I had to figure out a deeper truth. The most important thing to writing a first draft is to get the ideas onto the page. Like working with clay, you have to start with a rough form before you can shape it into something beautiful. Revision is the potters wheel, spinning and spinning until the prose sings a song that brings tears to our eyes.” ~read more

From Andrew Penn-Romine:

Capturing the Essence: Gesture Drawing for Writers:“I started carrying around a small notebook in pocket at all times, prepared to sketch any interesting people who came my way. I quickly found that my notebook became more of an idea book, however, with rough sketches replaced by descriptive phrases and bits of doggerel.” ~read more

 

Failure: You’re Doing it Right: “Failure is part of the process, so it’s helpful to openly acknowledge it as such and move on from any sense of shame you might feel. The more you think of it as normal, the less it can bug you.” ~read more

From Carrie Ratajski (aka Geardrops):

First person POV and Developing other Characters: “So this round, I’m sitting down with each character and thinking through their story in this story. How did they get here exactly. What do they want. How do their wants change as the story goes on. What are they doing while they’re offscreen.” ~read more

 

Listmaking and Letting Go: “My two lists are “Things I Want That Are Wholly Within My Control” and “Things I Want That Are Not Wholly Within My Control.” (Well actually they’re “career goal things” and “career squee things” but you don’t need to know the sordid details of my doc filing system.)” ~read more

From Christie Yant:

Getting Unstuck: “What [Steven] Brust’s lecture did was provide me with tools to help me write cool shit that matters when I’m stuck. Because if it’s not cool, I frankly don’t want to write it.” ~read more

 

Writing What’s Real: “I remember the first time I put something real in a story. It was the smell of my ex-boyfriend’s leather jacket, the way it smelled at 2:00 a.m. on a park bench in a seaside college town as we watched a Jerusalem cricket slowly amble by in the sodium glow of the streetlight.” ~read more

From Erika Holt:

Getting Started: The Hardest Part: “Overcoming inertia seems impossible at times. This is particularly true when I’ve taken a long break or have only been able to write sporadically. That elusive thing called “flow” is absent and I feel I’ll never get it back.” ~read more

 

Breaking out of a Stylistic Rut: “…the early days can also be a time of heady experimentation. A literary story written in first person, present-tense might be followed by a high fantasy story in distant third person. We write flash pieces, and novellas, and portions of novels. We’re not yet constrained by our style, because we don’t have one. Once we move beyond this stage, into what might be considered a “style” of our own, other problems can arise.” ~read more

 

From Jaym Gates:

Decompression: “I wrote 4 novel drafts, over 50 short or flash stories, and a crap-ton of blog and forum posts. I added it all up at one point (minus forum posts and most blogs) and had over 300,000 words, about a year before that pace caught up with me. I burned out HARD.” ~read more

 

In Her Forehead Are the Blessings of Allah: “This post isn’t going to correct EVERYTHING Hollywood gets wrong, but that’s not what it is about. It’s more about examining the horse as a companion and cohort in heroics.” ~read more

From John Remy:

Abuse Your Muse: “So here’s my idea, which I wish someone had told me earlier in my writing career: We own our muses, not the other way around. They are not cats, or addictions, or sacrifice-demanding, dictating deities. Here are three ways you can abuse your muse:” ~read more

 

Making Nanaowrimo Work for You: “I participated in NaNoWriMo [years ago], and am wondering if I should subject myself to this painful experience again this year. Maybe others are contemplating similar questions.” ~read more

From Sandra Wickham:

Sometimes We Need a Kick in the Butt; “…check out Written Kitten I’ve used it to help get words down because it’s absolutely adorable. You can set the number of new words you need to produce before you get a new kitten, 100, 200, 500 or 1000. When you hit that number, surprise! A new, incredibly cute kitten picture appears. Who can resist that?” ~read more

 

Write-Brain Excuses; “On my shelves I have a great book called “The Write-Brain Workbook, 366 Exercises to Liberate Your Writing,” by Bonnie Neubauer. In this crazy writing life, one thing this is clear. Improving our writing requires practice, practice and more practice. I’ve mined some of my favorites for you. These can help you out of a writing slump, can serve as a warm up for your writing session or can spark ideas for larger works. However you use them, have fun!”~read more

From Wendy N. Wagner.

YES, BUT – NO, AND: “If you’re like me, a wonderful scene will just pop into your head while you’re doing dishes or going for a walk, and you become really excited about it. It’s only later, when you sit down to work through the scene that you realize this scene is so perfect and complete that you can’t figure out what could possibly come after it.” ~read more

 

Fire it up! A writing exercise: “Find an object to study. Maybe it’s a painting. Maybe it’s a jar of hand cream. Anything will do, as long as it’s close at hand. Make sure you have no distractions. Turn off the phone and feed the cats. Let yourself relax.” ~read more

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There you go. A healthy serving of advice, a dash of commiserating,  a few exercises, some horses, a few kitties, and an ex-boyfriend’s leather jacket. Now, go forth and create something!

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*For those of you interested in artistic NaNaWriMo alternatives, check out my post on that subject for the Functional Nerds.

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inkpunks, nanowrimo

Image courtesy Steve (cc) Flickr

I know what you’re thinking. It’s mid-October, so why I am I talking about summer? Well, here in Los Angeles, the last of the summer heat has just broken, and proper fall is just now beginning. Everything is pumpkin-spiced and crisp, and the 60-degree overnight lows keep us indoors–so what better time to reflect on the last few months?

At the start of the summer, I outlined a plan to turn my full-time-writer summer into a very productive period. Did it work? For the most part, yes. I think we always wish for more hours in the day and more creative output at the end of it. There are projects I didn’t quite finish and others that didn’t turn out quite as planned.

I finished my novel draft. Another pass awaits. I worked on more short stories (though not the ones I’d planned to work on!). I wrote some comic scripts and TV ideas. I drew more. I tried different schedules to divide up my day. I got more exercise. I raised my keyboard and stood at my desk while I worked.

These were all radical departures from my usual process of writing in the morning and working during the day. Of course, it can be terrifying to untether yourself from routine, from the safety and comfort of ritual. Some creatives work best when they focus on only one project at a time. Others when time and other factors are rigidly structured.

But (mostly) on the other side of my Summer Sabbatical, I’ve discovered the time to play in other forms, to (re)create myself in other ways, has been a wonderful experience. I’ve gained some confidence as a writer and creative, and it’s also been a lot of fun!

This luxury of time came with a hefty price tag — long periods of unemployment aren’t exactly ideal — but there are some ways you might take a sabbatical from your routine, even when you can’t make big changes.

image courtesy Joy Kirr (cc), Flickr

 1. Change the Time of Day You Create. If you can, try writing in the morning (if you usually write in the evening) and vice versa. Work at both times if you don’t already. Work on the same project, or use the other time slot for a different sort of project. The experimental one.

image courtesy Horia Varlan (cc), Flickr

2. Experiment. As writers, we’re probably doing this already — playing with form and POVs and structure, etc. Try going way outside your comfort zone. Work on comic scripts. Draw comics. Write poetry, or mysteries, or flash fiction. Write some erotica. Draw some erotica!

image Helgi Halldórsson/Freddi (cc) Flickr

 3. Accept That It’s Okay When Something Isn’t Working. I’m a big believer in finishing things. But personally speaking, if I’ve been grinding on a project too hard, it’s better to take a break and step away before I burn out. This applies to changes in routine, too. If writing in the morning just doesn’t work for you, then go back to your evening schedule. If you discover you still hate writing screenplays, then find another alternative to your fiction routine. This Sabbatical is about finding the things you love. And if you discover at the end of it that what you really love is writing fiction (or drawing comics, or painting portraits, or developing TV pilots) — then at least you’ve explored your artistic options.

And that’s always a great thing.

So. We’re coming up on the holidays (faster every year, I’ve noticed). Our routines are going to be squashed and stretched by the demands of parties and the obligations of fun and general chaos of celebrations. So while things are a little topsy-turvy, maybe it’s a good time to try something new?
Let me know what you think.

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On August 20, 2013, we received the sad news that great American writer Elmore Leonard had passed away. I’m ashamed to admit I’d never heard of Mr. Leonard before Twitter told me of his passing, though of course I was familiar with the Hollywood adaptations of his work.

That day, Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing were tweeted and retweeted. Maybe I’d seen these before, but as I read them again it struck me that though there was much wisdom there, I disagreed with a couple, at least in so far as they’re said to be gospel. These are: “Avoid detailed descriptions of characters” and “Don’t go into great detail describing places or things.”

In this post I’ll stick to discussing character description, but much of what I say could apply to descriptions of places and things. In fact, I might do another post about setting-as-character, and how descriptions can serve to heighten tone and atmosphere.

Now, is it possible to go too far with character descriptions; to include too much detail? Yes. Does the reader need a complete description of each character immediately upon being introduced to them? No. Is the fact that the character has dry elbows important? Well…maybe not. But must detailed descriptions be avoided at all costs? I don’t think so.

Here’s the thing: when they’re well done, I like character descriptions. I like getting to know people I might not have imagined myself, and often admire the skill that goes into crafting a good description, though some might call the latter authorial intrusion.

The following are examples of quite detailed character descriptions from award-winning and/or bestselling works.

From Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policeman’s Union:

Little bird of a man. Bright eye, snub beak. Bit of a flush in the cheeks and throat that might have been rosacea. Not a hard case, not a scumbag, not quite a lost soul. A yid not too different from Landsman, maybe, apart from his choice of drug. Clean fingernails. Always a tie and hat. Read a book with footnotes once. Now Lasker lies on his belly, on the pull-down bed, face to the wall, wearing only a pair of regulation white underpants. Ginger hair and ginger freckles and three days of golden stubble on his cheek. A trace of a double chin that Landsman puts down to a vanished life as a fat boy. Eyes swollen in their blood-dark orbits. At the back of his head is a small, burnt hole.

This excerpt shows wonderful facility with prose, neatly encapsulates a murder victim’s life, and tells us something about the POV character as well. And these details are being reported by a character who has reason to notice: a homicide detective investigating a murder.

From multiple award winning novel The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood:

I get up out of the chair, advance my feet into the sunlight, in their red shoes, flat-heeled to save the spine and not for dancing. The red gloves are lying on the bed. I pick them up, pull them onto my hands, finger by finger. Everything except the wings around my face is red: the colour of blood, which defines us. The skirt is ankle-length, full, gathered to a flat yoke that extends over the breasts, the sleeves are full. The white wings too are prescribed issue; they are to keep us from seeing, but also from being seen. I never looked good in red, it’s not my colour. I pick up the shopping basket and put it over my arm.

Here we learn a lot about the world—a foreign and rule-bound place—and get a sense of the character’s reluctance and lack of free will. There’s also a palpable sense of menace (“and not for dancing”).

From Pulitzer Prize winning novel A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole:

A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselves, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs. In the shadow under the green visor of the cap Ignatius J. Reilly’s supercilious blue and yellow eyes looked down upon the other people waiting under the clock at the D. H. Holmes department store, studying the crowd of people for signs of bad taste in dress. Several of the outfits, Ignatius noticed, were new enough and expensive enough to be properly considered offenses against taste and decency. Possession of anything new or expensive only reflected a person’s lack of theology and geometry; it could even cast doubts upon one’s soul.

Ignatius himself was dressed comfortably and sensibly. The hunting cap prevented head colds. The voluminous tweed trousers were durable and permitted unusually free locomotion. Their pleats and nooks contained pockets of warm, stale air that soothed Ignatius. The plaid flannel shirt made a jacket unnecessary while the muffler guarded exposed Reilly skin between earflap and collar. The outfit was acceptable by any theological and geometrical standards, however abstruse, and suggested a rich inner life.

Ridiculous and funny on its face, this excerpt also tells the reader a fair bit about Mr. Reilly’s..interesting view of the world, and marks him as a potentially unreliable narrator.

These are all “literary” works (well, The Handmaid’s Tale is literary SFF, but don’t tell Margaret Atwood), but anything that can be done in literary writing can be done in any genre. And character descriptions don’t have to be flowery. Here are a couple of genre examples:

From The Name of the Wind by #1 New York Times bestselling author Patrick Rothfuss:

It was a spider as large as a wagon wheel, black as slate.

…

“It’s not a spider,” Jake said. “It’s got no eyes.”

“It’s got no mouth either,” Carter pointed out…

…

“Its feet are sharp like knives.”
“More like razors,” Kote said… “It’s smooth and hard, like pottery.”

…

Moving carefully, the innkeeper took one of the long, smooth legs and tried to break it with both hands like a stick. “Not pottery,” he amended… “More like stone.” He looked up at Carter. “How did it get all these cracks?” He pointed at the thin fractures that crazed the smooth black surface of the body.

…

…”There’s no blood. No organs. It’s just grey inside.” He poked it with a finger. “Like a mushroom.”

…

…”Spiders don’t get as big as pigs. You know what this is… It’s a demon.”

Here we see description in dialogue rather than as an expository lump. Rothfuss could’ve simply described the thing as spider-like or something equally generic and let the reader imagine, but instead he’s created a fantastical beast considerably more formidable and mysterious than a mere spider—part of the fun of fantasy.

From Peter S. Beagle’s classic The Last Unicorn:

The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. She was very old, though she did not know it, and she was no longer the careless color of sea foam, but rather the color of snow falling on a moonlit night. But her eyes were still clear and unwearied, and she still moved like a shadow on the sea.

She did not look anything like a horned horse, as unicorns are often pictured, being smaller and cloven-hoofed, and possessing that oldest, wildest grace that horses never had, that deer have only in a shy, thin imitation and goats in dancing mockery. Her neck was long and slender, making her head seem smaller than it was, and the mane that fell almost to the middle of her back was as soft as dandelion fluff and as fine as cirrus. She had pointed ears and thin legs, with feathers of white hair at her ankles; and the long horn above her eyes shone and shivered with its own seashell light even in the deepest midnight. She had killed dragons with it, and healed a king whose poisoned wound would not close, and knocked down ripe chestnuts for bear cubs.

Unicorns are immortal. It is their nature to live alone in one place; usually a forest where there is a pond clear enough to see themselves—for they are a little vain, knowing themselves to be the most beautiful creatures in the world, and magic besides…

This has a lovely, fairytale quality about it and shows us a magical creature nothing like the “horned horse” we might’ve otherwise imagined. And it’s important that the reader understand what’s at stake before her transformation takes place; how extraordinary and very different unicorns are from humans. The story wouldn’t be nearly so poignant otherwise.

io9 has more great character descriptions from science fiction and fantasy books here.

Whether we choose to describe characters in detail or not boils down to what kind of story we’re writing. It’s a matter of style and the fact is that some readers will prefer more description and some will prefer less and that’s okay.

Stories that lack character descriptions have a sort of everyman quality; the sense that one is reading a parable, or allegory, or a story of such profound and basic importance that individual characters take second place to theme. The characters may be serving more as archetypes, and the author need only insert a couple telling details to allow the reader to recognize them. Readers are invited to fill in blanks so they might feel more invested—as though the story could very well be about them or people they know, or is at least as they choose to imagine it, rather than having the author’s vision forced upon them.

There are still other reasons for omitting detailed character descriptions, such as form emulating content—think of the aptly named Shadow from Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, whose appearance is kept mysterious in keeping with his name—or that excessive or ill-timed description can dissipate tension.

But there are reasons, too, for describing characters more fully.

Maybe the best descriptions are those that achieve more than simply describing a character—that work on more than one level. They are humorous or sad, elucidate setting or a state of mind, show us something fantastical or artful, serve the purpose of world building, or some combination of all of these.

Maybe the problem Leonard is getting at is when the details shared about a character’s appearance add nothing to the story other than a mere visual. If the character is an average farm boy, for example, perhaps it’s enough to say he was wearing old boots and had a smear of grease on his cheek—the color of his hair isn’t really that important. If that farm boy has a pierced lip, well, that might be unusual and worthy of mention. It tells us something more (i.e. maybe he’s a rebel, or has been to the city, or aspires to something other than rural life) than does the fact that his eyes are green. Of course, if we’re reading a romance, the fact that the farm boy’s eyes are green is important. We notice these things about our romantic interests, and characters should notice these things, too.

Proscriptive rules of writing are often too simple, but there’s still good reason to know and consider them. When it comes to writing character descriptions, consider: 1) whether a character has good reason to notice and describe, in detail, what she or another character looks like; 2) which details a character is likely to notice depending on their personality/occupation/role and the nature of your story (e.g. romance, fantasy, mystery); and 3) whether your character descriptions might serve some additional purpose(s) (e.g. world building, social commentary, establishing voice etc.). With these things in mind I say…describe away!

What do you think? Do you prefer detailed descriptions or find them tedious?

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Mary Kowal at her standing desk. Photo by Marcia Glover (c) 2011.

There’s a strange contagion spreading throughout the SF writing community. What is this pernicious pestilence that has infected inkpunks? Is it perhaps knocking at your door in a brown uniform bearing giant, back-straining Amazon packages? Remy, you say, we read the fucking post title. Get on with the standing desks already, you say. Very well, I shall get on.

Christie’s colorful and small footprint standing desk arrangement

Christie’s home office set up includes a standing desk and a seated desk, and she spends roughly half time at each. This particular standing desk doesn’t have much room for mouse movement, so she uses the following seated arrangement when she works with graphics.

 Christie’s seated desk

When Christie started using her standing desk she felt a lot of pain in her hips, but she is now able to stand for six hours per day without discomfort. She definitely recommends easing into a standing routine, either by gradually building up or alternating hourly between seated and standing.

If you’re interested in the details of Christie’s set up, she’s using this desk, with this anti-fatigue mat, and she recommends a good pair of shoes, like these.

Remy’s combined seated and standing set up

I’ve been using my standing desk for several months now. The details of my standing set up: my keyboard is supported by two reams of paper and a bunch of database/programming books (which are thick and expensive and go obsolete quickly, so it’s great to find a second life for them outside of recycling), my monitor by an old desktop PC, and my mouse pad is an old netbook packing box. And like Christie, I find that shoes make a huge difference in how long I can stand. I swapped out my cons for a pair of old running shoes.

I like my set up because it’s cheap and easy to adjust (add or remove another two books, swap the shoe box for a netbook box, etc.), and it’s easy for me to switch to a seated arrangement by moving the keyboard and the mouse box and switching primary monitor. The biggest drawback to this arrangement is that it limits the effectiveness of having two monitors. And maybe that it’s not very earthquake-friendly…

Not pictured: the three unnamed fantasy books supporting the monitor

Wendy wins the lowest price DiY standing desk award: $1 for a folding bed tray, purchased at Goodwill, repurposed as a keyboard stand! She’s on her feet for most of the day, taking a break in the afternoons.

Like many folks who make the switch, Wendy credits her standing with health benefits: she no longer feels the considerable shoulder and neck pain she experienced prior to using her standing desk. Christie feels less fatigued. Others that I spoke with also attribute similar effects to their switch: less back pain, more energy, and better emotional health.

The main benefit that I can observe: I can stand longer. This is a big deal for me, since standing for as little as ten minutes on a hard surface was a painful experience before I started (my daily stand up meetings at work used to be an ordeal, and I leaned on things a lot). Now I’m able to stand for hours at a time, with only some minor back fatigue or soreness–a huge improvement from the past.

 Erika’s standing desk

Erika is trying out the standing desk now, improvising with a box of paper and a short bookcase. She said that she keeps a chair handy so that she can stand “Captain Morgan style” on occasion. I had to look this up:

Inkpunks does not endorse Captain Morgan Spiced Rum. Though some members privately endorse Kraken. And drinking responsibly.

So I think this means that Erika wears a pirate hat, a cape and a sword to her standing desk. I’ll allow her to clarify.

Sandra’s dilemma, solved

Sandra claims that standing desks can eliminate concerns about chair theft by cats. But she may not have read this “goosed by cats” post by Mary Kowal. Cats once again show their ability to adapt to new circumstance more quickly than their human charges.

I’ll close this post with a few standing desk arrangements from friends:

Andrew Williams also improvised his standing desk arrangement. He switches between standing and seated, noting that “different configurations actually seem suited for different tasks and different headspaces.”

Maggie Croft says that “working at a sitting desk was bothering my back. A standing desk [is] much better for my back, my general physicality and I feel better emotionally.”

Just to show that there are as many approaches to standing desks as there are writers, Liz Argall decided to work her calves and thighs by standing at her desk in roller skates. I dare any of you to top that!

Finally, Elizabeth Mock has an excellent review (including video of her installation) of the Ninja Standing Desk on her blog.

If you’ve got a standing desk, please let us know how it’s been for you. Better yet, share pictures of your set up!

Also, I’d love to hear from those of you who’ve tried and chosen not to continue with it. What did you find problematic about the stand up desk experience?

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Today’s guest post comes from Colleen Anderson. Colleen freelances in copyediting and writing and also edits poetry for Chizine and does slush manuscript editing for ChiZine Publications. She’s a past editor for Aberrant Dreams, has edited for many first-time novels for individuals and has worked with publishers and magazines. Her poem “Of the Corn: Kore’s Innocence” was nominated for this year’s Aurora Award in poetry. You can visit her blog here: Colleen Anderson

Originally I was going to write about gender stereotypes but after the unexpected death of a friend last week I have decided to switch. So, in honour of Andrew Brechin who died too young, I dedicate this post to character.

Andrew Brechin knew how to be a character and a three-dimensional one at that. Photo: Tanya Kozak

If you saw Andrew on the street you might think, there is a rather stout fellow, or; he is a portly guy. Two ways of saying the same thing but different connotations to them. These statements might give the tone of the time period in which the story is given, or the narrator’s voice and suggest a certain level of education or deportment. They can also indicate a person’s view of another character. We’ll see more about Andrew’s deportment as we go on. In fact, as I play the only partially omniscient narrator of this piece, I will hopefully reveal more about Andrew to make him live in your mind, for that is how we keep all who have moved beyond the veil alive.

If I said that Andrew was part of the Society for Creative Anachronism (or medieval society) you might get a picture in your head of someone who liked history and to dress in costumes. And if I told you his medieval name was Guillermo Portelli, and knowing he was a stout fellow, you might begin to think he made a joke at his expense. And you would be right in both accounts.

He did indeed like to dress up but more of a daily raiment than a costume. He was known to have once dressed as baby Cthulhu, that tentacled Old One of  H.P. Lovecraft’s invention. A few pictures do exist. There are other pictures of him with black wings and a black peasant shirt, fake Viking helm with plastic horns, wearing striped pants as he stands proudly on a miniature Viking ship, swirls of paint and glitter as he participates as one of the topless wish fairies in the Lantern festival, or wearing a long red robe with hood as a tech wizard, and wearing a purple top hat as he walks down the street, with cloak and a drum over his shoulders. There are many pictures of Andrew in various types of face and body paint.

Yes, Andrew loved to dress up and was known to have a few hats. You see, he didn’t believe that as an adult you had to let go of the child within. He was a staunch agent of joy and the sacred jester. He brought mirth and fun wherever he went, whether he was drumming for bellydancers, or just out there enjoying a party.

If I stopped here, you would have a picture of him, of how he looked and some of his attitude, but he was much more than this. Every year for his birthday, he would announce Breklormas, a feastorama at a local Chinese restaurant. The greasier the better, and I’m sorry to say I never made it to one.

He had a cunning mind and frequently formed wild plans for world domination or something with bacon in it, or some other crazy idea that he’d share with friends. Once of his last posts before he died was this:

So, on the one hand, I really don’t want the Winter Olympics back. On the other, the idea of taking it back from the Russians and making it the GAYEST FUCKING OLYMPICS EVAR (which is really saying something, since the Classical Greek athletes competed naked except for a coating of olive oil) amuses the heck out of me. We could make a Queer Olympic Flag with seven rainbow rings on it, and I think it would pass copyright law as a parody…

I wasn’t his closest friend but I saw some of this wizardly wit with his quips on facebook. And yes, Andrew’s, or Breklor as we sometimes called him, wit and whimsy were evident. He had a penchant for shooting pictures of toilets and posting them just because it was rather, well…Andrew.

Stereotypes begin in reality and are only a snapshot of someone. We have a clichéd image of what a jock, a hippy, a power attorney, a rock star, a nerd, a hipster, etc. look like. There is a uniform to both clothing and personality type. But it’s like looking at twenty blueberry pies baked by different people. They may all be pies and have blueberries but they will have diverse textures, various flavors and when you really look at them, uniquely different aspects.

When you write, even if you have a stereotype, you need to flesh that character inside and out. Anyone who just saw Andrew walking down the street, in cape and top hat, walking into the Stormcrow, haven for geeky game enthusiasts, would classify him as one of the same ilk. They would be right but what distinguishes one geek or nerd or jock from another is how you portray them. Already, because I’ve described more carefully Andrew’s clothing, he wasn’t just a T-shirt wearing geek. He was always clean and carefully dressed, and while he wore T-shirts from time to time, he also wore other shirts that had far more character.

While he loved to bring in joy and mirth, he wasn’t goofy. He had an innate sense of when to bring in laughter and when to be serious and listen. He loved kids, and while I heard he experienced bullying as a child, he decided to turn it around and put joy in its place. He was a good and intelligent conversationalist with deep insights. The beliefs he held included loving and wholly embracing who he was. Never once would I say he was annoying. He just knew. And he was pervasive, so much so that when the ripples went out last week from the shock of finding out of his untimely passing, various friends were surprised to find that another of their friends had known him as well. He was everywhere and the words most people used to describe him were: wizardly, witty, wise, joyful.

Make you characters come alive so the reader is invested. Stephen King has done this very well, even if it was particularly annoying to get into a character in just two pages and find that on the third page he died. Instead of giving dry descriptions it’s best to show character through movement, expression, dialogue and appearance.

Andrew Brechin was the sacred jester, bringing mirth to many. He would make a great story character. Photo: Tanya Kozak

Andrew knocked at the old church gate, black feathered wings tied to his back and a glint in his eye. He leaned forward expectantly, then looked back at the camera, trying to suppress a smile. Giving up, he turned and stuck his tongue out.

With this external view, you get a sense of the character, the surroundings and the attitude. So in a page or less you can define a character and if you’re writing a story, you can drop small pieces of description in as the character moves or talks. A little goes a long way in the reader’s imagination.

As you write characters into your stories, remember this: Even your villains have to live and while they may want world domination, they may also suffer from a runny nose and lumbago, and love kittens and blueberry pies. No one, not even a stereotype is all bad or good. We are made up of shades of grey and of all colours of the rainbow. Andrew was. Not only did he bring light into lonely dark places, he brought rainbows as well.

I plan to use Andrew one day in a story, either as a villain or a good guy. He’d be tickled pink and purple to know that he lives on.

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For my post today I just wanted to share an odd assortment of stuff that inspired me, motivated me, made an impact in some way, and was usually stumbled upon at just the right moment.  It’s an eclectic assortment, little bit of this, little bit of that, just a chance to indulge in some very cool stuff other people have said and done.  Here we go.

A few weeks ago (when I was feeling very much in the grind), Wendy N. Wagner wrote about Being Okay With Where You Are:

“A few weeks ago, the very wonderful John Anealio wrote a great blog post about getting out of the success grind. What he said made a lot of sense. Sometimes your ego makes the artistic experience painful and miserable, and it’s stupid to turn the joy of our lives into torment. Sometimes you have to change your relationship with your ego to make good art…. Sometimes I absolutely loathe myself for writing so slowly–after all, if I was a “real writer,” I’d be cranking out the words…. But only sometimes. Mostly I remember that holding a Hugo award in my hand can’t possibly feel as good as that moment when I’m lost in a story and there’s no time or space except the stuff I’m unfolding in my head.”  ~read more

Wendy was also part of the recent SF Signal Mind Meld about Favorite Female Protagonists and it’s a collection of AWESOME.

One of my creative heroes, Amanda Palmer, wrote a (sort of) review about Neil’s new book where she talked about a lot of stuff, including their differences in creative styles:

“we start off with all these fresh ingredients, recognizable (a heart, a finger, an eyeball, a glass of wine) and we throw them in the art-blender. i only let things mix very slightly. i keep my blender on 2 or 3. you can recognize the component parts: in the final art-soup, the finger might be severed and mangled, but you can peer into your bowl and see that it’s a finger, floating there, all human and bloody and finger-y. neil puts his art-blender on 10. you wind up with a fantastic purée, but often you have no fucking idea where the experiences of his life wound up in the mix of his final product. if you see a finger, it’s not recognizable as a human one. and that’s part of what makes Neil Gaiman (capital N and G) work. and, i’d argue, my choice to dial my art-blender down from a 5 to a 2 or 3 over the past few years, as i write more and more “direct” songs…i don’t know, it may be part of what i’ve needed to do to survive as an artist (or more likely, as a human).
we do these things instinctively, i think.” ~read more.

Incidentally, the Amanda Palmer Tarot Deck, a project started over four years ago then shelved indefinitely, has just been resurrected with a very successful kickstarter campaign. It’s proof to me that no idea, no project,  is ever truly dead.

Speaking of long term creative projects, this photographic documentation of four sisters that spans 36years is powerful and provocative.

Amy Sundberg wrote about Taking Time Off From Social Media and noted:

“I hadn’t unplugged myself so thoroughly for quite some time, and I found quite a lot of value in it. Space to just be. Time to think about whatever I wanted to think about. Permission to be in my own present moment, whatever that happened to look like. And perhaps most refreshing, a break from most external stress…. When we hate a thing or secretly resent it, we aren’t going to be doing our best work. A grudging connection has a different quality to it than one that is celebrated.” ~read more

Thinking of time and space and being present in a moment, I just have to share this mumuration of starlings:

Murmuration from Islands & Rivers on Vimeo.

To me that’s just pure magic which made me think of what Theodora Goss wrote about the Magical Women in her life:

“…They make the world more magical, show me the parts of it that are magical, in case I’ve forgotten… To the arts in some form, specifically to the mythic in arts, and to arts that change the world. I think it takes a great deal of courage to be one of the people who tries to change the world in some way — I’ve heard too many people say that they’re not trying to change the world, that they’re just trying to entertain (particularly in their writing). But that’s the point of that? If you’re not trying to change the world, what are you doing, and why? I mean, doesn’t the world need changing?” ~read more

One magical women in my life, Christie Yant, wrote Regarding People of Faith in the SFF Community. It affected me personally as I negotiate my own faith(less) journey and the people around me:

“It’s the old fishbowl allegory: One fish says to the other, “Isn’t the water lovely today?” and the second fish says, “What’s water?”… We forget that while we know three of the people at the table pretty well, and they all just laughed at our joke, we just met that fourth one and huh, she wasn’t really laughing.” ~read more

Moving from faith into the realm of math, but still, ironically, about connection and community, Vi Hart makes a party out of triangles:

That’s all I have for now, hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for letting me indulge just a bit. What’s inspiring you lately?

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Community, inpsiration, SFF community

photo by Al Ibrahim – Creative Commons license

A happy side effect of my un- and under-employed summer is that I had plenty of time to finally wrap up the 0th draft of my novel. I’ve been steadily working on it since last October (longer, if you count a different version of the book I began in 2010), and as much as I love that story, it’s a big relief to set it down for a little while.

Of course, I’m not really done done, but I need a break. I’ve spent the last week catching up on things and trying to decide what to do now that the novel’s reached this stage.

Here’s what I’ve decided.

1) Let the Novel Rest

This is advice I’ve heard from more than one author, and it seems sound reasoning to me. For the better part of a year, my head’s been buried in the world of the novel. I’m still way too close to it to have good perspectives on how to fix the problems that I know it has: Overlong first act. Characters who don’t know who they are. Needlessly purple prose that captures the author’s mood and/or state of mind while he struggled through a scene. Superhero-style fights with exploding scenery where quiet dialog scenes were called for.

Well, these are the problems as I imagine them now, though I’m sure with some distance I’ll realize some things are actually working very well — and other things I thought were cool will be utterly terrible.

In about a month’s time, I’m going to print the manuscript, grab some friendly markers and post-its, and dive back in. In the meantime, I’m trying very hard not to think about the book at all. Fortunately I have things to distract me….

2) Work on Other Projects

Even when I was in the thick of writing the initial draft, I’d take short breaks to bust out a short story here and there. Even with the threat of divided focus, I figured I needed these breaks to keep my brain fresh and keep my authorial name out there.

Because I’d done a lot of world building in the novel, most of my “breaks” consisted of stories set in other parts of that same world. I already knew the setting, so it saved time when I needed to write a story quickly. Now that I’m getting started on some completely unrelated projects…….. The book is fantasy, so fresh from my Launch Pad experience, I’m leaping into a couple of science fiction projects.

3) Read a Lot

I’ve found that it’s hard for me to read novels while I’m working on a story. This is different for everyone, I know, but the voice of a really good (and even really bad) book starts to leak into my writing process. I can see it subtly nudging my words, filling me with ideas that don’t belong. I know this is partly because I’m new at this and haven’t yet learned all the ways to sharpen my focus — but the unfortunate side effect of this is I end up not reading much while I’m writing. And since I’m always writing….

Well, you see where this is going. I’m redoubling my efforts to read more fiction (in and out of genre) over the next few weeks. I’m hoping to read as far away from the subject matter of my book as possible, just to keep me from thinking too much about it!

4) Do Other Things

I won’t stop writing entirely — I have too many projects I’d like to work on — but I’m going to spend a little bit of what was my novel writing time pursuing other things: drawing, comics, movies, games, even a little TV. I want to re-create myself a little before the novel calls again.

5) Plan the Next Book

Hah! Remember what I said about “too many projects?”

Well, I’ll dream about the next book just a little….
So there’s my game plan. What’s yours?

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book, break, novel

A few weeks ago, the very wonderful John Anealio wrote a great blog post about getting out of the success grind. What he said made a lot of sense. Sometimes your ego makes the artistic experience painful and miserable, and it’s stupid to turn the joy of our lives into torment. Sometimes you have to change your relationship with your ego to make good art.

This is a lot easier to say than to do. For example, I used to feel like a prolific writer, but I’ve slowed down a lot over the last few years. Sometimes I absolutely loathe myself for writing so slowly–after all, if I was a “real writer,” I’d be cranking out the words. That’s what all the advice tells me I should be doing, from Stephen King’s books to Chuck Wendig’s blog. My pathetic daily word count must be indicative of my weak skills and lack of commitment to the craft. When I hear that a friend has finished yet another book, I want to curl up under my desk and cry.

Sometimes.

But not that often. Only when my ego is shouting too loudly for me to drown out. Maybe writing really quickly worked me before. Right now it’s not, and I can’t change that. I need to push down that ego and focus on the writing.

Sometimes I hate the fact that I’ve never been published by those Hugo-nominated magazines I wish would publish me. It drives me crazy that I haven’t written anything prize-winning or Year’s Best-able. Sometimes I just want to punch myself in the nose for being me and not Kij Johnson.

But only sometimes. Mostly I remember that holding a Hugo award in my hand can’t possibly feel as good as that moment when I’m lost in a story and there’s no time or space except the stuff I’m unfolding in my head.

I’m glad John Anealio has found a way to make his art and life feel even more awesome. I wish more people could take a look at their lives and see so clearly. It’s easy to focus on the publishing deals, the awards, the reviews. It’s scary to look at your self. It’s scary to look at what motivates you to write every day.

When I look at myself, I see a neopro with some short story credits and a book on its way into the world. I have a few reprints. I have a handful of really nice letters from people who have liked my work. It doesn’t look like very much when I type it on a screen, but it’s the tip of my iceberg. Underneath all those achievements is a solid mass of thousands upon thousands of wonderful hours spent writing.

How many people know, absolutely and totally, that they spent that much of their lives doing so much of what they loved? And does anything else really matter?

Suck it, ego. I’m happy being where I am right now. I’m writing. It’s what I need.

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