You Are Beautiful

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Here's another writerly thought from the vacation of television viewing. On one of the days we were in Denver over break (what? I didn't tell you we went to Denver? Well of course I didn't. Do you know how many loonies are out there waiting for a public broadcast about when a person is not going to be home for an extended period of time? Sheesh.) my sister-in-law had a marathon of some fashion show on. It was some makeover show where two totally obnoxious people, a gay guy and a fashionista, makeover a woman and throw out all of her clothes while they make fun of her for not dressing like they do. It's really rather disgusting.  

During one of the episodes my brother chimed in with how he thought that all of them women were unattractive. His reasoning was that just about every one of them cried during their makeover and that to him was an ugly thing. He likes strong women who are sure of themselves and don't need clothing to feel important or worthy.

What troubled me about this was that my brother, the big NRA, Ron Paul, motorcycle mechanic, who I love, is not really all that in tune with the feminine psyche. While women will always be an enigma to me, I do seem to understand them a bit more than most men (even if I try not to let on like I do). Growing up in a divorced home where all I wanted for my mom was to find true love, I bent my will to trying to become the perfect man for some woman someday. I'd horde my mother's issues of Glamour and Cosmo. I'm sure that others in the family thought I was doing it for the pictures of the gorgeous models when in truth what I was doing was reading all of the articles pertaining to men and what women wanted. After many years of teenage research, all of them spent bumbling through failed interactions with women, I discovered some truths. The first truth is that you shouldn't believe what you read in women's magazines. Often times a woman's expressed desire does not match with what she takes action on. Years later I would finally understand why.

What my brother was seeing as a weakness, and even a rarity in women was in fact quite the opposite. Hell, it's not even confined to women, we're all that insecure. It's just that these fashionistas and their producers have found a way to break down the walls of defense so that they can get tears on film. What my brother doesn't seem to get is that almost all women feel that way. They struggle with weight, apply makeup, shave, spend thousands on clothing, work on posture, mannerisms, all the things that he would think are silly plague women from the time they are little girls. That's why Twilight even for as bad a production as it is, has captured the minds of so many women.

Here you have a girl who is insecure, unsure of herself, not the prettiest, or smartest, or most loved and then suddenly one day it all changes. In steps a man who sees her for her inner beauty, who loves her unfailingly, willing to give up everything to be with her and will even “wait” for her.

It struck me as rather sad that so many men don't get it. Heck, our entire culture doesn't seem to get it even though half of it is suffering from it. It has inspired me to delve into it more in my writing. Strong female protagonists are fun and sexy, but unless we show how they struggle with what all women struggle with, and possibly suggest ways for them to get past it, we are doing a disservice to our readers, to truth.

And just in case you're a guy out there or a tough as nails woman in denial, I'll add a note from the photography world that I happened upon. While I was researching posing women for glamour shots, I happened upon a female photographer whose profession it has been to take glamour and fashion shots of gorgeous women for over a decade noted that the most difficult part of her job is simply this: getting her model to believe that she's beautiful because even the most gorgeous women in the world don't believe it.

Photo two is from Cheryl McLaughlin, titled: My Insecurities.

Transparent Evil

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During Thanksgiving break, “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” played on the Disney channel. In my youth I enjoyed the book, but now that I'm older I have a strong distaste for it. I'm not one for overt Christian allegory as it is, but I realized while watching the Aslan death scene that there was something more to it than that. It's the same in LOTR, and probably part of the reason I've migrated away from that kind of storytelling in general. I strongly dislike the definition of evil in these stories.

It's not simply the cookie cutter mold of evil that we so often get. You know, the flat characters who do as their author tells them so as to move the story along. What I truly dislike is the entire depiction of this evil. It's obvious, clearly defined, and serves as more of a disservice to those that the writer is trying to warn with his cautionary tale.

Wardrobe is a perfect example. Evil is obvious. It is the feminine that seeks power, the twisted black horn that drives into Aslan, it wears black armor, snarls and bites, it speaks with a silvery tongue, lies to get what it wants, its weapons are crooked and rusty. Good, on the other hand, battles with gleaming steal, wears white cowboy hats and rides a shimmering steed. It is the patriarchy guided by truth and justice. The feminine is allowed to exist only in so far as it stays within the confines set up for it. While Good is not forced to follow rules but instead chooses to, it can rewrite them in order to win the day.

How lopsided and one dimensional can you get? I mean think about it, when Good brings the dead back to life we sing “He has arisen,” but when Evil does we curse them as the damned. How easy would it be to make a case for bringing the dead back to life? Yet no one ever does. When the Witch demands justice as set forth by the laws written by Aslan himself, she is made out to be wicked; and yet, if the roles were reversed we'd cheer the good guy for “outwitting” his enemy.

I guess my main problem with it all is simply this: it doesn't inspire thought. These stories aren't meant to facilitate discussion, they're designed to give instructions. They paint things in Black and White even though life is so much more complicated than that. Granted, at the very beginning Jadis starts out as somewhat kind to our gullible son of Adam, but really anyone watching is sitting thinking, “No, you big idiot, don't do it.”

Sum Total Characters

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I was out getting construction supplies this weekend, sitting in my folks' big 16 foot box van. It's one of those ones where you sit on the engine and the front of it is all flat glass and bumper so you get a really good view of the road (and your impending doom should you run into the back of a semi).  

While I sat at a stop light I looked out on a woman crossing the road in front of me. She walked a shiny Walmart mountain bike that didn't really go with the men's jeans she was wearing. The bike fit her, being for a child and she about the height of a junior high student. Her hair, probably capable of great things in her youth, was left wild and frizzy, shocks of white tearing through it like a ghost trying to escape a grave. There might have been a crook to her bulbous nose though I couldn't really say for sure. Maybe it was that faded black t-shirt that she wore like a teenage grunge boy that made me think it should be crooked.

As she passed I couldn't help but wonder what had gone wrong in her life. Who might have abused her, touched her, used her, pushed her around and left that sneer on her face. Lovers, mothers, fathers, uncles?

And then I thought, “Does she know?”

Does she think of those things and how they effect her? How those experiences make her decisions for her? How many of us really do?

Just a thought.

We are all the sum total of our experiences. Those experiences mold us into who we are, but we rarely think of them. Even our characters are nothing more than experiences. And we should bear in mind that they don't always realize that they manipulate their actions.

Heroes How NOT to Character Motivate

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The writers for the Heroes television series have had long enough to straighten up their act after the union strike. Last season was lack luster, and if the premiere I watched this week tells us anything, season four is going to be comical.

Never mind the opening with the casket where my first thought was, “This guy is totally going to be an earth mover and he's going to cover the casket with his power.” (Actually, he's probably an empath or whatever the Sith lord called Peter, because after all, he's playing the role of father Patrelli in this rehash of every other season so far.)

My biggest problem with Heroes has always been character motivation. There is none. People just do things for the sake of moving the ill conceived plot along. This premiere was proof enough of that.

Claire moves into college and a dorm room with a power hungry, straight A student (save for that B+ in Poly Sci or whatever it was) who knows just where she's going in life, has it mapped out, and happens to be gorgeous as well (because aren't they all, did you see the hotties at the other lunch table?). And like all roommates do upon first meeting someone new, she berates Claire about her life plan and teddy bears no more than two minutes into their stay together. In fact, those few moments that they spent together were more than enough for her to then fill in Claire's father about how good of a student Claire could be if she just applied herself. People do that sort of stuff all the time in real life. Don't they?

If Annie, the roommate isn't unbelievable enough, Claire's fatal flaw, tell the truth even if it kills you and the ones you love, is almost as unbelievable as Noah's fatal flaw of lie about everything even if it costs you your family, but even more unbelievable than both of those is the reset button hit during every season with these two. It always goes back to “Oh I love my father with puppy dog eyes, I heart him, I really really do” after every season in which Noah turns out to be a scum bag and Claire proves how much of an idiot she can be.

And what's the most inconspicuous thing a super powered idiot can do? Apparently jump out of their own dorm room window, because no one would notice on a college campus. Everyone knows that college students go to bed early, save for the stalker/murderer/super powered Gretchen. (Yes, I'm calling Gretchen out as the invisible woman, “So I heard that you didn't see a suicide note.” Uh huh, riiiiight. In another show that would be a slight of hand, in Heroes it's the writers thinking they're witty.)

Then we jump to Hiro and Ando who have decided to go public and advertise their services as heroes. Really? Richest guy in all of Japan, he's saved the world more than once, watched his mother and father die, and he's still pretending to be a twelve year old trapped in a man's body? Really? Oh, but it's because he's dying. I gotcha. I mean what better time to act like a child than in your last days.

Oh, and let us not forget Peter. If you don't remember, Peter's fatal flaw is that he is fatally optimistic. Why be subtle about saving people's lives after you've been hunted to near extinction for an entire season? Just jump around New York like Spiderman, (or PETER Parker) and rip the doors off of wrecked cars in front of onlookers. I'm sure no one will notice. And if they do, hey, they'll appreciate that you're helping someone and applaud like they should. Besides, if saving lives is your new form of crack, who really gives a damn.

Even when a Heroes character starts to make sense, like with Tracy Strouse and her quest for vengeance, the writers do their damndest to frack it all to hell and back. Sure, sure, Tracy has always been cold and calculating, so much so that she became the ice queen, but why not turn her into the ray of sunshine in Noah's life because she saw a dirtbag that absolutely no one cared for, die. That's perfectly believable to me. I'm always meeting people who are willing to drown to death four men in a row and then suddenly turn into Rainbow Fracking Brite.

To sum up the rest of my feelings, I hope Sylar kills that pantywaist Parkman (no relation to Peter PARKer) and takes over his body. And then I hope he finds Suresh before he can make an appearance in this season and kills him too. Then he needs to make his way to Nathan and kill him before he has another bizarre coming to Jesus moment that totally changes the fate of the world. After all of those messes are cleaned up, we wait and watch Hiro die so we don't have anymore time slippage idiocy.

Unfortunately, where Heroes lacks in developing characters who portray believable motivations, they excel at killing off those characters who do have believable motivation. Case in point: Speedster girl who thought Parkman was an idiot for falling in love with her based on a dream. That's believable, and of course, that's why she had to die.

Images: NBC/ Chris Haston

What To Do With A Clichéd Character

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So I was struggling through the end of Spark this weekend, as promised. I got to thinking about it and realized that part of my hangup is that I don't know who one of the characters is. Actually, no, that's not right, I do know who she is, she's based off of someone I've known. But when I go to write the character she comes out so clichéd.

Through the various versions she's seen a few different incarnations, one closely based on reality, the next pure evil, the last a bit more caring and concerned. So when I sat down to write her big scene I had to come to terms with these different aspects. That's when I wrote an interview in her voice, basing it off of things that I've heard in real life.

The surprising thing was, when I got done I found that, no, she is just as clichéd as she sounded originally before I tried to add to her character.

I mean, clichés and stereotypes come from somewhere, don't they? I guess, the key is in finding that bit of unique truth hidden within the cliché. For Cara it's this misguided mothering. She can be so cold and cruel with her work, but at the same time she sees herself as a mother figure, the rock to which her brothers can tether themselves to.

I'm wondering what other characters I have that are coming off as clichéd and what unique truth I can find in them.

Does this give anyone any thoughts on their own characters?

And I'm sorry about another short post. I'm desperately trying to catch up and then get ahead in preparation for the out of state wedding this weekend. So much to do and such little time. Sigh. I almost decided on taking a week off from the blog, but I won't fall off of the wagon now, I can't. I've been making too much progress to toss in the towel, even for a break. 

Spread the Word Saturday

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I had a few things in mind for sharing today, but then I read the following article about Michael Jordan's acceptance speech at last nights Hall of Fame induction ceremony. I'm not a big sports fan. Heck, I don't even have a TV. While my soon to be brother-in-law is busy setting up his three television sets in their living-room so that he can watch three football games concurrently, I'm busy scratching my head and wondering why. But I always did marvel at Michael Jordan when I was growing up. 

I think it's because he looked like such a little guy on the court. I always cheered for the small guy that could make the big beefy guys look like fools. Hence my love of Bruce Lee. And last night while I was out with a couple of my buddies being reminded why it's so great NOT to be single, I watched clips of Jordan tearing up during his speech and thought, "Man, that guy always had such class." 

Then I read this article, an article that's more of a character sketch of the man. It shed a different light on him and his career and totally changed how I look at him. It also made me think of character flaws and how traits can be perceived differently by different people. But don't take my word for it, go read the article.

Your Fatal Flaw

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Another blog inspired by the Yahoo Fantasy group. One of the writers there made the point of how unhappy they’ve been with the BBC version of Robin Hood. Seems the Sheriff kills off Robin’s friends left and right while Robin, who at least tries to stop him, never makes the attempt to kill him. Worse yet, a few episodes into the series Robin Hood breaks into the Sheriff’s chambers, puts a sword to the man’s throat and tells him that if harm comes to any of Robin’s people he’ll kill the Sheriff. Apparently that sunk into neither of their heads.

Constraints of the medium have been mentioned as well as labeling this problem as a huge plot hole unfilled by the writers, but I see it as another problem, and one that relates to writing. It appears to me that the writers have a promise set up in their heads that they have not fully explained or made clear to the viewer (or in the case of our writing, the reader). That promise is that Robin cannot take another life.

There is even a point in the series when the Sheriff flat out states, “We both know you’re not the killing kind.”

The question is, why? Why can’t Robin take another life? Is it his fatal flaw? Does he have a Christian view of redemption so great that he believes that even the murderous Sheriff can come back from the depths to which he has sunk? Did Robin take a life in his past that so affected him (is that the right use of affect) that he can’t bear doing it again? Did he go all Shaolin monk on us?

The problem is not so much that the character has this problem it’s that the writers aren’t making it clear to the viewer why he has this problem. It’s something that we have to keep in mind with our own writing. Fatal flaws are great for creating tension in a story, especially when that flaw is in direct opposition to the conflict resolution.

One of two things is going to have to happen, either Robin finds a way to resolve the conflict without taking the obvious route, which is kill the Sherriff, or he comes to terms with the issue that is holding him back and he finally runs the bloke through.

It’s something that we should keep in mind when crafting our stories, that notion of the character having a hand in his own troubles. If you think about it, we do that in our own lives do we not? Sure, we might blame the whole of the outside world for where we are in life, but in the end what it comes down to is our own actions, our own fatal flaws.

I for one am terrible about taking risks and committing to things. I tend to make half hearted attempts and then blame the failed outcome on some external force. In reality I’m setting myself up for failure so that I don’t have to perform. Or maybe it’s something else. But it is definitely something that I do and I’m aware of that. This blog, in a way, is my attempt at working through those issues.

So, fatal flaws end up being important on two levels. They are important on a story level and they are important on a personal level. Understanding one lends itself to the other. So what’s your fatal flaw?

And on a side note, a little self congratulatory moment: This post marks the third week in a row where I’ve gotten a post up each day of the work week.  I thought that it was only two weeks, but upon checking into it, I’ve found that I was wrong, it’s three! Yay me!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend and that your words flow like warm honey fresh from the honey comb.

A Very Merry unBirthday to You!

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Another thought on character development taken from real life. We recently celebrated our son’s first birthday. The cake was baked, the food prepared, streamers hung, and the birthday song sung. It was a great time all around.

During the preparations my wife made note that, “The first birthday isn’t really for the child at all, it’s more for the parents, family and friends.” After all, how many of us really remember our first birthday? We see pictures and are told stories, but we don’t remember them. 

At the same time that all of this is going on, my cousin who has a son about five days older than our son, is in the midst of preparing her party for her son. “What completely different lives these two boys are going to have,” someone noted. Without airing dirty laundry, I’ll simply say that life has not been easy for my cousin.

This got me to thinking about what the differences might be like at the two parties, the people invited, the locations, the kinds of gifts not necessarily given, but those that are encouraged by the parents and those that get slipped into a closet and hidden away. Will there be many cameras there? How many people come together to help out? Will the parents ask for help or try to do it all on their own? Does the child get passed from one person to another because everyone wants to interact with him or is he left by himself with a bunch of toys to entertain himself?

When it comes to getting to know our characters more, imagining that first birthday might help us to understand their beginnings and the path they eventually chose. So ask yourself some of these questions, not just about the protagonist, but anyone that you’re having trouble identifying with in your story. Sit in on that first birthday and take note. What kind of cake was served? Did mom make it or buy it? Was it a success (my wife’s was a huge success, her first time too)? Your character might not remember the actual event, but they the rest of their life stemmed from moments like these.

Have any thoughts on this post? I encourage you to leave a comment. I know that this new layout is a bit confusing when it comes to that and I’m working on coming up with a fix for it. But in the meantime, you get to the comments section by clicking on the “No Comments” splotch at the top right corner of each post. If you enjoy anything here, I also encourage you to follow via Google or Networked blogs on Facebook. Send me a note if you have a blog and I’ll be sure to return the favor. Oh, and use some of those fun sociable links below the post. You have no idea how long I spent trying to figure out how to incorporate them from the template style used by my friend Paige and her fun blog about writing, (thanks Paige for turning me on to these awesome new templates).  

 

A Night at the Improv

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Do you ever act out a scene? I do it all of the time. Stand in front of the mirror in the bathroom when no one is home, or awake. I play through scenes in a hushed voice, going back and forth like someone suffering from multiple personality disorder. “I love you.” “You don’t love me, you love yourself.” “No, no that’s not true. Truth be told I …” “You what?” “I hate myself. Hate what I am, what I’ve become. I’m not even sure what I am anymore. Am I a cylon, an angel, a decent actress stuck in a poor script? I mean, why do I always have to look so angry? Even when I laugh they want me to look angry. Angry and drunk.”

Alright, so maybe I don’t necessarily play out that script, but you get the drift. It’s something I’ve always done. Even way back in junior high. I used to lie in bed and act out scenes from my own life. You know, those “what if” scenes. That one where you finally muster the courage to talk to the girl you’ve been crushing on for what seems like an eternity.

I wouldn’t just go over the Twilight scene where I say all the right Edward lines and my sweetheart swooned with the telling of each one. No, I’d go over the “It worked, I fooled her” scene, the “Uhm, I don’t think so, dork boy” scene, and everything in between. I wanted to be prepared for any circumstance. Of course I never actually performed my lines, just rehearsed them.

I find myself doing that with writing a lot. Especially if I’m trying to describe how something is said, not just what is said. Obviously, speaking them aloud helps you to hear the intonation and whether or not the words flow. But acting it out helps you to note that your lip is curling up just a bit towards the right. I’ll even move around about, moving my hands to punctuate really tense lines like “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

So that’s my thought for today. Do you act out lines? If not, give it a shot and report back. But make sure no one is home when you do it. Getting caught confessing your love for your cylon/angel/ghost/bad actress self can lead to some pretty awkward situations.

All Writing is a Soap Opera

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Back before Battle Star Galactica started in on its downward decent towards mediocrity, I can recall an evening in which I watched an episode that my wife commented on. “It’s like watching a soap opera,” she said. To which I responded, “Whatever.”

But on reflection, I realized that she was right. It was pretty much a soap opera, just one set in the future/distant past, and in space. Lee loved Kara, who used to love his brother, but she got stranded and fell in love with a jock, but a cylon fell in love with her, and maybe she does love Lee, but Lee is with Dee and then Kara and Lee get a bit too close for comfort so Dee leaves and Lee’s alone and Kara’s crazy but she does love her jock who turns out to be a cylon but not the cylon that loved her but that’s okay because she’s an angel and . . . . yeah, total soap opera.

Just the other night I was sitting and watching Netflix with my wife. She was watching a Master Piece Theatre collection. Midway through the first episode I said, “So it’s basically a soap opera set in the 1800’s?” “Yeah, basically,” she said. (She’s much more mature about these sorts of things than I am).

So there’s my thought. All storytelling is a soap opera in some form or another. Life is a soap opera. That’s why romance novel’s sell like hotcakes, and teenage angsty stories like Twilight capture the hearts of the young. What’s Pride and Prejudice if not a soap opera from a different era? Greek tragedies? Soap operas. All stories are some form of emotional conflict wrapped up in the messiness that is the human condition.

Here’s your license to go out and write a soap opera. It’s just the degree of how obvious you make it that sets it apart from other works of art. Use too many clichés and you wander down the path of teenage melodrama, be inventive and you’ve got the next The Kite Runner. The choice is yours in so far as the degree, but not in the act placing drama in the story, for without it there is no story.

Rubbernecking

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“You have to know the people in the car before you see the car crash.” - Sol Stein Stein on Writing

What an interesting thought. Stein mentions this in passing when talking about flashbacks, but it got me to thinking. Project that into real life. What happens when most of us see an accident on the side of the road? “Oh, that sucks, wish everyone would stop rubbernecking so that I can get to where I’m going.”

 

But what happens the moment you catch a glimpse of a familiar tail light? You notice the same off blue color as a loved one’s Ford Explorer, the vehicle sitting upside down in the middle of the road. Then you spot a two year old college parking. Your stomach churns, heart starts pounding. Suddenly all of those people rubbernecking are in your way for an entirely different reason.

 

You have to get to that ambulance. You need to see inside, prove to yourself that you’re wrong. Suddenly, you care.

 

Our characters not only have to be real before we put them in peril, we have to have a reason to care about them too. If not, we don’t really give a damn what happens to them.

 

This advice comes in most handy at the very beginning of your story. We’re all told to start things off with a bang, to get our characters into action as quickly as possible, but make sure you’ve got your reader caring about your character before you put them in peril; otherwise, you’ll leave your reader strangling their steering wheel and cursing the cars in front of them until later that night when they get the call that the accident they passed was dear Aunt May.  

Let's Play Dress Up

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I’ve got a fun one. I was wracking my brain trying to come up with a Thursday writerly thought because I’ve done so well at posting each day this week and didn’t want to fail right towards the end. The idea of the writerly thoughts is just to pose an idea rather than go into a lengthy discussion (so someone tell my why these still come out so long) but there were no thoughts to be had. Then my wife and I went and visited our favorite Chiropractor, Dr. Brown. While we were not having our bones cracked (Dr. Brown does gentle chiropractics) the good doctor told us about how he was going to a 70’s themed dress up party in a couple of weeks. Melody mentioned how much fun dress up parties are and that got me to thinking. This all led to a creative accident as I referred back to something one of my writing group partners has mentioned about the Renaissance Faire and how much more fun people have when they can hide behind a mask even if it is just an outfit.

 

Here was my thought: we’re staging a masquerade of some sort, you decide what kind whether it be All Hollow’s Eve, a themed 70’s party, or a Faire of some sort. The character of the piece you are working on is invited. What do they go as? More importantly, how do they act?

 

This is meant as a window into your Pro’s inner thinking. You see, we all try to project who we are to the outside world, that socially acceptable version of ourselves, but we can’t help but let a little bit of what we really want to be shine through during those moments of play. The same holds true for our very real characters. What inner truth hidden from everyone else would be revealed in a setting like this? Makes you think, doesn’t it?

 

I’d love to hear what people come up with for this. Again, I just made this up today. If it is a part of some writing book somewhere I was not aware of it. This reminds me, if this concept is a part of a book somewhere, let me know, because obviously that is one smart cat and I need to be reading that book. :) So, post your party theme, costume, and character’s liberation in the comments, or post the name of the book I need to be reading.

 

And a great big thank you to all of you who have suggested the blog to others. You can pay a writer no better compliment than recommending their work, no matter what form it comes in. 

Deadly Daisies

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So I know that I have yet to post anything about backwards plotting. I still intend to but I’m still working it out for myself.

 

In the meantime, since we were just on the topic of television, let’s move to my two favorite shows at the moment. As a disclaimer, it should be noted that we have no TV in our home. All my passive entertainment comes via the computer either through the internet in the form of online viewing of episodes via CastTV or Netflix, or through DVD. As such I tend to catch wind of things rather late in the game and then play a great deal of catch-up. Hence, my current love affair with “Pushing Daisies” and “The Legend of the Seeker.”

 

It occurred to me tonight that one very notable feature of both storylines that merits noting: love. This is not your typical love affair where one person pines for the other who is oblivious of their “friend’s” longing. Quite the opposite really. In both cases you have two people madly in love with one another but unable to physically express that love due to a significant plot driving issue. In Legend our lovers cannot come together because of the woman’s ability as a Confessor would reduce the object of her affection to a mindless slave, ruining all that she loves about him and putting an end to the quest at hand. 

Daisies, on the other hand, has the male lead gifted with the ability of bringing the dead back to life with the caveat that if he ever touches them again they will return to the land of the dead forever. In this case his true love is saved by his touch but now can never touched again lest he lose her. If you haven’t caught an episode of Daisies, I highly suggest it. Legend is just good ol’ fun in the Xena the Warrior Princess, and Hercules vein, while Daisies is filled with witty comedy, mystery, romance, fantasy, and that certain Amelie quirkiness (a French film that I absolutely adore).

Both storylines have characters whose gifts prevent them from attaining closure with their heart’s desire. They also have two very beautiful curly haired actresses playing love interest, (and I’ve always been a sucker for curly hair).

 

So the question is, what is your character’s gift and how is it keeping them from what s/he wants? When you’re crafting your story, are you considering this? Remember that a story is nothing without conflict and what better way to create conflict than by taking that one thing that provides hope for the future, the character’s gift, and place it in direct conflict with their desires? 

Warning: The below video clip does have brief nudity, so please don't watch it in front of any fuddy duddies that don't realize that the nude form is a naturally beautiful thing that no one should be ashamed of and should be far less censored than violence, murder and gore.  P.S. it's in French and their are subtitles, so you're gonna have to do some reading (gasp). 

The Dreaded Outline turned Toolbox

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Those few passersby might have noticed that I haven’t posted in a while. It’s because of not having adequate time and because of guilt. The time excuse I’m sure anyone with a child can understand. The guilt issue might require a little explanation.

Even this lovely writing scene was interrupted by an emergency,

"Aiden's learning to crawl," episode.

 

You see, I’ve been stuck with my writing. For the past month I was trying to get my rewrite of “Covers Can't Hide You” done so that I could submit it to my Crit group. If I don’t get a lot of writing done, I don’t feel like I should be posting much on the blog. I feel sort of like a hypocrite sitting here telling others, “write write write,” while I’m trudging through my own work. Which brings us to the point of this post.

This image pilfered from sharirobinson.com

Having been gone from my novel for so long I find myself needing to reenter it. What was flowing nicely before has suddenly grown murky and stagnant. So what do I do? Normally I would reread what I’d already written, all 20,000 words of it in this case, and dive back in. However, that’s dangerous for a few reasons. First, there’s the constraint of time. Second, I run the risk of going crazy with revisions as I am reading, (because I have done this in the past with other projects). And third, I have to try and keep track of all of that information in my head. As the story progresses, the amount of information that I am trying to keep track of is getting overwhelming.

 

That led me to a decision to try something new. First, I decided to start from the end. In the Writing Excuses podcast they spoke to this point once upon a time. Brandon has always started his books with an ending in mind and then written to it. Dan, who used to have very weak story endings, just winged it. He has now gone to Brandon’s way of thinking and finds that it produces a much better end product. So I figured, what the hay, I’ll try it too.

 

But in trying to get the ending down I found that I needed to poor over everything that I know about the two worlds and all the characters inhabiting them. This led be back around to one of my original problems, keeping track of it all. So, I decided to try another first for me, outlining.

 

So the first thing I did was trolled the net trying to find what an outline actually looks like. Is it that Roman numeral thing we learn in school, is it something more organic, are their specific things that definitely should be in it? Well, those answers are not all that easy to find. I found several websites dealing with the issue and each of them in their own way and none of them gave a visual example (I’m a visual learner).

 

As fate would have it, Dave Farland sent out a kick in the pants dealing with this very issue while I was … dealing with this very issue … only he didn’t say how they should look either, just talked about the general idea of not wanting to do one and how you should. “But I do want to do one, I just need to know how,” I wrote back. He sent out a follow up the next day responding to an email that he got … about getting stuck writing from the outline. Seemed I just couldn’t win.

 

That’s when I set my mind, late last night at about 1:45 in the morning, to coming up with my own outline guide. I decided to use the tools in Word 2007 to develop a roman numeral styled outline that would cover everything that I’ve been hearing and reading about. It has sections for the worlds, governments, magic systems, characters, try fail cycles, acts I, II, and III, story worthy problems, just about everything that I can think of is going into the outline. Will I use it all? Probably not. Will I fill it all out? No. But it will all be there if and when I need it.

As I was going through my books, I came across an anecdote by Stephen King where he talks about bringing a toolbox filled with tools to do a simple job that required a screwdriver.

“Yeah, but Stevie,” he said, bending to grasp the handles, “I didn’t know what else I might find to do once I got out here, did I? It’s best to have your tools with you. If you don’t, you’re apt to find something you didn’t expect and get discouraged.”

Having worked in construction, I can completely understand this example. I can’t list the number of times that I’ve started working on something only to wind up finding that I needed a tool that I left behind. That inspired me to call this, not an outline, but a TOOLBOX. In it, we put everything we think we might need, and even some stuff that we think we won’t need. It has the shop drawings that show us how the project should be completed and all the tools we’ll need when we find that the ideal world that the engineer who came up with the shop drawing lives in doesn’t match what we find out in the field.

 

I’m not sure how to post it as a downloadable link, so until I take the time away from writing to do that, send me an email at noceti.david@gmail.com and I’ll send you out a copy of it. What I love about the Word 2007 formatting is that the outline is expandable and contractible, so you can close down certain strings of information much like a folder tree. That way, when you’re not worried about the intricacies of your government, you don’t have to let it clutter up your screen.

The first 21 pages of my outline for Diviner. Now I

can see how people get to 100 pages plus for these things.

A word of warning though, don’t let this lead to WBD (World Builders Disease). Don’t get lost in the outline and never come back out of it to write.

 

Now then, I’m going to head over to the outline and work on it some more. Maybe pull out some of my many books on writing and see what else I can add to it.

 

If any of this is helpful, please leave me a little note. As Philip Difranco used to say at the end of his videos, “Comment, Rate, Appreciate.” Or something like that. And be sure to tell others. 

Next up: Brainstorming in reverse. 

 

Inspiration

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While working on the rewrite of “Deviner’s Eye” I realized that I needed a visual reference for a female character. She would of course be attractive, but in my quest to make my characters as real as possible, I wanted her to be attractive in an unconventional way. I think that the world has seen more than enough Greek Goddess replicas in their escapism. Besides, I find that the most believable escapism is that in which the escapist can actually picture themselves a part of.

A little too much classical beauty,but look at those curls. 

So, I typed “curly hair” into Google’s image search and began my collection of images related to the one physical detail that I knew I wanted Maev to have. Granted, the young lady above is definitely full of classical beauty, but the first thought was to find some images of curly hair so that I could better describe it. 

Closer. The hair is getting rather crazy. 

Much better here. This is looking like someone

you might actually know. 

In time, that search led me to a couple of blogs maintained by women whose photos embodied just the right amount of quirkiness. One of which was Erica-Knits who not only became a partial inspiration for my character but also the inspiration for this blog.

As it turns out, Erica is a designer who creates wonderful fashions through the form of knitting. Her blog often exhibits many of the inspirations that lead to her work. That got me to thinking that it might be a nice release when I need to write for the sake of writing, to share some of my own process with the world at large.

Erica's Mittens

And so a great big thank you goes out to Erica for helping to inspire me through her sharing of her own inspiration and an even bigger thank you to you for stopping by. I hope that I my ramblings produce something of interest or inspiration to you.

One last shot of Erica. Be sure and check out her knitting.

I’ll likely use a bit of my art school training to come up with a couple of character sketches of Maev and post them here for all to see. We'll see how much of Erica and the above mentioned ladies make it into that character sketch. 

Happy writing.