Inkpunks

Today’s post comes from frequent guest and friend of the Inkpunks, James Sutter. Enjoy!

A while back, I was having a conversation with a well-known game designer friend of mine. He was bemoaning the fact that he has to constantly hold himself back from expressing his true views online, making sure to keep his public image safe and sanitized for fear of losing his audience.

Much like political candidates, authors are often advised to carefully monitor their public faces and make sure that nothing they say could possibly offend anyone. They avoid dangerous topics like politics or social justice, hide any alternative lifestyles or eccentric behavior, and restrict their self-expression to safe, neutral viewpoints that anyone can share. (“Gosh darn it, I just can’t support putting kittens in blenders!”) After all, anyone you offend is a potential sale lost, right?

This, my friends, is bullshit.

Not only does the “never offend anyone” approach keep you from expressing yourself, but there are two big flaws in its reasoning:

It’s Boring: Not just for you, but for the reading public as well. Too many authors scrub away all their distinguishing features in an effort to be everything to everybody. The result is one more faceless writer who refuses to stick in anyone’s memory. That’s no way to get famous.

You Don’t Need Everyone: With the rise of the internet, you have access to millions of customers–but you don’t need to sell millions of copies in order to be successful. What you need to survive in this business is a devoted fan base–a select group you can count on to pick up every book you put out just because your name is on it. This is where your eccentricities–your politics, your opinions, your alternative lifestyles and pet peeves–can help you out.

In the current era of constant electronic communication, there’s very little barrier between artist and audience. We’re not just readers but fans, and we want to feel personally connected to the people who produce our favorite art. When I read up on an author or actress and find out that she supports a cause I believe in or speaks out against something I abhor, it gives me a little thrill. I want to help her out that much more because I like her as a person, not just as an author.

That feeling of connection is a huge tool in building a following. Selling yourself as edgy, or progressive, or religious, etc. may cost you some potential customers, but as I said before, casual readers aren’t nearly as important as devoted ones.

Controversial subjects draw more discussion. If you tweet exclusively about your love of fine cheeses–well, okay, some folks are going to dig that. But if you tweet about something people care deeply about–say, the vital importance of Planned Parenthood to the improvement of American society–folks are going to be much more likely to interact with you, to broadcast your views to others, and in general to raise awareness of your existence. This is true even if they don’t agree with you. As long as you engage in discussions in a respectful manner, you may find yourself with new friends on both sides of the battle lines.

Yes, sometimes people will get pissed and unfriend you. But the truth is that there willalways be someone ready to be offended by you. I’ve had folks boycott not just my books but my entire publisher because they didn’t like that I had gay characters, or because they felt that I was pushing my leftist agenda. (Which, ironically, I hadn’t intended to in the book they were referencing). These people were born to be angry. You don’t need them.

Also, pissing off the right sort of people can be a major boon. One of the proudest moments in my writing career was when media jerkface icon Glenn Beck threw a tantrum and called an anthology I was part of a symptom of the “leftist culture of death.”

“I think I get it,” I hear you saying. “If I want more fans, I should be more controversial.”

Wrong. This isn’t about being abrasive solely for the sake of attention–that’s for shock jocks and TV pundits and other assholes who will say anything, no matter how hideous or offensive, just so that someone will pay attention to them. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about coming out of the virtual closet and not feeling like you need to hide who you really are on the internet in order to succeed. I know your mom’s probably afraid that every picture you put on Facebook will be the one that costs you a swanky job in the future, but I maintain that if your internet presence reflects what you really believe, over time you’ll attract an amazing community of people who want the same things you want.

The corollary, of course, is that if you act like an asshole, you’ll attract assholes. I can’t state this loudly enough: publicity is not an excuse to be a dick. It’s also rarely effective in the literary community. If you decide to drop some prejudice bombs–perhaps the ever popular “Durr, women can’t write and should make me a sandwich”–you’re going to lose readers in droves, as well you should. (I know that I can’t bring myself to buy Orson Scott Card books anymore due to his social views.) It’s still important to think before you speak, but that shouldn’t make you afraid of speaking.

Personally, I’m way happier when I feel like I can be open and honest. If you’re friends with me on the internet, there’ll be no secret that I’m a raging social liberal: I’m pro-gay marriage (if you don’t like it, don’t get one), pro-abortion (if you don’t like it, don’t get one), an environmentalist, a feminist, queer, a filthy hippie, and a bunch of other things. I believe in letting it all hang out (sometimes literally–but that’s a story for another day). Yet every year I find myself with more friends and fans than I had the year before.

But I’m still small potatoes. For some better examples, let’s look two of my favorite bloggers.

Chuck Wendig, over at terribleminds.com, doesn’t believe in filters. The dude publishes writing advice and rants with the sort of vulgarity that would set a nun on fire, yet there’s a huge community of people who hang on his every word, knowing that, in addition to humorous new profanity, they’re going to get his honest opinion every time. And if the recent bidding war over his children’s books are any indication, that straight-shooting tactic doesn’t seem to have hurt him any with publishers. (It should also be noted that while Chuck takes the art of swearing to new heights, he’s never intentionally mean or hurtful–he knows that it’s one thing to attack ideas, another to denigrate people.)

While women unfortunately face far worse attacks when they stir up the internet trolls, that’s even more of a reason to do so. (And as we recently saw with Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency, such trolling can sometimes also rally precisely the sort of folks you want to reach.) On the female side of things, one of my favorite outspoken authors is Nicola Griffith, who blogs over at asknicola.blogspot.com. For 20 years, Nicola has been unabashedly stating her mind on–and publishing novels about–issues of gender, feminism, sexuality, and more. Few things divide U.S. audiences like sexuality, yet Nicola’s still built up a tremendous following–and raised significant awareness about important issues.

Which leads us to my final note. Let’s say that you already have all the fans you need–you’re Neil Gaiman or Ursula K. Le Guin, sitting on top of a pyramid made of adoring fans, and are reading this post solely out of curiosity. You should still be speaking your mind on the internet. While I won’t go so far as to say it’s a responsibility, as authors we’re all in a position to reach people. By making a point of talking about the issues we care about, we have the potential to influence far more people than someone in a less public profession. We can be forces of change in the world, and help foster growth. By tweeting those social justice issues, or talking about sexuality in interviews including the use sex toys like this rabbit vibrators, you can help raise awareness and change minds.

James L. Sutter‘s novel Death’s Heretic was ranked #3 on Barnes & Noble’s list of the Best Fantasy Releases of 2011, and was a finalist for the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel. His short stories have appeared in such publications as Apex Magazine, Escape Pod, Podcastle, Starship Sofa, and the #1 Amazon bestsellerMachine of Death. His anthology Before They Were Giants pairs the first published stories of SF luminaries with new interviews and writing advice from the authors themselves. In addition, James is a co-creator of the Pathfinder Roleplaying game and the Fiction Editor for Paizo Publishing, and has written numerous roleplaying game supplements. For more information, check out jameslsutter.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/jameslsutter.

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I was a really lousy student, from grade school through my first attempt at college. Teachers thought I might be slow and made me suffer through batteries of tests and classes on preparation in an effort to get me to do my homework. It didn’t work. I barely made it through grade 12 and I flunked out of college.

I never gave up trying learn. It wasn’t that I didn’t learn, either. I learned a lot; I just excelled at the things I was most interested in. When I was realized this and was able to plan my courses appropriately, like my second run at college I had a 3.8 GPA (and that one dude didn’t give anyone better than a B).

Everything else I needed to know, I taught myself. I had a successful career in software development when my former classmates were still toiling in the lab, so I knew my gamble had paid off.  Somewhere along the way, I realized that I did better when I had an interest in the subject but also because I saw some relevance to what I was or might one day work on.

Finding the right way to learn was also critically important. Most of my traditional education failed me because it consisted of hours of being lectured at, which I promptly tuned out, followed by homework from a book that was suddenly biased against.

Books and blogs are really good starting points. Done well, they speak in a conversational tone that invites conversation rather than making me feel like someone’s telling me that their way is gospel. When I started writing software — and fiction — my book budget shifted to reference books and that’s usually a sign I’m really serious about sometime.

Classes and workshops — in the right format, can work well for me. I scoured the course catalog at my local community college and took night classes for two years, taking a wide range of classes that would probably fill the general requirement towards a degree but mostly scratched an itch; they were interesting to me in some way: Children’s and Holocaust Literature, Anthropology, Comparative Religion, Physics.

You know what the real secret is? Aside from an insatiable curiosity, that is. It’s being comfortable in yourself and your processes, and to be willing to challenge those things on a regular basis with new ideas, new beliefs, new thoughts. Ideas are dangerous things. They topple nations. Imagine what they can do to a single person.

The same processes apply to learning to write effectively. All those reference books that fill my shelves, the podcasts listened to, the workshops attended, the time spent on twitter stalking successful writers, agents, and editors. Except rather than one or two views on a single topic, it’s hundreds of voices and that can be overwhelming.

We practice internalization to silence the voices and discard the objectors. Throw out what we don’t agree with, listen to what makes sense and helps us form our own view of the topic. The problem is that process can take years. Selectivity is important.

Take this guest post by Rachel Aaron on the SFWA blog: How I Went From Writing 2,000 Words a Day to 10,000 Words a Day. It’s a really interesting piece and as soon as I finished reading it a few weeks ago I sent an email to a bunch of my close friends and told them to take a look at it. You should, too.

Figuring out how to make what works for Rachel work for me or you is where the work begins. I had a little time before the Clarion Write-a-thon began, so I worked to put each of the lessons into some context that meant something to me. I needed to understand why I would want to care about each step, what might it do for me. I put myself into learning mode.

The rest of this process is to simply try. See what works, and what fails, for you. I find it’s either going to be clear right away that a tool is useful, redundant, or unwieldy.

The great thing is that these are the kind of processes that hold up to repeat experimentation. What doesn’t work now might work better in six months, or six years. Discarded tools can always be picked up later, especially as we outgrow the ones we’re using now.

Have fun experimenting with process and finding what works for you now but don’t lose sight of what it’s there for. To help you write. If you’re not getting your words in then it, and you, aren’t doing the job.

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Tina Connolly lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and toddler, in a house that came with a dragon in the basement and blackberry vines in the attic.  Her stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, Fantasy, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Rich Horton’s anthology Unplugged: Web’s Best SF.  Her debut fantasy novel IRONSKIN is forthcoming from Tor in October 2012, with a sequel in 2013.  She is a frequent reader for Podcastle, and is narrating an idiosyncratic 2012 flash podcasting venture called Toasted Cake.  In the summer she works as a face painter, which means a glitter-filled house is an occupational hazard. 

So one of Wendy’s suggestions for this blog post was my life as a parenting writer. I thought on this for two seconds before I realized that my coping skills for life as a parenting writer mostly involves the plan that in crunch time, we go on alternate-days showering schedule. This is how I wrangled a baby and wrote a book under contract. Also, when you start hallucinating due to sleep deprivation, put the baby someplace safe, like the floor.

Every January, the writers board Codex has a series of flash contests. I’ve done this a few years, and I slowly realized that I really love flash. That’s partly why when I decided to do a podcast this year (this is why you should not take tips from me on time management), I decided it would be a flash podcast.  So after a lot of reading, writing, critiquing, choosing, and narrating flash, I’ve come up with some theories about what makes flash work, for me. You can hear me talk a little about this on Toasted Cake #13, which features Helena Bell’s story “Please Return My Son who is in Your Custody.”

There are three things that I think often make flash work very well – emotional turn, worldbuilding, and pyrotechnics. I’m going to use examples of stories I’ve run on Toasted Cake, because I know all these stories are available to hear, and some even to read (I’ve linked those from their respective episodes.)

By emotional turn, I mean a moment when a character makes a choice and changes – of the flash stories I’ve run on Toasted Cake, I’d say Amber Sistla’s “Unglued” (#2) is a good example of this sort of story. So is Sean Markey’s “Shatter Shatter” (#15). And the emotional turn is the sort of thing that makes any story or novel better.  It’s just hard to get into 750 words or so, so we don’t always see it in flash.

The other two things are more strongly suited to flash. Worldbuilding by itself is not enough for a story or book, but I think it can be enough for a flash piece. 750 words about a strange world or situation can leave you with the feeling that something strange and awesome has happened.  David Goldman’s “Health Tips for Traveller” (#3) and Jason Heller’s “The Occupation of the Architect” (#6)  are good examples of these. These do generally tell a story, it’s just that the story accretes slowly, parsed out of the numerous details. For example, in “Health Tips for Traveller” (available to read here on Nature), it’s immediately clear that we’re reading a brochure written by an alien, meant to acquaint humans with their planet. As the pamphlet goes on, it hints at a rich and complex backstory between the Pooquar and Earther peoples. There isn’t a main character who changes, but it’s a complete story that relies on revealing the world we’re in.

And the third is pyrotechnics, by which I just mean someone who has used language or form in new and startling ways.  Pyrotechnics could have a negative connotation, but that’s not how I mean it. This often goes hand in hand with worldbuilding—I would say David’s story has pyrotechnics, for example. Another good example is Helena Bell’s work, which is always full of detailed worldbuilding, and gobsmacking pyrotechnics – “Please Return My Son who is in Your Custody” reveals a story in a series of one-sided letters to the neighbor.

Now there are other things that make a flash piece work well, too. So it’s not like you need to throw everything you know about characterization or dialogue out the window. But next time you try writing flash, try focusing heavily on one of these three, and see what happens. And then, if you like the result, send it to Toasted Cake in September. Because I have a lot of free time and want to read more excellent flash (one of these things, at least, is true.)

PS: Check out inkpunk Wendy N Wagner’s poem on episode #23 of Toasted Cake!

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flash fiction

I spent the last two weeks with sixteen other writers under the tutelage of Walter Jon Williams and Nancy Kress at the Taos Toolbox workshop. I probably should’ve planned ahead to have my Inkpunks post ready for today before I left. Alas, I did not have that foresight. At the moment I’m a little (make that a lot) brain dead, but in a happy, post-writer camp kind of way.

While we were there, Walter and Nancy gave us a couple of writing assigments to do that made us think about different aspects of writing, including plot structure, description, word choice and more. I thought, given my state of exhaustion, rather than try to write an awe inspiring and life enlightening post, I’d pass the task of writing on to you. (smart, right?)

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 favourites 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!

I hope these exercises help you on your journey and feel free to come back and share what you’ve written!

Smell a Rat

Write three smells you love. Write three smells you hate. Use all six scents in a piece starting with: I pulled into the gas station…

Back in Time

Write about an important, big-time event in your childhood. Write in first person as if you are, once again, that age and it just happened. Use child-appropriate language. Don’t worry if it turns out to be more fiction than fact. Then write about the same event, but as an adult looking back.

No Ifs, Ands or Don’ts

Don’t use any of these words in your story: cold, chill, snow, ice, sleet, flurry, winter, freezing, shiver.

Start with: We arrived in the Arctic at noon and immediately ventured out in the thirty feet of blinding white..

Hang Ups

You are a 58-year old nurse who is a hypochondriac and works in an allergist’s office. Write from this perspective. Start with: I hung up on him twice…

Un-moral

Start with: The beads of sweat.. and conclude with the un-moral of the story: Every clown has a silver lining.

The Juniper June

You are a groundskeeper who talks to all your plants. You believe that talking to them is better than talking to friends about your problems., and definitely better than talking to a therapist. One tree, a Juniper, who you have named June, is your favorite. Start with: Can you believe it? She called me again last night..

Tooth Fairy

You are a disgruntled Tooth Fairy. You can’t understand why Santa and even the Easter Bunny get more attention than you. You just visited twins who expected $20 per tooth. Start with: I can’t believe..

Autograph

Write about getting an autograph from a famous person whom you’ve idolized for a very long time. Use these five words in your story: fly swatter, scale, rye bread, law, ebony. Start with: I always carry a pen with me, except for the time..

Basement

Picture a basement/cellar from your childhood. Mentally open the door, descend the stairs, feel the banister, take in the smells, notice the quality of light, wht’s on the steps, floor, walls. Hear the sound of the pipes, and the other noises. Behind a hot water heater, in the shadows, is something you never noticed before…an old wooden door! You go to it, take the knob in your hand, turn it..now start writing!

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John Klima previously worked at Asimov’s, Analog, and Tor Books before returning to school to earn his Master’s in Library and Information Science. He now works full time as a librarian. When he is not conquering the world of indexing, John edits and publishes the Hugo Award-winning genre zine Electric Velocipede. The magazine has is also a four-time nominee for the World Fantasy Award. In 2007 Klima edited an anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories based on spelling-bee winning words called Logorrhea: Good Words Make Good Stories. In 2011, Klima edited an anthology of retellings of fairytales for Night Shade Books titled Happily Ever After. He and his family live in the Midwest. You can follow him on Twitter @EV_Mag or learn about his editorial services at his personal site: http://johncklima.com/services

Outlining isn’t for everyone.  Nor is it for every project.  Most short stories won’t require outlines, and many novel-length writers function perfectly well without creating outlines for their work.  Deciding on whether an outline is appropriate is directly related to the length and complexity of the work at hand.

Occasionally you have something that you want to put some thought to before you start getting words down on the page.  It could be something rather lengthy like a planned trilogy where you know where it’s going to end (or you’d like to know where it’s going to end so you can write towards that end instead of inchworming* your way along the plot) or it could be something that you’re in the beginning stages of and you want to see if the idea is sustainable.

You might also find yourself in the position where someone (i.e., an agent or editor) has asked for an outline (say of the second and third books of a trilogy**) and now you’re not sure what to do next.

The best part of outlining is that it is also part of the creative process.  Where your brain might list sidewise and try to crawl outside your skull at the thought of making an outline, remember that you’re in control and you can tell your brain to stuff it and starting organizing stuff into sections, ideas, supporting ideas, and so on.

I have to give credit where credit is due.  My wife teaches composition at the local two-year University of Wisconsin school, and earlier this year she was frustrated with the quality of outlines she received from her students.  So she created an assignment/worksheet to help them.  I’m not a good outliner, so when I read her assignment (I’m often her guinea pig when she has new assignments…I don’t know if that means that I’m similar to her students and if I can understand it so will they OR if I’m so damn smart that I’ll suss out any flaw in the assignment; personally I think it’s the former, but what can you do?) I was so taken with how clear and concise it was that I wanted to share it with you folks.

I’ve adjusted the assignment somewhat, but you’re essentially getting this the same way her students did.  This assignment was created for students who were writing a research paper, which is different from a novel, but an outline is an outline.  I’ve found it useful with larger projects I’ve been working on, so I hope you do, too.  Something that might help approach the outline is to think of it as a very rough, very nebulous first draft (although if you want to put a lot of detail into your outline, feel free to do so!***).

Keep in mind that the outline below is only a sample outline.  For example, section I.A doesn’t always need two supporting points while I.B needs four; that was done to show how you use the structure of an outline.

Thesis statement (how you describe the book to your mom; your book in 25-50 words):

1. Major section #1
   1. 1st main idea
      1. supporting idea (usually a “they say/annotation)
      2. your discussion of #1 (usually this is the explanation/”I say”
   2. 2nd main idea
      1. discussion of B (“I say” could go first)
      2. supporting idea (“They say”/annotation)
      3. supporting idea (Another “they say”/annotation)
      4. discussion what #2/3 who (“I say” again)
   3. 3rd main idea
      1. 1st complex idea
         1. Supporting idea (“they say”/annotation)
         2. Discussion (“I say”)
      2. 2nd complex idea
         1. Support (“they say”/Annotation)
         2. Discussion (“I say”)
      3. 3rd complex idea/Explanation of what C.i and C.ii show for thesis
2. Major section #2 (etc.)

Here are the basic rules for outlining:

• Make the items at the same level of generality as parallel as possible.

• Each subdivision must contain AT LEAST 2 items.  So all I. need to be paired with at least a II., all A. need at least B., all i. have at least ii., all a. have b. and so on.

• If you can’t divide something into at least two items, then create another single item for the level above. (Ex. Rather than have an 2.a. by itself, just make a 3. section, OR instead of a B.i., just make a C. section)

• Use sentences unless phrases are clear.

• Be careful as word processing programs like to format outlines the way they want to format them.  Don’t be afraid to change things.  Alternately, if you don’t want to use the pre-built outline templates, you can manually create the outline using tabs instead, tabbing over once for every level of detail (i.e., the main section I at the left margin, one tab for the A. section, two tabs for i., three tabs for a., and so on). Your software might try to automatically format your outline, so again, be careful.

• Be flexible.  This is a writing plan (think of it like giant pre-writing).  It is fine to change organization/order as you write.  You will know what you actually need and where when you write.

• This outline should be fairly lengthy.  Typically the working outline of a research paper is about half the length of the final draft.  For a novel, that’s likely unreasonable, but don’t be surprised if you have an outline of ten to twenty pages or more.

* It was Bradley Beaulieu who I first heard describe his writing process as inchworming.  Essentially it means planning a little way ahead in the plot, writing all those ideas, and then planning again when the well is dry.  You move through the novel like an inch worm, a little bit at a time.

** In the early 1980s Glen Cook had submitted a proposal for a trilogy to David G. Hartwell (this was likely the Starfishers books).  Glen had the first book written, and David was certain that the publisher would want all three, but he needed an outline of books one and two so that it could be on file.  I seem to remember the story being that the publisher required wouldn’t buy the books ‘unseen’ and required at least an outline in order to draw up a contract.  Glen had no idea how to write an outline so over the weekend, he wrote books two and three and then created the outline for them from the rough drafts.

*** David Drake creates extremely detailed outlines when preparing to write.  This has been a great benefit to people who co-wrote books with David as the books almost write themselves.

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outlining

Back in March, my colleague John Remy posted here about using kanban, a project management technique originally invented by Toyota engineers, to keep track of multiple short fiction projects. John and I have both worked in the Information Technology field – I as a software analyst. His post got me thinking about how I’ve re-purposed some of the mental equipment from my day job to make my writing more efficient.

Consider a novel as a big, complicated machine. You put materials – characters, situations, imagery – in one end, the machine churns on them for 300 pages, and what comes out the other end is changed somehow. In between, a succession of gears, conveyer belts, robot arms, and other parts act on the material, moving it along, reshaping it. It’s a complex task, designing a machine that does all this, and the first few times I tried to do it, I ended up with hundreds of thousands of words but no cogent story. Eventually, though, I realized that the software I help build in my day job had a lot in common with a novel.

I’m now a month into my fourth attempt at a novel, and it’s working (after trying to write – and scrapping almost entirely – the first two attempted drafts). Here are some techniques I stole from the software business to make it work.

Establish Scope First; Avoid Scope Creep

I picked a semi-arbitrary length of 100,000 words broken into twenty 5,000 word chapters. I’ve done enough writing now to know how much ground I can cover in a 5,000 word chapter. It might seem like a rigid framework, but I’ll stick to it as much as possible, for reasons discussed in the next section, and to avoid scope creep.

Scope creep is something that happens in both fiction and software projects. The project is humming along nicely toward its goal, when along comes an idea for a new feature. It’s tempting. Oh, it’s tempting. But if you add in something that doesn’t clearly move toward the final goal, you’re making the project longer. You’re complicating things, and risking getting the job done. Do like LeGuin and kill your darlings. Better, don’t even write that tangential thing in the first place if you can help it. File the idea away. It’ll be there later.

Synopsis = Requirements

Now I know that I’ve got twenty chapters, and I know how long they are. So I can write my requirements, which get documented in my synopsis.

In software, a requirement is a description of a piece of work your machine must perform. How it does the work isn’t so important as that it does do it.

Some people are born novelists, or they’ve been doing it long enough that all the mental processes I’m now inculcating in myself are second nature. Joe Haldeman quipped during Q&A after a reading at MIT last year that he usually sends in a synopsis and then writes a completely different novel. Works for him, I guess, but I need more structure than that.

My synopsis isn’t yet the final document I’ll use when submitting. The chapter summaries are spare, bullet-pointed, written for me to reference rather than as an enticement to a potential publisher. I’ll have to re-write it in salespitchese when I’m done.

It’s also got some key extras: dramatis personae; a timeline of world events; and since it’s a sci-fi novel, a summary of important technologies and social concepts.

Every Part Must Work to Requirements

If you listen to veteran novelists, they think of chapters and scenes as having requirements, even if they use different words. Every scene must have a purpose; it must do a piece of work. If it doesn’t, it shouldn’t be there. It’s scope creep.

On the positive side, the requirements provided by my synopsis give me concrete measurements of whether a scene or chapter achieved its purpose. Does the audience now know from this establishing scene that my talking bear detective is brilliant but a ginormous asshole? Do they also have that key piece of foreshadowing info they need to stay engaged? Yes, they do. Requirements met – next scene!

Keep Good Documentation

I’ve made my synopsis the core document describing my overall novel project. If I change something in the text, the synopsis gets updated accordingly, so that I can keep track of what I’ve done by reading the synopsis rather than skimming an entire chapter. This saves me from a huge time-suck I had on previous noveling attempts – re-familiarizing myself with stuff I’d already written.

We’ll see if all this works. It may be that I hit my January 31 deadline and have to go back to the drawing board yet again. But for now, it’s working, and I feel confident that I’m not wasting effort on another project that I won’t finish.

Descended from Norwegian illegal aliens, Jack Graham, like his dodgy, seafaring forebears, gets by on a good story and occasional back-breaking labor. He counts among his friends all cats everywhere and a giant, glowing North Woods insect manitou whom he cheerfully immolates annually at an orgiastic revel. He can neither confirm nor deny whether the Clarion West 2010 class is some kind of f&sf mafia. He has published some stories and games, but no novels.

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I don’t know about you, but I love books. Yeah, I guess that’s why we’re all here, isn’t it? I’ve got stacks of books for every occasion, but the tallest stacks are the “research libraries” for my various WIPs. (Yes, some of these stacks are temporary since I take full advantage of my local libraries.

Too many research books can weigh you down, though, and lead to the dreaded state of happy paralysis: Research Rapture. The only sure cure for this condition is to put the books away and get back to the writing, but a healthy alternative is to get your boots on the ground for a bit.

There’s nothing like experiencing the world to inform your writing — especially if you happen to be writing about real places. Travel’s expensive, though, and many of us have demanding day jobs and loving families that make it hard to take that month-long safari to Africa you need to research your novel.

If you have the time and money to plan a thorough research trip then by all means, take advantage of the opportunity! But if you have only a few days and a limited budget, there are things you can do to make the most of an ad hoc research trip:

1) Take advantage of upcoming trips. Look for opportunities to combine research in work travel and family vacations. The primary purpose of these sorts of trips is rarely going to be research, but you may be able to shave a few hours from the agenda to inform your current or future WIP. I was recently back east to take care of  some family stuff and knew I’d have several days on the road heading westward. Could I take advantage of that long slog back to LA? Turns out I could.

2) Drive. Even with the price of gas these days, driving’s generally cheaper than flying even, if you factor in a night or two at an inexpensive motel. It’s also easier to meander a little off the beaten path. While driving can take time away from research at your destination, consider that the trip itself may be the destination! My current WIP takes place partly in the Dust Bowl of 1930s America, so with a few deviations from my route home, I spent some worthwhile hours soaking in the feel of the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles.

3) Eat Local. It’s tempting to eat only at convenient chain restaurants along the interstate, but if you’re going to stop for an hour or so to eat, why not find a Mom & Pop diner? Chatting with the server in one Texas town, I got a better sense of life out there on the plains than reading about it would have given me.

4) Look for the local museums. Sometimes there are little museums on town history or even tiny exhibits in one room of the courthouse. These places often operate on volunteers and donations, but may give you an invaluable glimpse into the character of a town and its people. I wasn’t researching the history of ranching per se, on my Panhandle trip, but in Dalhart, Texas, I discovered the XIT Ranch Museum, and this city boy got an eye-opening education on the balance between ranching and farming and how they utilize the resources of the land. Plus I got some good cowboy stories.

5) Talk to folks. This is sort of a no-brainer, a given. But people like to talk about where they live. Ask them. One of the docents of the XIT Museum was only too happy to talk about his own Dust Bowl experiences. Wonderful stuff.

If this post is starting to sound suspiciously like “how I spent my summer vacation,” then maybe it is. But I was able to turn a sometimes stressful but necessary trip into an invaluable research project.

You can too.

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research, travel

[6/15, 11:15 am: This post has been edited–when I originally posted, late last night, I had accidentally switched ALL THE PREPOSITIONS, giving “Yes, and,” and “No, but.” Which can still generate some good ideas, but I think you’ll find these slightly more useful. Thanks again to Mary Kowal for catching my blunder!]

This spring I went to the Rainforest Writers Village writing retreat (hey, click that link–that’s me in the blue-and-white striped sweater!), and while I was there, I attended a presentation about outlining by Mary Kowal. Mary had a lot of wonderful advice, but the best she gave us were these four little words: Yes, but… / No, and…

How can you use these simple, one-syllable words to help you develop your story or novel outline? Well, every story can be boiled down into a series of scenes, where each scene is a concrete nugget of conflict spinning our characters toward or away from something they desire. As the scene builds, it will answer a question about whether or not the characters get that desire–but it’s only successful if the answer leads to further complications that develop the story. Sounds tricky? Well, let’s look at a story we already know.

At the opening of the movie Ghostbusters, our three amigo scientists work at a prestigious university and want to make a living studying the paranormal. When they go to learn more about a ghost in a local library, the ensuing disaster causes a kerfuffle in the office politics. Will our scientists keep their jobs?

NO! And…

Peter Venkman gets the great idea to start their own company that specializes in eradicating paranormal troubles. Will they be able to help their first client, the beautiful Dana?

No, and…

She becomes romantically involved with Peter, and her neighbor, Louis, becomes possessed by a demon. Do the Ghostbusters figure out how to help Louis?

Yes … but…

You see how this focus on compounding difficulties leads naturally to chain of linked events? That can really help you develop those pesky midsections of your pieces. The chains can be joined by offshoots–less important story developments that affect your characters’ desires or wind up fleshing out the larger story line. For example:

The EPA decides the Ghostbusters are a hazard to public safety because they have an unlicensed nuclear reactor in their basement. Can the scientists convince the EPA that their business is harmless?

No, and …

When the reactor is turned off, it releases all the Ghostbusters’ trapped spirits. The city is overwhelmed by paranormal activity.  Can the Ghostbusters find the hidden power center that’s causing this problem before their city is destroyed?

Yes. but…

It’s in Dana’s apartment, and she’s opened the door for Gozer the Gozarion, who’d like to bring on the end of the word. Can the Ghostbusters destroy Gozer?

No, and…

They can choose the shape of the world’s destroyer and melt it into a million pounds of marshmallow fluff!

Sorry. I had to finish the movie, even though I’m sure you already had the point.

Anyway, what all these “Yes, but” and “No, and” phrases are particularly great for is helping you become unstuck when you’re generating an outline. 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. It’s really helpful to look at one of these tricky scenes and see if there is a way to write it so that the character’s desire is thwarted, but a door is left open–or that the character gets what she wants, but isn’t fully satisfied.

The other wonderful thing about this process is that it forces you to constantly be framing your story in terms of your characters’ wants and needs. It’s all too easy to create a thrilling plot that batters the characters around to get the point across–you’ve seen it in bad movies half a million times. (Like that terribly cringe-worthy moment in so many horror movies: Why is she going into the basement unarmed? Noooooooooo!) Exciting plots mean nothing if they don’t mean anything to your characters.

It’s amazing that four simple words can help a writer keep their story grounded in humanity, but sometimes the simple things surprise us. Thanks so much to Mary for sharing this great tactic!

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character-driven, mary kowal, outlining, Rainforest Writers Village

Brooke Bolander is the nymph stage of a foul-mouthed cicada that only emerges from the earth once every thirty years. She’s also a larval writer and Clarion UCSD grad, with stories featured or upcoming in issues of Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, Reflection’s Edge, and [PANK]. For more aimless ramblings, check out her website at brookebolander.com or, if you’re into that kinky social networking shit, her tweet-thing @BBolander.

It’s okay if you can’t get it up sometimes.

No, really, it happens to everybody. Here, you want a tissue? Cool. Seriously, this is something everyone has experienced before. Shit’s going on in your life and it has you stressed. Your condo exploded. Your dog was run over by your ex, driving to his or her wedding. Your mother won’t stop ringing your mobile, there are a million deadlines looming, and Imposter Syndrome is rapping that curt ‘I am an Authority Figure’ knock at the front door, briefcase in hand, sunglasses on, dark suit immaculately pressed. He sees you peeking through the blinds and he knows what you are, oh yes. He knows.

(You can’t ignore that motherfucker, by the way. He doesn’t go away until addressed, and you’re never entirely rid of him no matter how many years pass. Imposter Syndrome gives no fucks about your sales, your SFWA membership, or your agent. He’s got a job to do, and like some sort of spectral Tommy Lee Jones he doesn’t care whether or not you’re innocent. Nothing personal, you understand. Making you doubt everything you’ve accomplished is just part of a day’s work for him. He is our tribe’s grim-faced probation officer of the soul.)

People talk a lot of talk about how you should be writing every day no matter WHAT, all the time, even if it’s crap, what’s wrong with you WHY AREN’T YOU WRITING, but like most things in life, I have to say that tactic works for some and not for others. If I do this, I am not a happy camper. I end up more miserable than I was staring at the dreaded polar bear with a lash in her eye that is the blinking cursor. I don’t want to scribble out something I’m not proud of, god-dammit, I want to write something good. I’m not saying you should wait for the perfect word muse to descend from on high with your thumb up your butt, ’cause that’s a load of horseshit (full disclosure: I usually do my best work with a deadline breathing carrion and ground bone down my nape). All I’m saying is this: If you have a string of bad days where nothing gets done, don’t feel too bad about them, even if they last a year. Are you worrying about it? Is it nagging at you like a cat demanding breakfast? Are you at least trying occasionally, even if you end up deleting everything after four hours of weeping and awkward fumbling? That’s good. That is the feeling coursing through your frostbitten fingers. If you don’t feel any kind of trepidation, that, my friend, is when you should start to worry. I hear crocheting is a popular hobby. The couches of the world can always use more yellow and brown afghan blankets; what else will the bass players sleep under?

Story time, kids: I had a writer’s block that lasted three years, mostly due to Imposter Syndrome. My first short story sold in late 2008. I was very proud of that tiny accomplishment and the $15.00 check it netted. I basked in my baby step for a couple of weeks, then settled back down to start all over again, as y’do. “Oh boy!” says I. “Somebody bought something I wrote! The barquentine Self-Doubt is gonna get its shit wrecked on the shoals of Pure Ego from now on, I can feel it! Look out, pro markets! Watch your backs, big name authors! I’m gunning for you, and my hands don’t shake anymore!”

Fade out. Fade in to six months later: my bloodshot, dark-circled eyes. A year later: I am Miss Fucking Havisham, glowering and cradling the rags of my first success even though they are chock-full of spiders. Two more years passed in this fashion. It wasn’t that I wasn’t trying or worrying about it. I was plenty worried about what the hell was going on, I just couldn’t get it together to finish anything, no matter how hard I tried. This went on until last spring, when, without warning, the blockage passed and I finally splattered a torrent of words I liked onto the porcelain processor. I’ve never had a problem that severe since. I am probably jinxing myself horribly saying it aloud, but hey, truth’s truth.

Keep stubbornly headbutting Writer’s Block in the nose and, although it may cackle and spit blood in your face for awhile, eventually the asshole will crack and hit the concrete. Don’t get discouraged, don’t get despondent, don’t get worried if things get all gummed up for a long, long time. The only universal rule is this: Don’t Give Up. You give up, you’re screwed. If you want people to hear your stories bad enough, sooner or later you’ll find the energy, the time, and most importantly of all, the words.

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