Tips on Experimenting With Writing

Matt sat down to the game I’ve been programming for fun last night. For as little work as I’ve gotten to do on it, there’s been a myriad of cool scripts and other gadgets I’ve been able to edit and plug in, which have made progress on its production easier. So much so, that I’ve started to get into programming the actual scenes of the story, in fact.

"Too much dialogue!" he said, and I agreed with him. I'm not a mind-blowing writer and I still draw far better than I write. But I am well-practiced and more importantly, I love learning. I write too long. Ask anyone who’s read my fanfiction. I had to learn to edit things down and to be okay with doing so, and a lot of my technique for writing today relies on typing every little thing down and tearing half of it out, later. I learned this through experiment -- writing things for fun and employing new practices that I hadn't tested yet.

Recall the series of posts that began here: Creative Writing From Start to Finish. To break it down, my writing technique looks something like this:

• Get ideas
• Turn ideas into breakdowns, character profiles and backdrops
• Turn breakdowns into story beats
• Turn story beats into a story
• Inject themes and subtext
• Edit the whole thing down

It's all well and good to follow this formula, but enjoying the process of writing would be impossible if I didn't switch things up once in a while and try new things. I get lots of enjoyment out of writing, but to turn the process into a formula can make for a very boring time, so I need to try new things and break some of my own rules once in a while.

Here then, are some new things I've been testing with fun-for-me projects like the aforementioned game, and some paid projects as well:

• Working a plot around a theme without force. And the words 'without force' are the important ones, here. It's generally considered bad form to plot around a theme, because it doesn't feel natural. Indeed, your subtext should serve your plot and not the other way around. What's been working for me, however, is to write out enough of the story to know when a theme is beginning to rear its head, develop it, and not bend the plot out of shape if it's not a perfect fit. Tweaking a theme is far superior to tweaking a story, and can produce some satisfying results.
• Inserting a plot device (or two) at random. This one is a bit tricky because it immediately registers a big fat "DON'T" from my brain when I try it. I've found that this is due, mostly, to my brain having not figured out what will come of the plot device and its intended purpose, when it shows up at a point that doesn't make any sense. But that's beautiful, too, because if I'm not expecting it then I hope my reader isn't either. I'm also forced to work with it and use ideas I hadn't been counting on using to reconcile it.
• Writing towards one resolution and going an entirely different direction. I picked this up from Kevin Smith's experience directing Red State. In an interview I saw, he talked about having the story written to a point where the next thing to do in the progression seemed obvious, so it was decided to do something entirely different instead, to keep the audience on its toes. Like the randomly appearing plot device I talked about above, jerking your story around in new and surprising ways can be a frustrating but highly effective way to break out of your comfort zones as an author. Too, notice I didn't say 'opposite direction', here. If you do this, keep in mind that it's sometimes just as easy and therefore just as expected to take a story one way and do the exact opposite. Try to do something really wacky and off the beaten path, instead.

You may try some of these yourself, and indeed, you may try others. If you need help getting ideas, I suggest going back to my How to Write guides again and inspecting points where you can bend the rules a little (or a lot) and giving it a go.

It's important to note that when you experiment with your writing, any weird thing you're going to try has the potential to go very, very wrong. But that's okay -- this is a creative exercise, after all. You may feel more comfortable doing this type of work with your side projects, therefore.

Even if you're not getting paid to mess around with a story, it's important to take it seriously enough that it serves the highest purpose of writing: It makes for a good read.

How to Write (Good) Fanfiction

I've been asked when I was going to cover this topic, so without further ado...

You may think good and fanfiction can't be in the same sentence together, and if you look at some of the stuff people post online (My Immortal, anyone?) you may have a point. However, many people enjoy writing fanfiction, myself included, and it's been that way for years even before the Internet. Some of these unofficial or non-canon stories are well-loved by fans and there's no reason you yourself couldn't pen the next great fic to go down in fandom history.

In a very broad sense, we write fanfic for many reasons:

• We are looking to practice our writing or get started as a writer.
• We feel we can do a good job of writing in a world which we love.
• We simply get inspired to tell stories not seen in the actual canon.

Fanfic is not for the weak of heart -- people, even those who claim to be easy going about such things, will defend their own ideas of a popular tale, quite feverishly. But that shouldn't discourage you! You can learn many things from writing fanfiction, and not the least of these is learning to handle criticism gracefully.

Through writing, you will also learn what it feels to love what you're writing about. This is a very key element necessary in creating original works of your own. And of course, you can and should learn the basics of setting up scenes and characters for your own ideas, which fanfiction can teach you how to do.

When you write fanfic, you should write what you want and how you want, because there's no better use of fanfiction than to test the waters of reception for any given idea. If you are going to be a serious writer, you would do yourself a disservice following the popularized "rules" of fanfiction, such as pairing your original characters with actual characters, creating powerful characters, or alternate realities. You should simply strive to write characters in situations you would find fitting to them while keeping the whole thing interesting and enjoyable to your audience. Many of the best fanfics out there are the ones that don't follow the rules.

Still, you should try to follow these basics, as always:

• Use proper grammar and spelling
• Stick to one style of writing. If you're going for 3rd person omniscient, don't switch to first-person mid-story.
• Try not to make the whole thing one big porno. At least add some feelings and conflicts and stuff.
• Don't write "drabbles"... you cheater!
• Write as if you were gonna' sell the thing (but stop short of actually selling it)

And one last but very important item:

• Don't publish your fanfic if the author of the original work has expressed that they do not appreciate it.

Feel free to fanfic to your heart's content, but with one big word of caution: the minute you really start to enjoy the process of writing is the minute you should start considering penning some stories of your own. That is something you can be truly proud of and who knows: maybe people will soon be writing fanfiction of your stories!

Creative Writing From Start to Finish - Part III

We've come to the final part of our series on creative writing today, and I certainly hope you’ve enjoyed the journey. Since we’ve gotten through concept development, outlining, story structure and writing, it’s on to the last steps: timelining, theme weaving, and editing.

 
You might consider this the boring part of the tutorial and quite frankly, there was a time where I would have agreed with you. Nonetheless, the things we cover in this portion are equally, if not more important than the things we talked about in the last two chapters. And I promise, I’ll try to keep it all interesting. In fact, you may even enjoy it.

 
Writing timelines is a skill I always recommend people develop if they’re going to tackle a story, and especially one that is told in multiple parts or will otherwise be quite long and detailed. I don’t always save doing this for the end, and will often start timelining in the same instance that I pull my first story concept together, and work on it throughout the whole process. In general, my timeline isn’t finished until I’ve put significant work into my story, already, so there’s never a bad time to do one.


For a decent timeline, you’ll want to lay out major events of your plot, theme(s), and the actions of each of your major characters, in parallel lines along a span of time – the beginning and end of your story. When starting out, you may have a timeline that looks as simple as this:

But more than likely, you’ll finish with one as big as or bigger than this:

Whatever you end up with, your timeline has one purpose – to keep complicated plot points in line with one another. As you write your timeline, you will begin to see things line up in ways which may lead you to a theme, or two, which could help tie your story together.


Themes are sometimes credited as the glue of a story, since they do such a nice job of unifying things. At its core, a good theme is simultaneously the lesson and inspiration we get through reading and one of the best ways a reader can make a connection to our real world from one of fantasy. The main theme supports the plot. As with many things, themes are best if kept simple and able to be described in one sentence. A good theme may be as simple as “If we work hard and stay optimistic, we can achieve anything.”


The best way to define your theme is to read through your writing and see what kinds of ideas have already tied themselves together. It’s very likely that you’ve placed a theme into your story without even realizing it. Working with the above example of working hard and being optimistic, you may choose to emphasize a point in your tale when a character achieves something through hard work, in an especially poignant fashion. If you find an instance where a character does not get what they want through hard work, you may keep it as a conflict or re-work it so it better fits your theme.


There are artsier themes, as well, and you may choose to keep them secondary to the main theme. Themes revolving around the rising and setting of the sun, change of seasons, and other such things are in this vein. For example, you may choose to align each of your characters with a season, and when your summer character has her moment of glory, you may choose to depict it happening on a hot day in July. Themes such as this are wide open, and serve as nice little extras your audience will appreciate if done well.


Your final phase of writing will come with the editing process. As we’d discussed in the last entry, you will want your story to be moved along in a way where each scene is set up to show off a character trait, move the plot, or both. Everything else is fluff and should be discarded.


Let’s think of an example scene where two characters are conversing. One character may reveal she’s looking to have more adventure in her life, thus revealing something about her character and setting up a major plot point where it is assumed she will soon be on some epic journey. Her companion may state that he’s traveled to a place full of wonder and excitement, revealing something about his character in turn, as well as taking the next step into the plot. It’s very tempting for beginning writers to start a scene such as this with the two characters talking about the weather and what a nice day it is, but unless the weather is a factor in the plot or a character’s future actions, our audience doesn’t need to know too much about that stuff and it can be left out.


Finally, as you review your writing, you want to make sure you’ve done a good job of showing and not telling. What I mean by that is, it’s easiest to simply state that major plot points are happening as they happen, and give away the objective of characters by equipping them with dialogue which states specifically what it may be – but it’s hardly interesting.
 

Check your work and read over it. Are things too obvious? Do you leave room for your audience to imagine once in a while? Did you find yourself writing more of “the full moon was out” and less of “faint rays of light glinted off of broken glass, providing the only illumination to the ground”? Now is the time to fix little nuances such as these and make them more interesting.


One last word on editing – if you’re doing a professional job, pay for a professional editor. You will be glad you did.


So that wraps up our little course on creative writing! I hope you’ve enjoyed and I hope you’ve learned something in the last three weeks. There is so very much more to cover on this subject than what I’ve given you here, so I recommend you look into books and other articles on the subject as you continue to grow as a writer.


Remember – there’s no better way to learn how to write than to start writing. Stay creative, until next time!

Creative Writing From Start to Finish - Part II

Today we continue our discussion on the creative writing process.

When we began our discussion on creative writing, we covered the basics, such as plotting story beats and breakdowns. This time, we’re going to get into the meat of the matter and do some serious writing! We’re going to be fleshing out the skeleton of a draft you have on your hands, by this point.

If your story seems to be flowing well, even before you put little details into it, then you’ll have an easier time of some of the things this blog post will cover than if you start writing and hope to pull it apart and re-align it, later. Short of that, however, you shouldn’t feel bad if a central theme or some of the deeper aspects of storytelling aren’t present just yet. We’ll be covering them, next time.

One thing you can do if you find your story doesn’t have the kind of flow you want it to, or if you think you would like it to be a bit more solid, is to break down your plot points. Most stories have at least an A and a B plot, and often, C, D, and E plots, too. Your A plot will be your central story – it involves the main tale which is being told. B through Z plots are all secondary, and it’s up to you to keep track of them alongside your A plot so the whole of the story can dovetail and make a great ending.

As a general rule, when it comes to content I often allocate 60% of my story to the A plot, then the remaining 40% to my B, C, D, etc. plots. None can be more important than the other in terms of the audience’s interest in its resolution, but the A plot should be more important in terms of what is being resolved, and especially if your story is one piece of a bigger continuity. For example, my A plot may involve my main character going on a journey to recover a hidden treasure, and my B plot could involve secondary characters staying behind and getting into trouble without the main character there to help them.

When you square away your A plot and its subplots, you can begin to do some long-form writing by following your breakdowns and story beats, and fleshing them out. If we talk about the writing process in the same way we'd talk about sculpting something, doing story breakdowns would be akin to setting up armature wire, and at this point we're ready to pile on some clay and begin to give our piece some shape. There are of course, many things to keep in mind as you write and they all go beyond the basics such as spelling and grammar.

Now is the time to decide if you’re going to be telling a plot-centric tale or a character-centric one. As I alluded to last time, sometimes you know which your story will be, right from the get-go. Sometimes it’ll take some feeling-out. Look at your outline and ask yourself if there’s more plot than character interaction, or vice-versa. If it’s even, then you may simply choose one or the other, or go with your strengths.

This should set you up to decide what narrative mode the story will be written in -- again, that is if you haven’t already figured that out. Third-person limited and first-person are often the most popular and I recommend them more than their omniscient counterparts to new writers. You may think these are terms for novel-writers only, but they are equally important for comic book writers to familiarize themselves with.

In my mind, omniscience is key and which person is in charge of it all is secondary. As a general rule, each chapter of a story should not go outside the boundaries of any one character’s point-of-view. In a third-person-limited story, for example, it is considered bad form to allow the audience insight into a character’s thoughts, and then into another’s without a means for doing so from the main character’s perspective. “Joe thought about a purple cow and Jane thought about a chicken.” would be better served as, “Joe thought about a purple cow and he could tell Jane was thinking about a chicken.”  as it does not imply an omniscient point-of-view and clearly marks Joe as the important figure of the tale.

When you’re sitting down to your keyboard, and your first words are flowing, consider focusing on your characters to keep things natural. Ideally, characters and plot work simultaneously, but that’s not something we always see at this stage. Now is the time to get acquainted with the “feel” of a certain character, a setting and a world in general. There will be plenty of time for editing, and we’ll certainly be doing plenty of that, next time, so write to your heart's content!

Not worrying about what you’re keeping in and removing at this point is absolutely okay.  You will write things that neither advance your story or do a particularly good job of defining character, and that’s also just fine. Do try to keep it in mind, but with the understanding that a little fluff won’t hurt you now, and in fact, may inspire you to jot down some really brilliant things as you go.

Writing dialogue is one of the most important tasks you’ll be tackling at this point. I’ll happily admit this: Dialogue or speech is sometimes a headache for yours truly. The golden rule is generally assumed to be this: Write your dialogue as if it didn’t require you defining whose mouth it came from. With practice, you should be able to write a line of speech and have your audience (and certainly yourself) immediately recognize who said it. And this is more than attributing accents or dialects – it gets right down to which words a character selects for their normal speech. As I said, it sometimes takes practice to not give a character lines which would be more akin to the ways you yourself speak, but it’s worth the time to commit to learning this very important skill (and you can indeed learn it)!

Try speaking your dialogue out loud. Does it sound funny to you, or does it sound like something you yourself would say? If you’ve got a good support network, get the opinion of a friend. People are quite valuable at this point in the writing process, if you have some good ones to lean on.

Of course, other people can also bring real headaches to your writing, especially if their critique is not what you were expecting. Go with your gut. If they point out something you yourself thought was wrong, then fix it. If someone has an issue with something you thought was great, then reevaluate it or get a second opinion before you erase it.

It’s always bad to write plot just for the sake of plot. If you go on for twenty, two-hundred or two thousand pages of an outline and get no deeper than, “this happens”, then you’ll bore everyone in your audience to tears. Far better you get used to writing “this happens so that this happens” and better still, “this happens, then this happens, so that this can happen”.

When moving your plot along, it’s also important to step into your protagonist’s shoes. How would you feel if the things happening to them, were instead happening to you? How can you best set up the plot around your character so that their experience becomes the reader’s? Set-ups are made this way: by the simple act of positioning a precursor to a conflict or other action. You may start out by showing a character getting ready for a big date, being nervous, and giving a sense that a lot rests on the outcome, before you show people a marriage proposal, as an example.

Naturally, this part of the writing process is going to take the longest, and you are certainly going to want to take breaks when you feel uninspired or when the dreaded writer's block hits. My best advice for combating writer's block, is this: don't ever waste a good idea. If you get a thought for a great plot twist or something that'll otherwise really grab your audience, don't wait to use it. See how it could fit your block, now, and use it right away if you can. I promise, another idea will come to you, later.

When you've finally finished your manuscript, you are ready to do some editing, which we'll cover in a blog post, next week! Stay creative until then!