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In Good Company Part 2

16 Wednesday Oct 2019

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I started this off (last post) by saying that I like villains. Then going on to say I like complex characters, and going on about making characters three dimensional.

Now I’d like to shine the spot light on the villains themselves.

There is an old saying: you can judge the character of a person by the quality of his enemies. While trying to find who said this, I came across several origins, from an Arabian proverb, to Oscar Wilde, to presidents who have all said this. With so much history behind the quote, you’d think most writers would pay more attention to it.

It’s always a shame when reading a good story to find that the villain has been added seemingly as an afterthought. As if the author was half way through the story before thinking about who the villain would be, waiting until they had to reveal them before looking at them. These paper doll villains are often caricatures of themselves, either easily beaten, often comically so, and are often just there to show how good/powerful the hero is.

This is a shame, because, done right, villains bring a whole story of their own with them. A story that, many times, parallels the hero’s story, and makes the villain a dark reflection of the hero. Yes, the villain’s presence shows us how good the hero is, but only because of they are held up to the comparison of how the bad the villain is.

You may be saying to yourself: That’s all well and good, but how do I make a good villain?

I’m so glad you asked, and I would like you to keep this in mind. This is a quote from John Barth that several of the people in my writing group liked to toss about. “Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story.” To put it another way: everyone is the main character in their own heads. And to connect it all the way back to this post: the villain doesn’t see themselves as the villain, to them they are the hero.

Let me break it down for you (because quotes are all well and good, but advice is better). The villain should have their own reasons and motivations to be in the story than just, ‘I hate the hero’. Let’s do a for instance, (I love theses).

For instance, in the story of Aladdin, the evil vizier is trying to find a mystic lamp to grant him power. Aladdin isn’t even the start of the story, he’s pulled in by the villain, and only after that do the two become at odds. It’s not even that the vizier hates Aladdin; it is only that Aladdin is in the way of the vizier’s ultimate goal. So, the vizier is in the story even before the hero, it is his motivations that begin the story, not Aladdin’s. To point out the dark reflection stuff: both characters are stuck in their positions due to society’s rules, though one seems happy with himself if not his position, while the other lusts for more. Both characters steal, but one does it to survive while the other does so to increase their own power. Both want the mystic lamp to elevate themselves, but one is humbled by the elevation while the other sees it as overdue.

That’s just one aspect of: the villain should have their own motivations for being in the story.

Remember though that the quote says we’re all the heroes in our own minds. So, let’s look at a story where the hero is the bad guy and the villain is the good guy. I am, of course, talking about the classic of eighties cinema, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. If you haven’t watched it, you should…Right now…I’ll wait.

…

…

All caught up? Did you love it? I bet you love it. Good. I love it too.

But Mr. Eden, sir. Ferris is the hero of the movie and Principal Rooney is clearly the villain.

To that I say: Really?!? Is that how it is?!? Okay.

Let us examine the two characters of Ferris Bueller and Principal Rooney. Let us go over what the characters do in the movie. One character: lies to his parents, ditches school, hacks the school’s computer and deletes files, he then convinces his friends to ditch school, steals a car, steals an expensive lunch (because you bet they couldn’t afford it, and just put it on the man’s expense account), and disrupts a parade (a heritage parade), commandeering it for his own adolescent ego. The other character is just trying to do his job, making sure a minor under his charge gets the education they are required by law to receive. Does he go a little overboard? Perhaps, but he keeps getting the shit kicked out of him by life through the whole movie; you’d break to I’m sure.

The beauty of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, of any good literature, is that the stories can be told from multiple character viewpoints. This can be done because each character has their own motivations for being there. In the Ferris Bueller example, we see Ferris as the hero and Rooney as the villain because it’s from Ferris’s point of view. We could easily have a movie from Rooney’s point of view where he’s the hero. (In fact, I believe that movie is called Election ironically starring Matthew Broderick as the Rooney character that time around.)

It for this reason that I’m not a fan of the terms, ‘hero’ and ‘villain’.

But you said…

I know I said I like villains, and I’ve been using those terms through this whole post. As the Ferris Bueller example illustrates, as the quote that’s the meat in this essay sandwich states, the terms hero and villain can be tricky and complicated. Luckily there is a handy piece of literary jargon for just this situation. The terms are, ‘protagonist’ and ‘antagonist’.

If you’re a fan of my writing, you’ll know I don’t write your traditional “heroes”. For one thing, I have numerous stories from the point of view a villain/bad guy. For another thing, my “heroes” aren’t exactly the best people. That’s why I like the terms, ‘protagonist’ and ‘antagonist’. Protagonist means the person that the story follows, and antagonist means the person/thing that opposes the protagonist. I like these terms because the allow for the grayness, the muddied waters, that writing (and life) can get into. So, Ferris Bueller is the protagonist of the movie without necessarily being the hero, and Principal Rooney is the antagonist of the movie without actually being the villain.

I will leave you with that.

Remember: be yourself, be well; write yourself, write well.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

01 Tuesday Jan 2019

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2018 has been a year.

Technology has brought us together, torn us apart, and has revealed many things about people and society. Society has begrudgingly, with an almost Sisyphean effort, moved forward.

One of the wondrous (and sometimes horrifying) things about technology is that it gives a voice to everyone. From the president to the prepubescent youth, if you’ve got phone then you’re just a tweet away from having your voice heard around the world.

The voices don’t stop there. In what some are calling, the “golden age” of television, we have hundreds of channels giving us, literally, millions of options for shows to watch. Netflix alone has a breadth of variety from Jessica Jones, Diablero, The Protector, and a slew of others that promote diverse voices.

In film there are fifty-four independent film companies, and these are just the ones that have “major” releases in America. There are thousands of smaller companies that release films to little or no fanfare, but still their material, their voice, is out there.

Of course, in this discussion of voice availability we can’t forget YouTube. A platform that has singlehandedly changed the face of media in the world. To name a few productions that I like: Rooster Teeth, Crypt TV, and Unconditional Love Series.

For a beginning, or struggling, writer this can seem overwhelming/intimidating/hopeless. How can your voice be heard in the auditorium of the world when everyone is screaming?

In 2018, close to three million new books were published worldwide. Publishing is still a billion-dollar industry. Self-published books increased by thirty-eight percent. (The information is out there, you just have to look for it.)

The point being: There is still a need for stories. From small town hypocrisy manifest as a monster (It), to stories of discrimination and equality (The Sneetches), to finding a relationship filled with love and trust (Fifty Shades of Grey), the written word is still alive and well. Or at least as alive and well as we want it to be. The age of the tweet, the YouTube, and the DirectTV, people are still enraptured by a good story. Words can inspire, comfort, words can change the world.

Go out there and let your voice be heard.

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language/And next year’s words await another voice.”

T.S. Eliot

Be yourself, be well. Write yourself, write well.

Resolving to be Resolute

29 Monday Jan 2018

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It’s that time of year again. The beginning!

I’m sure there have been many a resolution made. About your writing. About your health. About your personal life.

I’m going to be honest with you: I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions. I believe that if people want to change they will, they don’t need to wait for a new year to begin. You can make yourself new anytime you want by committing to change. Studies agree with me. Several have been done, and something like 85% of New Year’s resolutions are forgotten/abandoned by mid-February, if not sooner.

So, if you’ve made resolutions about your writing, I’m sorry. Some of you are probably already struggling to keep up with the changes to routine/style/genre. It can be rough. It will continue to be rough. And I’m sorry for that. Seriously.

I’ve been in the same boat. When I graduated college (the first time), I said I was a writer. I’d taken classes. I’d gotten a degree. I had the verbiage: I am a writer. I also had bills: I had to eat; I had to have a place to live; I needed a job to get money to pay for that, and I needed a car to get to the job, and car insurance on top of that.

Life getting in the way of life.

I wrote when I could, but most days I was tired, or happy to have some time to myself. Writing became a footnote in my life.

Then, I met my wife—she wasn’t my wife at the time, we were just dating. I told her I was a writer, that it was my passion, and showed her some of my work. She liked it, thought it was good. I was happy to share my work. But…

Life got in the way of life, and, to be honest, I was out of the habit of writing so there was more than a little slacking off.

Decisions were made, and something miraculous and horrifying happened. My wife (still a girlfriend) and I moved in together. Every day when she got home she’d ask me what I’d done, expecting to hear about my writing. But…Life and slacking.

After a couple months she did something that I sorely needed. She yelled at me. She asked me why I wasn’t writing. She accused me of not being a writer, and said if I wanted to be a writer then I needed to FUCKING write.

I was hurt at first. Having her yell at me from, what I felt was, out of the blue was a tad scary. What hurt the most, and was eye opening, was that she was right.

Writers write, and if I wanted to be a writer then I needed to write. It was a dose of tough love, but I needed it.

So, with that in mind…

All you aspiring writers out there! FUCKING WRITE!

I want you to write. I love hearing stories, and I want to hear yours. If no one else does, at the very least I do.

I’ve said this before (and I’ll probably say it again), only you can tell your story the way you can tell it. So, tell it! If you want to write, you have to write. No one else is going to do it for you. And why would you want someone else to write your story?

This has been your dose of tough love.

Until next time: Be yourself, be well. Write yourself, write well

Taking that Burger with a Side of Characterization

29 Monday Aug 2016

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Hey, all! Today I want to talk to you about characterization. For those of us who need a quick reminder/definition: Characterization is how and what we learn about someone in a story that makes them feel/seem like a real person; details about a character in your story.

Everybody got it?

Need an example?

How do we know the main character’s best friend is in love with them? Because they run out of a date to help the main character, and other “above and beyond” type of things that a friend wouldn’t normally do.

A big part of characterization, I believe (but I’m sure most others would agree with me-if I could ask them-which I can’t-so we’ll just assume), is (and here’s the phrase you’re probably tired of hearing) showing not telling. Quick reminder: the “show don’t tell” advice is straight forward, show the readers something in the story don’t tell the readers about something that we didn’t see.
For instance, if you end a chapter/scene with the main character going off to break into the bio-tech lab, don’t start the next chapter/scene after the break in and tell us it went well, show us the break in.

The same thing goes for characters in your story. Don’t have a character tell us another character is a jerk, show us that character is a jerk by their actions and interactions with the other characters. And here’s the thing, if you are having a character tell us another character is a jerk, then it says more about the character telling us about the other character than it does about the character they’re telling us about.

Sometimes coming up with what your character is like is tough (you can’t characterize your character to yourself). You just can’t figure out how your character would react in a scene. In these cases it can be a good thing to take them out of the story for moment and think about them doing something completely mundane. In this example let’s say their eating lunch. What do they eat for lunch? Are they are a fast food type of person? If they are, are they not concerned with their weight/health? Or are they a salad type of person? What kind of salad? Do they go out to a restaurant to eat lunch or have it delivered to where they work? Do they like to eat with people, or do they eat alone in their car to have a few minutes to wallow?

As you can see, when it comes to characterization lunch can be so much more than just something that happens. Lunch can be another way to show us what your character is like.

I hope this helps.

Until next time: Be yourself, be well. Write yourself, write well.

The Ergonomics of Failure

08 Thursday Oct 2015

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We’re back again for another installment.

Last time I mentioned failure. So I wanted to talk a little more about that. Because, you know, I don’t think life is depressing enough.

Anyway. I specifically say: “Stopping writing makes you a failure.” While at the time I was being inspirational this time I wanted to talk practically about that statement. I’ve asked several authors what is meant by the term, failed novel. All of them said that a failed novel is basically a novel that you stop working on.

I want to be clear on this. A novel isn’t a failure because it’s been rejected x number of times, or xx number of times, or xxx number of times, or xxxx number of times. It’s not a failure because it’s never published. It’s not a failure because numerous, very loud people don’t like it. It’s not a failure because, while people like it, the public misses the underlying point that you were going for in the story.

The only thing that makes a novel failed is you giving up on it.

Now I’m not talking about: I’ve been working on this novel for months/years. I’ve written it, re-written it, and re-re-written. I’m at the point that, I as the author cannot do anything more with it; I’m going to need a third party to come in and take a look at it before I can do anything else with it. So you stop actively working on it so you can focus on other things, like another novel, or eating, or your relationship (I swear I had a girlfriend/boyfriend/fiancé around here somewhere).

What I’m talking about when I say a novel is failed is: I got fifty pages in about a couple years ago and then I just haven’t had the time to pick it back up. Or, I tried writing a novel, but it just wasn’t for me. Or, I wrote a whole novel, but no one seemed to like it so, but I’m not going to change anything because they don’t get it; I’ll just focus on my porn addiction for a while.

Basically any time you just stop working on a novel, and just never go back to pick it up. The above reasons are pretty negative, but a failed novel might be a good thing too. Just let me explain. If you spend time writing you should, eventually, get a feel for your writing process, your style, and stories in general. You could have a great idea for a novel, get fifty pages in, and you realize that it’s just not working. Whatever the reason may be: the subject might not translate well, you might be having trouble organizing your thoughts, you might not be feeling the story right then. In that case you abandon the project in favor for a project that comes more easily. Or you might decide that your brilliant idea for a novel actually works better as a short story.

As a writer it is important that you’re able to identify poor writing, especially if it’s yours. Just because you have a failed novel doesn’t mean you are a failure. Apparently, John Green in the wake of The Fault in Our Stars, has started and abandoned four or five novels.

(If you don’t know who John Green is; he’s awesome. If you haven’t read The Fault in Our Stars; you should.)

The point I’m going for is this: Just because you have a failed novel doesn’t mean you are a failure. As the old saying goes: We learn more from our failures then our successes. And again: the only thing that makes you a failure is if you stop writing. So don’t let that one failed novel/story define the rest of your story, learn from it and move on.

Until next time: be yourself, be well; write yourself, write well.

The Rejection Reflection Injection

07 Friday Aug 2015

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Okay, so, since I took us out of the beautiful ephemeralness of the writing process and thrust us into the concrete really-realness of putting yourself out there I thought this time I’d put out a life jacket.

I mentioned that my preferred way of putting yourself out there for the public was getting published. This was a tad full hardy, and easier said than done. Putting yourself out there through publishing is hard. You’re going to get rejected a lot.

Let me say that again: YOU’RE GOING TO GET REJECTED A LOT.

Alright. Deep breath. Now everyone say it with me…

I’m going to get rejected a lot.

This does not make you a failure. … … Trust me, I know how that sounds. Even I have trouble believing that every now and again. Because, and this is just the truth, you’re going to feel like a failure after your umpteenth rejection.

One of the things you should keep in mind during this whole process is: our work is subjective. As much as publishers and agents may look at Harry Potter and say that it was successful because of x, x, and x. Or the Twilight series. Or the works of Michael Chabon. (and I’m showing my age here.) It is really up to the taste of the public what becomes popular, and with small publishing—short stories in a maga/e-zine—it’s up to the editor what goes into the publication. For instance: I have a zombie-ish story—Issues of Revanantcy—which I sent to the publication Brave Blue Mice. It was accepted to the webpage portion of the publication, but in the acceptance letter, and I’ll never forget this, the person who read it said they almost rejected it without reading it. And why, you may ask, would they do that? Because it was about zombies—well revenants, which are slightly different, but I digress. And they just get so many zombie story the person didn’t want to read yet another story about them. In the end they did, and found out that zombie stories can be more than: “high school kids running around screaming and getting eaten in the goriest ways possible.” (Or something to that effect.)

So yeah, subjectivity plays a big part in what we do. The above story also illustrates another thing to keep in mind about writing and rejection: you’re not alone. There are so many people out there writing, and the Interweb has made it much easier to put your/their/everyone’s writing in the hands of the people. So if you’ve written a zombie story someone else has too. If you’ve written a lesbian vampire story someone else has too. If you’ve written a Suesian jaunt through the mind of psychopathic killer haunted by the ghosts of victims who finds love with one of the ghosts and attempts to resurrect said ghost in a new body well…you should really get that published because I kinda want to read that. The point I’m going for isn’t you should shelve your zombie story because everyone is doing zombie stories (or anything really zombies just seems to be the theme today), but you should highlight what makes yours different, and you have to fight that much harder for it.

By the way, this also means there are hundreds, at least, of writing blogs out there. So if you’re reading this one: THANKS FOR READING THIS ONE!

I’m going to finish with the point I made all the way at the beginning of this: rejection doesn’t make you a failure. Stopping writing makes you a failure. Rejection can’t make you stop writing, only you can stop you from writing. The worst rejection can do is tell you that this editor of this mag/e-zine doesn’t think this story is right for them. Take that as a challenge to find one your stories, or write a new one, that the editor will think is a good fit for the publication.

Don’t stop writing.

And: Be yourself, be well; write yourself, write well.

Platforming isn’t just for Plumbers and Hedgehogs

09 Thursday Jul 2015

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So we’re going to change gears (sorta) for a second here. We’ve talked a lot about writing, as you might expect from a writing blog, but I’d like to talk about what comes after. That’s right, now that you’ve wrote something you’re proud of you have to show it to people.

Cringe, gasp, heart palpitations, rising blood pressure, glee, confidence.

Okay. Finished? Take a minute. Take a deep breath. Get a glass of water.

Better? Good.

So let’s talk about publishing and finding an agent, or, at least, one part of it. Most publishing companies, and some agents, will ask you about your marketing platform. Don’t get all sweaty over the jargon. What they’re asking you, basically, is what are you willing to do to promote yourself and your work.

I know, you thought that was their job.

So one of the ways you can respond, if you’ve been doing that, is that you have exposure. This means you and your work are out there. For instance you have a blog, even if you just review books you’ve read on it, you have a Twitter following (again talking about writing or books or daily thoughts/ideas about your writing) where you interact with your fans. Some of you might want to start a YouTube channel where you dispense advice about writing, rant about your writers’ block, or do quick reviews of books (I hear some people are very successful at the YouTube).

Part of the reason for this blog is to put me out there so agents and publisher can see that I’m out there. I don’t do book reviews because I’m not really in to telling you how I didn’t like a book. I get yelled at enough by my wife when I do that with her. Plus, I like to feel like I’m contributing, so I try to put some (reasonably) good advice.

The oldest way to expose yourself, and the one I recommend, is getting your writing (the shorter stuff obviously) in print. Who would have thought you could get fans by doing what you’re good at?

Yeah, so getting your work out there is just as useful (and I would say the most useful) as getting your name out there. It has the benefit of putting your name out there, and your work at the same time. Also it keeps you writing. This is always a good thing!

So the point is this: there is more to being a writer than just writing. You have to be “out there.” You have to be willing to be out there. There’s old saying about you being your best promoter, and it’s just as true now as it was when whoever said it said it.

I know for some of you this might be scary. I still worry that I’m doing something wrong whenever the cursor hovers over the publish button. You have to get over that. Being a writer is about putting yourself on the page; about putting yourself out there anyway. So put yourself out there.

Until next time: Be you, be well; write you, write well.

You Gotta Chip Away At It

23 Tuesday Dec 2014

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Hello, Everyone! I hope you had a good National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo, as the hip kids are calling it). For those of you not aware: November is National Novel Writing Month, where people sit down and write a novel in a month. Breaking that down for you in pages 5 pages a day equals 150 pages, which is roughly 2,000-2,500 words a day. Anyway, if you participated then I hope it was a good experience for you.

So NaNoWriMo is the reason I didn’t post in November. Not that I was working on a novel (I had other things piling up on my plate), but because I figured everyone would be posting about writing and didn’t want to overload the Internet on literature. Also I didn’t want to contribute to the distractions of not writing. And again, the afore mentioned pile of stuff I had to get done.

Which brings us to what I want to talk about today; I want to talk to you about writers’ block.

DA-DA-DUUUM!

I know, it’s such a cheery subject (especially for the holidays). I want to assure you: There will come a time when you don’t feel like writing. This is normal. If you do anything for any length of time you will get sick of it. I love writing—LOVE IT—and even I have days where the mere thought of what my character(s) will do next sickens me. One day I was staring at the computer screen, staring at the words from the day before, and just wrote: And they all died. Needless to say I took the day off.

Yeah, you’re going to have days where you don’t feel like writing. Writers’ Block is something else. It’s a persistent condition of being stuck, of not being able to write. No matter what you do you can’t put the next sentence together; can’t get through the scene; are unable to see the characters for the plot (or vice versa).

Don’t be ashamed. It happens to everyone. It’s no big deal. Seriously. It’s okay.

Here’s what I believe (and you may have guessed what it is): You’ve got to chip away at the block. You do this by keeping writing. It doesn’t matter if what you write is crap (in all honestly it probably will be), but you got to keep the writing muscle fresh. Do you know how many tons of earth miners have to move before getting to the good stuff? You should look up the statistics, it’s interesting. The same premise applies here, you keep working the earth until you hit a rich vein of creativity.

It’ll be hard work. It’ll be frustrating. That’s good. Eventually you’ll just want to write something and that’s when the dam will break and the writing will come.

At least…that’s how I do it.

For those of you who’d like a less aggressive approach here’s some things you can do.

1) Do something different with your writing: If you’re a horror writer try writing a fantasy story, or a sci-fi story, or even (GULP!) a contemporary (non-genre) story. The idea here is to keep the writing machine pumping while simultaneously cleaning all the gum out of the gears. Sometimes you can be too mired in a genre its tropes, and beats, and rhythms, and it clogs the thinking. The thoughts get jumbled up in possibilities and just won’t come out. Thinking about how different stories work and are put together can work out the kinks in your brain so you can come back to the story you really want to write with a clear head.

2) Do something different with yourself: Embrace the variety, my friends. Chances are if you’re a horror writer (going of the example from number one) then you watch horror shows/movies, and read horror stories. It’s good to keep up on your field, but this can also gum up the thought gears. Try reading a fantasy, a sci-fi, a historical novel, go to the movies and see a comedy, or a drama. Every once and a while you should, and can, come up for air from the full emersion in your genre.

3) Put the story down and step away: It’s okay. I know you can do it. Put the story off to the side (literally or metaphorically speaking) and work on something else. Move on to the next story you have filed away in your write brain; or you can pick up an old story that needed more work but you moved on because you decided you were done with it (the new perspective might be just what it needed). The point is maybe you need some distance from the story. It’s possible you have the story all outlined, but now that you’re writing it it’s going somewhere else and you’re trying to force it back into the original mold; some time may give the vantage point to see where it went off track, or where the story is going now.

4) It’s a 48 hour bug: It’s possible you just need a couple days to breathe. That’s right, a couple days off and you can hit the keyboard (notebook) hard and finish up the story. I don’t suggest taking more than a week off in the middle of a project. The hardest thing about being a writer is the self-discipline; you don’t have someone over your shoulder keeping you to a deadline, you don’t have to punch a clock, or even put on pants if you don’t want. So keeping yourself on track is a big responsibility.

Okay, here’s how I see writers’ block (and feel free to disagree with me): it’s all about pressure. You putting pressure on yourself to write, to be original, to finish in a certain time, to make it big, TO WRITE. Some pressure is good, it keeps us motivated, but too much can destroy you. Even worse too much pressure can take the joy out of what you’re doing. At the end of the day isn’t that what it’s all about? Enjoying what you’re doing?

Happy Holidays from all us Hemlocks to all you Mistletoes. Enjoy yourselves.

We Searched and Researched and Researched and…

23 Tuesday Sep 2014

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Alright-y then, going off of the last post on preparation; I want to talk about research. I know research is a part of preparation, but it’s such an important, and big, part I thought I’d give it its due with a whole post about it.

So the meat of the argument, the question everyone asks, is: how much research is enough research/how much research should I be doing?

The quick and dirty answer to this question (and some budding writers out there will stop after this, which they shouldn’t) is: you do as much research as you feel you need to, and then you get on to writing.

That being said, if you consider yourself a writer, if you want to be a professional writer one day, you should do more research than looking up one website/article (wiki- or otherwise) before you sit down to write about something. As a general rule I go for two or three sources on a subject, but it will depend on what you are writing.

If, for instance, you’re writing a historical fiction story I wouldn’t say it’d be out of line to have at least six sources (two or three on the event itself and one for each of the major participants), and really if you had a dozen sources I wouldn’t say you’re out of line. I read an interview with a writer (and you’re going to hate me because I keep doing this) whose name I can’t remember (someone look it up and send me a comment: female author, book took place around/during the Chicago fire, came out late ’90’s or early 2000’s). Anyway, this author took ten years to write this book, most of that time being research. So there’s that.

I would even say if you’re writing an alternative history story you still need to research the event(s) you’re changing, because you need to know what happened if you’re going to change things. Plus, doing this may get you to think about outcomes/consequences you might not have thought of for your story.

For my Reiner Rotterdam story I looked up several sources (digital and print) about fairy creatures to make sure I had the legends right. As it turns out trolls (Reiner is a troll by the way) originally were just bigger humans that liked to live alone and it wasn’t really until the introduction of the fantasy genre that they took on monstrous features that have become common place in our collective imaginations. Learning this made me think about the story I wanted to tell again, and in a different way, and I think it came out much better because of it.

Let me bottom line it for you: you will have to do research about something for your stories. To be fair (more than fair really) in this glorious information age that we live in research has become exceedingly easy to do, and writers have less and less excuses for misinformed stories or completely wrong “facts” in their stories.

As a general rule (yes, another one) regarding research: If you don’t know, even if you’re unsure, about something look it up.

I hope this clears the air about research. And as always: think good things, writer good words.

The Uncle Karl Fix Pt. 2

21 Saturday Jun 2014

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Okay, so enough people have said something about “Uncle Karl” that you’ve (begrudgingly) decided to take a look at the scenes he’s in. Hopefully there’s been a few days/weeks/months between you finishing the writing and you going back to edit. The reason for this is that time can help you get a better perspective on your story. I can’t tell you how many times I wrote something that made complete sense in the middle of the writing, but when I went back through editing I was like: Wait! What?!

So, you’re looking at the scenes with Uncle Karl. The very first thing you need to ask yourself is: What is Uncle Karl bringing to the scene?

Try to be as objective as possible. This will be difficult. Probably at some point during your re-read of the scene you smile because of Uncle Karl. It’s tempting at this point to go: Hey, I don’t know what they (your friends who have been nice enough to read your story to help you edit it and make it better) are talking about. Uncle Karl is great. I’m the cleverest motherfucker here.

Alright, stop right there. Now I’m not saying you’re not clever, and you may be the cleverest one among your group of friends, you might even be the cleverest motherfucker writing about what you’re writing about, but…BUT…what if you’re not? And even if you truly are the cleverest writer to ever write, if people are too distracted by Uncle Karl to notice then in the end it doesn’t matter.

So you’ve re-read the scene with Uncle Karl in it with the question, What is Uncle Karl bringing to the scene, on your mind. Now for the second question: What is the scene trying to accomplish? Thinking of this question re-re-read the scene. Now is Uncle Karl helping or hindering what you’re trying to do in the scene?

Obviously if Uncle Karl is helping then Uncle Karl gets to stay. If Uncle Karl is hindering Uncle Karl gots to go.

You have to do this for each scene individually. I must stress: DON’T GET RID OF UNCLE KARL IN EVERY SCENE BECAUSE HE DOESN’T WORK IN JUST ONE. The reason I bring this up is because Uncle Karl isn’t just taking up space on the page, he’s taking up space in the world of the story. You took the time for the story to have Uncle Karl in it so the story WILL have a hole to fill if you take him out.

This is actually a good segue into the coolest question of “The Uncle Karl Fix”: What happens to the story if you take Uncle Karl out completely? BA-BA-BUUUUM!

For instance what if Uncle Karl is hindering one of your scenes, but he’s there to introduce something that will be important later in the story? So Uncle Karl is hindering the scene but helping the story. Fair enough, but what does taking him out completely do for the story? What if taking Uncle Karl out forces the Main Character to be more proactive? What’s wrong with that?

What I’m trying to get at is that getting rid of Uncle Karl doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It can provide opportunities for the story to grow and move in directions you didn’t expect. From part one I mentioned my most recent “Uncle Karl” was that my story was from a character’s POV and that it just wasn’t working from their POV.

Yeah, I was upset. Something I wanted to do didn’t work. The story sucked. I had my maybe-they’re-just-not-smart/cool/into my genre-enough-to-get-what-I’m-trying-to-do moment, and once I calmed down I started thinking about the other characters in the story. When it occurred to me who’s POV it should be from all these ideas flooded into me about how I could play around with different aspects of the story, things that hadn’t even occurred to me the first time around, things that couldn’t have because the way the story was coming out. All of a sudden the story was breathing and alive again.

At the end of the day that’s all we, as writers, really want isn’t it? To have a story that’s fun to write and lives on its own.