T- T is For Telling

     Telling. Don't do it! What is telling? Well, here's an example:

     Jakko walked across the green and told Thaimis that the army was en route.

OR you could SHOW...

     Jakko sprinted across the field, then pulled to a halt in front of Thaimis. He took a brief second to catch his breath, then spoke: "The army is en route."

     See the difference? Whenever possible, describe the action, don't give an account. Granted, there are exceptions...  You don't want to describe every second of a thousand mile journey between two countries, nor do you want to describe your character's morning routine every time he wakes up.

     That being said, opt for showing whenever you can. It makes for a better read.

S- S is For Secrets

     Secrets. Gotta have 'em. I'm not talking about turning your book into a mystery or crime drama when it originally was a fantasy. No... I'm saying that one of the ways to add depth to your characters is give them secrets. Also, give them motivation to keep those secrets from each other. This will create... wait for it... Conflict! And Conflict is king, so make some of it.

     The only hard part of the secrets game is keeping track of who knows what and who thinks what. The best idea I've heard is to keep a notepad with some sort of table on it right beside your computer, and make little notes as you go as to who knows what and how much. Right now I'm working off of my head because I didn't start said notebook early enough, but let me tell you, a notebook sure would be handy right about now...

     So learn from my mistakes. When giving your characters secrets to keep from each other, use a notebook to keep track of them.

R- R is For Research

     Research. How do you do research for sci-fi and fantasy? Simple. By knowing your world. Knowing your world can be as simple as keeping track of all the 'rules' your characters encounter and then keeping them consistent, or it can be as complex as advanced map-work, creating languages, and developing histories and political systems. For me, it's somewhere in between. While I don't really go so far as to create whole languages with grammar mechanics and pronunciation guides, I do like to have an idea of the layout of lands.

     Here's some of the things I like to know and keep track of:

1. Maps. I need to know the exact layout of a country. OCD thing, maybe.
2. Political systems. This affects everything. I need to know how much power the King has, how much governors and mayors have, if there's a caste system, etc. Pretty much the framework for every country you have.
3. Magic system. If there is science or magic in your book, it needs to be consistent. If a character needs ammo for a spell, then you better not have him ever cast it without ammo. Likewise, if a ship engine can only cover so much distance in one go, keep that consistent. Your readers will thank you by not bringing it up at every conference you go to.

     This is the extent of my world building. I try and get most of this figured out beforehand, and then modify it as I go... The only rule is that everything has to be consistent.

Q- Q is For Quitting

     Don't do it.

     When you stepped onto the path, you knew that the journey would not be easy. Therefore, why do you hang your head when the rain falls and thunder rolls, why do your footsteps falter when the valley floods? You knew what you signed up for. You knew it would bring fear to your heart, tears to your eyes, sweat to your hands, and blood to your skin. You may be in the middle of the journey, but that is not license to quit. Before you began you saw the destination and said that it was worth it. Lift your eyes up now and see what you began in pursuit of and know that every tear, every drop of blood and sweat is worth it. You can win this. When you've fallen in the mud, and you can't seem to get up, look where your headed, dig down deep and force yourself to your feet. You're a warrior, and life cannot, will not, never will get you down unless you give it permission. When you fall, come up swinging, come up swinging hard. Soon the journey will be over and you will be home. You will be glad for every step you took, every pain you endured. Then will you look back and know that the journey was worth it.

     Don't quit. 'Nuff said.

P- P is For Prologue

     Prologues. It seems people either love 'em or hate 'em. I love 'em. How come? Well, I'll tell you. Otherwise I wouldn't be writing this post.

     A prologue is an excellent tool in the arsenal of a writer for one good reason: You can set up your world, hook your reader, and give an idea of the general direction of the plot. And then you can jump into a slower-paced first chapter without the massive risk of losing your reader after page 1. If they're hooked and wanting to know why the dude in the shiny black helmet choked the crap out of the pilot and captured the girl in white, then they'll be willing to put up with all sorts of whiny-ness from your farm boy main character just so they can get to the 'good stuff'.

     In my humble opinion, a prologue that starts with the main character is--usually--a prologue wasted. Your main character will not--most of the time--start directly in the middle of the action. As such, you want your prologue to show someone who is. Maybe their wise future mentor who's going to turn them into a machine of magical butt-kicking, or maybe the snarky lancer who winds up being just boss enough to push them over the edge and into victory come the final battle. Perhaps you want to start with an elven princess transporting a valuable 'jewel', only to get kidnapped by a really, really nasty dude(s).

     Prologues will also set the tone of the book. If it's going to be an epic, the prologue will need to be a bit more grandiose than a tightly-focused story about a small town. If your book is going to be gritty, then let the prologue convey that; we don't want a mother to pick up what she thinks is a 'nice fairytale book' for her 9-year-old son, only to find a witch-burning, a beheading, and a gory torture scene all within the first six chapters. Sweet dreams, kids.

     When it comes to hooking the reader, here's how you do it. On the first page include action, a mystery, or a very, very tense situation(remember Conflict?). Mission accomplished. Not quite that simple, but you get the idea. Also: You want your readers to have questions at the end of the prologue. By the end of that bit, you want them starting a betting pool on whether or not you can deliver one the promises you make to them.

     The prologue is the best place to drop Chekov's Guns. If you need the gun to go off in Chapter 12 that your main character is part of a prophecy, then have someone in the prologue mention a prophecy and people thinking it's close to being fulfilled. One thing that you can do that is rather risky is this: You can set up series-long Chekov's Guns/arcs in your prologue. Why is this risky? If poorly handled, people will think it's an aborted arc and you are a crappy writer.

     If you start an arc or place a Chekov's Gun in your prologue that won't pay off until a sequel, keep it fresh on your reader's minds. Do not fail to mention it for the rest of the book. Find a way to assure them that you still hold that thread. If they see that the thread is actually being followed, then when the book closes with 'To Be Continued', or whatever words you choose... They will not think that you just dropped them on an island, promised them mystery and adventure, then brought them to a sorry excuse for a series conclusion that didn't even answer any questions, like "WHERE DID THE POLAR BEAR COME FROM?!" Sorry.

     Point is, try a prologue, but remember: readers have long memories.

O- O is For Outlining

     Talked about it before, but let's go more in depth. Outlining is an incredibly useful tool in the writer's arsenal that can save a major amount of trouble when you're sixty-thousand words deep into the belly of your plot. How do you outline? It's quite simply.

     You know how when you write, it's more letting the words flow than thinking? At least for anyone like me? Well, outlining is the opposite. You aren't really describing anythings, you're just bullet-pointing the important bits. Like your main character moving to a new country, meeting an important side character, etc.

     Some people like to outline on the computer, I prefer paper--it feels more hands-on. A sample would like something like this:

Prologue:

1. Talkan travels to ________
2. ______ runs into ________
3. Talkan __________
4. They discuss the signs that have been happening
5. They leave for ________

Yes, that is actually my prologue, just heavily censored to prevent spoilers. Point is, outlining will help you craft a master plot. Give it a try.

N- N is For Non-Linear

     Let me ask you a question. What, in real life, is ever linear? Not a whole lot. Same should be with your stories. Not that you have to have your character run freaking everywhere to find a new outfit, but all outline-worthy problems should have a degree of non-linearity to them. The bigger the problem, the more work it should take to solve it. Bonus points if you can cause each side trip to relate to another problem in the story.

     A prime example of this is the thread of the love plot in, say, a fantasy epic. The love story most certainly is not brought up in every scene. Most, maybe, but not all. Each time it's brought up, something is solved and more complications are brought up... Prince Charming finds her tower, but she's not at home right now. Unfortunately, the dragon is. Get the idea?

     This all stems from the magical word: Conflict. As an author, you are the living embodiment of Murphy's Law to your characters. The more complicated you make their problems--assuming you can weave it all to a meaningful conclusion--the better story you're going to have. Another example...

     If you have an epic battle, please don't let it get resolved in one chapter, especially if it's the final battle. Take your time with that stuff. Full on medieval offenses do not finish in one paragraph. It takes a lot longer than that to muster 500 infantry into a charge against a castle wall, especially when you take the archers and boiling oil into account.

     I used to have this problem myself. Battles are fun to write, but being the minimalist that I am, they would often get over far too fast. Like I said, non-linearity will help you here. Cause complications for every tactic. If your hero is trying to scale the castle wall to take out the general, then have him run into at least a couple guards, and have his scaling equipment be a little sketch. And certainly don't make every attack successful. A battle isn't a straight win or a straight loss. It ebbs and flows.

     Keep these things in mind as you are plotting. Your story will benefit greatly.

M- M is For Malvolio... M- Why, That Begins My Name!

    This is going to be a completely off-topic post, but here goes: I do theatre. It's fun, it's a hobby of mine that I've been involved in since before high school. I've learned a good number of things from theatre, so I'll attempt to list them here.

1. You can't practice if you don't know what you're practicing.
2. Just because it looks like chaos, doesn't mean it is.
3. Sometimes a little yelling is necessary.

     Each of these can apply to writing. Ha! I got back on topic. Take that, ADD! Right, where was I? Anyway...

1. Take time to learn your craft. If you just write, yeah... Eventually you'll get better. But your efforts will be compounded if you read a some books on writing. A couple of good ones to start with would be 'Story' by Robert McKee and 'Plot versus Character' by Jeff Gerke. Those two books very much helped my writing, more so than just about any other book I've read.

2. When you're in the middle of things, it might feel a little messy. That's good. It means your characters have lives of their own. Keep that outline on hand and the end in sight, then when you step back, your 'chaos' will be a intricate tapestry of fiction.

3. Conflict. If there isn't conflict, you don't have a story. 'Nuff said.

L- L is For Linking

     Linking. That is, linking events. You have to do it. Well, you don't have to, but it sure helps your book be awesomer. Linking covers everything from bringing a situation full circle to foreshadowing. Essentially, it is the art of making your book feel connected.

     The best writers make even the most tangled web of plots and subplots connect together to make a story. How do they do this? Outlining. Nothing helps you plan your story like outlining. I used to just go at it, but I've found myself outlining more and more lately. Try it. It helps.

K- K is For Kill-Off

     Ah, the kill-off. Nothing can anger more readers or make them read on like the kill-off. A time honored technique, it can be used to great effect in the right hands and disastrous effect in unskilled hands.

     If it's a major character you're killing off, this can serve as motivation for the main character--Obi-Wan killed by Vader, Luke really has to man up now--or the ending to an installment to saw 'screw you' to Fox give it a bittersweet factor--Hoban Washburne dying in Serenity. Minor/smaller characters dying off can either be very much played up--think something along the lines of Rue's death in the Hunger Game--or a catalyst at the beginning of your book/script--Batman Begins would be a good exampe.

     However, make no mistake that just because your character that you kill off is minor, that they can just be a background character. If the kill-off is to be more than an extra dying in a fight scene--like if our heroes storm the throne room and kill some random guards--there must be an emotional connection if you expect to cause it to affect your readers. Otherwise, the person is officially a Red Shirt. Just sayin'.

     All that being said, use the kill-off sparingly. Don't be like 24.

J- J is For Just Enough

     As a writer, you walk a fine line. The line of Just Enough. I'm not speaking on particular subject here. I'm talking about everything. Adjectives are great, but too many and your writing becomes bogged down. Too few and it seems a little bland. Same with description. Same with just about anything.

     Now, there is no magical level of ingredients--20 adjectives per chapter, 10 lines of dialog per page, etc.--that you can find. Just Enough depends on your voice. You have to find your voice, the intangible facet of your writing that makes it yours.

     When you find your voice, then you will know what Just Enough is.

I- I is For Interest(The Love Kind)

     Why do heroes and heroines have love interests? Well, I was originally going to say it's similar to the 'escort quests' in MMORPGs, and it's just because the developers are lazy and need more filler content to make the game more challenging, but that's not entirely true. Love interests are a great source of conflict, motivation, and filler content subplot. They can be central to the story, minor to it, or grow over the course of several books. The love interest can be a good thing or a bad thing--or a complete mystery to which it is (see Sam and Ruby from Supernatural).

     Getting your hero to fall for someone is just a matter of figuring out what he wants in a lover, and then creating a character that will actually help the plot along who conforms to that. But watch out... don't create cardboard characters just so your hero can have a damsel in distress. And please, oh please do not let the love interest ever fall prey to the 'Standard Female Grab Area'. If you do that, I will find you and force you to rewrite the scene. No one is going to cry foul if the bad guy punches the girl into unconsciousness. He's a bad guy. He does things like that.

     Getting off subject here. Love interests are a good thing to throw in the story, but don't do it unless the love interest provides a legitimate addition to the story. No cardboard lovers, sorry.

H- H is For Heroics

     I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you want the hero of your story to do heroic things. Even if he/she is an anti-hero, you want them to save that village from burning to the ground because, hey, it's cool. Well, I hate to break it to you, but heroism must have a motivation, especially for a main/major character. Even if the character is a support character, and his reasoning is never mentioned, you must know why he is so heroic so that he can be believable... Not a 2D action hero.

     Batman, for instance, has a private war against crime, because criminals killed his parents. Sam Winchester signs on to be a Hunter again because it appears that Yellow-Eyes killed his girlfriend--in the same way that he killed Sam's mom. Malcolm Reynolds signs on to save the 'Verse because, well, he just flat out hates the Alliance. Oh, and they killed a bunch of his friends. Nick Burkhardt signs on to the whole Grimm gig because his beloved aunt died of cancer and 'complications', and passed the legacy on to him. Bilbo steps out the door because he's part Took, dangit, and that's what Took's are apt to do.

     See the pattern? All the good heroes have something in their past/the first few chapters of the book/movie/TV show that burns inside them... Makes them do what they do and gives them a fiery passion to do it with.

     So give your hero some motivation, and see just what can happen.

G- G is For Goals

     There is nothing more helpful than setting your goals. 'Fire, ready, aim' doesn't really work that well. For me, I always manage to try to write at least 1000 words a day. Hopefully more like 3000. To be honest, some days that just doesn't happen, but it at least keeps me on track and feeling uncomfortable if I'm slacking off.

     I've been told some people don't work this way, but it helps me.

     Another type of goal you need to concern yourself with is the goals of your characters. They all must--at least, the main ones--have very clearly defined goals and motivations for said goals. Without goals, there and can be no conflict, and without conflict, there can be no book. The more specific the goal, the better. Something like: "Find fame and fortune" doesn't work... Well, not unless you have a really, really, really strong motivation, but we'll get to that later. Something like: "Find where I belong" is a good start, but narrow it down to... "Do I belong amongst the men or the elves?"

     See where this is going? A broad goal is great to start with, but whittle it down to a focused point. Once you have your character's goal, you will be able to create conflict, and once you can create conflict, you can create a story.

F- F is For Failure

     Failure is necessary in good fiction. If you get the sense your characters are strolling down the road of life with flowers being tossed in their path, something is wrong. Your character's journey should feel like trying to navigate a mountain road in the middle of a severe thunderstorm, while carrying a lightning rod and trying avoid the lightning.

     Let's think of a new character. We'll call him Jack--because all good male leads are called Jack--and say that he's 30 years old, unmarried, and captain of an Angerthan-Class star-frigate. Yeah, I right sci-fi, if you didn't get the memo... Jack is in love with a girl. We'll call this girl Jill.

     Jack is stationed in the LL Sector of the Terra Realm, a couple lightyears away from where Jill is, living on Civilization's Jewel. Now how would the story be if Jack's tour got over, he got back to Civ's Jewel, found Jill, asked her to marry him, and she said yes?

     That would be a boring story. So, for the sake of Conflict (check out Day 3 of the challenge), we'll throw in some space pirates, because pirates are good (if you get the reference, you are awesome). These space pirates attack the frigate just as they're about to make the jump home.

     Failure #1: Just as Jack was about to head home and be reunited with his girl, Conflict rears it's beautiful head and says: "Sorry, pal, not just yet. I think the author wants you to have your soul ripped to shreds by forcing you through all sorts of awful situations go on some sort of inner journey or something." We're going to be particularly evil to Jack and have the attack of the pirates throw the worm-core calibrations off, meaning that when they do make the jump, they land on the wrong side of town.

    Through a tragic series of events, Jack is forced to fail and fail and fail yet again, until about 2/3 of the way through the book, where he starts to succeed. Now, I'm not saying he can have no success before this point, but I am saying that the major goals should not be accomplished yet. As you near the home stretch, you can start to build towards Jack's success at his goals. A little victory here, a little victory there, until--finally--Jack kicks the Big Bad in the teeth.

     If you want a great example of this--certainly better than the one I contrived in the space of 30 seconds--go on Netflix and start watching Supernatural. I swear I have no affiliation with Eric Kripke, but there is no show I have seen that weaves a better plot. Watch it with a a writer's eye and notice how well the characters arc, how they are forced through failure time and time again, and how everything builds perfectly to where they kick the Big Bad's teeth in. For the sake of spoilers, I won't say who it is. I'll only say that Yellow-Eyes is small potatoes.

     Seriously, watch Supernatural. That show taught me a lot about writing good arcs.

E- E is For Efficiency

     Efficiency is everything with writing. There is no reason you should describe something with 500 words when 50 covers it just as well. It's not that prose is bad, it's just that in today's market, speed is the name of the game. Why read a book when you can watch a movie? That's what you're up against.

     You must keep everything on point. Long, flowery description doesn't work. I'll go watch the nature channel if I want to see all that. Same with dialog. Speeches may have been fine in Ayn Rand's day, but now the only situation is if the character is rousing an army for battle. Even then, keep it pithy.

     Yes, this post is short. Look at the title.

A Quote From My Book

"If you're not comfortable with your butt being wet, you're not made out to be a Traveler."

D- D is For Destruction

     Oops. I forgot to post yesterday. My bad. As a result, you will get two posts, one in the AM, one in the PM. Sound good? Here goes.

     Destruction is a key element of good fiction, at least, in my opinion. I'm not talking about the catastrophic razing of cities. I'm not talking about the apocalypse. I'm talking about the destruction of your characters. If you want to write a good, soul-wrenching story...

     Take a character with a very strong stance (A). Set him up against a character of the opposite stance (B). Start throwing all the horrible situations you can think of at A, but here's the catch. Each situation must be designed to make him reconsider his position. Bit by bit, twist and turn him until at some point in the story, he is the exact opposite of what he started as.

     A good example of this is Star Wars. Anakin started out as a good Jedi with noble intentions, but by the end of the first three (yes, the first three. I'm an EU'er, and unrepentant of it, so if you have issues with George Lucas' tweaking of his story, go whine about it somewhere else), he had become a Lord of the Sith.

     Another prime example is Season One of Supernatural--all the seasons are good, but this is the example that doesn't take multiple seasons to come to fruition. Yes, Eric Kripke apparently plans that far ahead. Point being, in Ep. 1, Sam says to Dean that what they're doing won't change anything because 'Mom's dead'.  Dean slams him against the wall and tells him to never talk about her like that.

     Cue the finale episode of Season One, where the exact opposite happens. Sam has become the obsessed Hunter, getting revenge on anything supernatural, and Dean is the one telling him to pull out of it because 'Mom's dead'. Guess who gets slammed against the wall this time?

     The point is, take your character's ideals, their values, and destroy them. Or at least attempt to. Then maybe repair them if your publisher refuses to let you end the series on such a down note you're feeling kind.

C- C is For Conflict

     Conflict. Conflict is what your book must be based upon. Conflict is the basis of all plot. What is conflict? Conflict is when two people with opposite goals or similar goals but opposite routes meet together and one of them has to give for the other to acquire what that person wants. Sound complicated? A wants X. B wants Z. For A to X, B has to not get Z. For B to get Z, A has to not get X.

     If you have a story idea, you need to figure out how you can generate conflict in the world of that story. Because story is conflict, you need conflict. Oh, want an example? Sure thing.

     In my story, the main character, Jakko, falls in love with a girl. Note: Jakko is a half-elf, and in the country he is in, there is an elven clan dedicated to killing half-elves. You have been backstory-ized. Jakko is traveling with this girl to her city, but when her father finds out that Jakko is a half-elf, his desire to keep his daughter locked in a tower until age 30 protect his daughter from that elven clan rears up... Conflict.

     Please note my book is not a love story, and this is a minor sub-plot compared to the main arc. Please believe, I would not write a romance novel. I'm not that type of guy.

     Back to our regular broadcasting. Where was I? Oh, yes. Conflict. You need conflict in your novel. End of story.

     Yes, I have been known to make the occasional pun.

B- B For Beginnings

     Beginning. Everything, with the exception of one, has a beginning. Genesis is another word for beginning and sounds more epic and all around awesome-er. Every story has a beginning, with the possible exclusion of Memento, but I'm not going to get into that--I don't want to break my brain by thinking about it too hard. There's an old Chinese proverb that says: "Every journey begins with a single step". Wise words.

     When you begin a journey (writing a book, lifting weights, getting to know that one girl you really like), there is a definite moment in which you can say: "That's when all of this began, that's when things changed". Sometimes that moment is hidden.
   
     An example of this would be my book that I am almost finished with. I'm on the third/fourth draft. It is so different from draft uno that I have a hard time tracing the actual genesis. I spent about 30 seconds in between that last paragraph and this one, and I have figured out the 'real' genesis of my book, the moment it became all that it is now. I was sitting in a panel at the Omaha Film Festival that kind of sucked. So I decided to brainstorm. Within an hour and thirty minutes, I had turned my story from a one-nation war into a fantasy epic involving a war between... I'm getting ahead of myself.

     The point I'm trying to make here is that you need to take that first step. Go do it, get out there. Seize the moment. Write that first chapter or prologue. Pick up that barbell. Ask that girl out to Winter Formal coffee. The worst thing that happens is you die horribly, and let's face it, how likely is that to happen?

     Don't Google the statistics. It's very discouraging.

And The Letter of the Day is A- A For Aggression

Aggression is a lost art. Aggression can be a very bad thing. For example, being aggressive towards your boss will get you fired. Being aggressive towards a child is wrong. However, there are times when being aggressive is very, very beneficial. To use writing as an example, there are times when you're feeling writer's block, when you're feeling lazy, when you just don't want to write anything. If you can summon your aggression to overcome that block, that is a very good thing. Personally, to get aggressive, I don't have to go to my 'angry place'. Not usually. All I have to do is tell myself to shut up for once, and then just set myself to the task I need to do. The aggression will come naturally. That could be because I'm a guy, I like challenges, and lift heavy things on a regular basis, though... One thing that will help if I just cannot get aggressive is music. It can't be calm music like the Decemberists or FM Static or Yo-Yo Ma. It has to be loud and stirring: Hans Zimmer, Theocracy, For Today, or any action movie score are great examples. That being said, aggression must be controlled. Using it against people is never a good thing. Using it to overcome tasks is.