Tag: book

The Night Circus Book Review

                I picked up this book with high hopes. It was advertised as a romance and a weird and wonderful magical romp. What I found was one of the few books I have ever started reading that I just couldn’t care about. There are several major stumbling blocks in rapid succession, snuffing out any sense of curiosity or intrigue almost as quickly as it is drummed up. I’ll explain each problem I ran into as best I can.

                The story is primarily written in third person present. For the most part, it is consistent although the prologue and occasional chapter are written in second person for no readily apparent reason. Even if it is supposed to be a gradually unfolding experience set at the end of the story, the fact that a chapter is dropped in the middle of a section of already jumpy scenes serves to add another layer of confusion as opposed to intrigue. There is an easy way to tell which chapters are in second person because of the lack of time or place descriptors after the title.

                These descriptors and the overall set up of the chapters is my next point. I don’t think I’m being petty or unfair when I say: if the only way your reader can tell five years has passed is because you throw up a chapter heading saying so, you’re not handling the passage of time well in your story. It’s the highest pinnacle of telling as opposed to showing. Also, limiting five years to one chapter between two protagonists who don’t interact causes the entire thing to be a mess of short scenes bounding back and forth. Some are only a few paragraphs in length. The feeling is hugely disjointed and the scenes are more grimace inducing as opposed to anything remotely interesting. They could also be shortened down to a single sentence dropped in at a later point as opposed to existing at all.

                Larger than any of these issues are the plot and characters who I can’t really get behind enough to make the rest of what goes on interesting. There is also a suspension of disbelief problem that arises quickly that not even magic can explain away.

                The first of the main characters is Hector, stage name Prospero the Enchanter, who is a true magic practitioner who pretends to be a slight-of-hand magician. He is 100% an irredeemable donkey hat from the start. He is brought an illegitimate daughter born of a week or so long affair five years prior. Upon the delivery of her into his care, his first actions are to complain about her name and practically rolls his eye at the fact that her mother committed suicide because of the stress of being an unwed mother to a magic baby in the 1800s. Within eight months he has bet the child’s life on a magic duel with an old friend. Most of his training is flat out abuse: he cuts his daughter, blames her for deaths she didn’t cause, starves her, displays her like a doll, uses her to gain money, and does not for a moment let her think he might love her.

                The next character is Celia, the abused daughter to the magician. She was informed by her mother at a young age that she is the spawn of Satan, and is accustomed to getting her way through fear as a small child due to having magical abilities that can destroy things and wreak other types of havoc. This is quickly checked when Hector makes it apparent he can do far more than she would have ever been able and she loses any potential agency under the blanket of abuse. The fact that she is shown in select instances to have a temper that will flare in situations she doesn’t like, except for all the actual abuse, seems lazy. There is no reason Celia shouldn’t have a string of runaway attempts under her belt and many, many broken items along the way. She has no agency and merely waits for each horrible thing to happen in turn.

                The man in the grey suit, rarely called Alexander, is set at Hector’s opposite in many ways. While Hector wants the fame of the stage, the man in the grey suit wants study and solitude. He loathes the stage game that Hector plays and seems to be less outright disagreeable: he at least pauses to double check before consigning Celia to a magic competition like an animal. He also never physically abuses Marco, his champion for the game. However, the regimen he uses consists of isolation on level with solitary confinement and, again, no affection for the child he adopted. It’s a marginal type of better that is still unimaginable awful.

                Marco is the last piece of the puzzle, and a victim who gets off much easier than he has any right to in the book. As mentioned, he spends months in solitary confinement. He only receives a one-hour visit from Alexander a day and that is it for human interaction. He also learns to read a completely different language simply by reading it. That’s not how reading works. With no pictures or instruction, those words would never have any meaning. We are also expected to believe periodic interruptions in his neglect are enough to leave him a perfectly functioning member of society. That’s not how psychology works.

                The last straw for me wasn’t the fact that a character was brought up that I had managed to forget even existed after only 25 pages, it wasn’t more and more characters being introduced when the main characters still feel like hollow puppets, it was one glaring moment of inconsistency that I just couldn’t comprehend. Marco, now an adult and living in an apartment by himself, goes out for a walk and upon his return finds that his room is locked up and empty. He next notices he lost his note book. He prioritizes finding the book, and a girl has it. Within one conversation they are dating and the next time they are brought up nothing is mentioned about the problem with the apartment.

                The author takes time to mention that the apartment has been cleaned out and looks unoccupied and in the next chapter Marco features in, it’s normal and no explanation is given as to what happened. There are little moments like this all throughout. Moments that are glossed over that can’t be attributed to magic. There is no cheat to unlock functioning mental health after years of isolation and neglect. There is no reason a girl said to have a destructive temper doesn’t try to fight back. There is no reason for Hector to drop out of the show business and make money with Celia’s card reading abilities when his motivation was given as fame seeking, not wealth seeking.

                Overall, the book comes off flat. Entire scenes could be scrapped or placed as single sentence flashbacks and still not change the story. By eight chapters in, the plot is all over the place, I can’t relate to any of the characters, and overall, I just don’t care about the story. It’s a shame, it has decent reviews hovering around 4 stars on Goodreads, but for me, it has too much wasted space and none of the waste is interesting.

Forbidden Words in Writing

When wrapping up my first draft of Debut, part or book one of my current WIP, The Great Awakening, my mind started to turn towards thoughts of editing. Polishing and nailing down all the different plot threads introduced before moving on to the next sections made the most sense to me. As this is the first work I’ve ever extensively edited, apart from school reports, I turned to the annals of knowledgeable, established authors on the internet to learn what I could.

There were a handful of tips I found. From the obvious ‘self-editing does not replace the need for a professional editor’ to the less obvious tips for checking for voice inconsistencies in your characters; there was plenty to learn. One repeated lesson stuck out to me: words to avoid in your writing.

Top ten lists are dedicated to the subject, some even go so far as to suggest there are fifty or more words you absolutely should never use when working on a novel or other piece of writing. I was incredulous when I first came across articles and videos on the subject. Surely, words we know and use in everyday life can’t be ripped from writing wholesale? Yet a majority of the articles emphasize they are not making a suggestion; claiming you won’t get published if you don’t heed their advice.

The reasons given for the rule follows a consistent line of reasoning: the selected words can bog down your writing, they are unnecessary filler, and/or they are associated with showing as opposed to telling. Articles that give more leniency admit dialogue is an entirely different beast, taking these words out completely is just unrealistic. Some even suggest using dialogue to sneak in the words you “can’t” use in your narrative voice.

I decided, due to the overwhelming presence of this topic, to attempt pulling these words out of my writing. Right away, I ran into issues. The first of which is the fact many lists can’t agree on what words are forbidden. Yeah, that will put a damper on things.

The first step became trying to pinpoint which words I was supposed to take seriously. Some of the most common words to avoid were: that, very, like, and all adverbs (-ly words). Expanding from there, it was said you should avoid any simple descriptors (big, small, good, nice, many), shouldn’t use any form of ‘to be’ (which is one of the most common verb groups in language), and definitely can’t use any words that ‘tell’ (feel, seemed, thought).  

As you can see, it gets ridiculous in my not so humble opinion. But I was willing to try; after all, I do agree it’s a bad idea to have an excess of repeated words on the same page and as these are all common words, I knew they would be a good place to start with killing the repetition in my novel at least. Some of the words, I didn’t use at all; others, I overused, and, so far, I’ve been liking the changes being aware of these words has led me to make.

That being said, as you can see from this article alone, there are times when I think it makes more sense to leave the words alone than to take them out. One of my biggest observations is taking out every single suggested word can lead to over-flowery writing that is a chore to read.

While I’m still working on perfecting my craft, I find myself in camp “use sparingly and be aware of your word use” as opposed to camp “cut every instance out of your writing.” My suggestion, that I think is far more worth your time, is to use a word breakdown tool on your writing. There are several you can find online; how they work is you post your writing in their script box and it will process your most common words. If you work in Microsoft Word, you can also open the Find tool and type in words to search your manuscript for repeats. Most importantly, read your work. Does a word stick out as repeating too frequently? Do your descriptions lack a vibrant feel? These are both much better indicators of the health of your manuscript than some arbitrary list of words.

Also, don’t forget the beta reader process and to hire a professional editor. Both are again, far more effective than an impersonal list.

Thank you for reading and sharing! I’d love to know what you think on the topic in the comments!

Book Setting

A primary factor of any story is the setting in which it takes place. The where of your story will be not only a backdrop to the action, but a central cog moving events taking place. The weather, people, environment: all contribute to a good story, meaning an author will devote hours of writing and development time to their setting.

What makes up a setting?

The dictionary definition of setting is the location something is or happens. In a book, there is much more to it, though location is a sizeable part of the equation. It also tends to be the easiest decision to make, at least in the broad sense.

When you have an idea for a story, in most cases you already have a rough idea of where you want it to take place. Are you writing a historical fiction pirate story? Your setting will most likely be the Caribbean ocean. Is your story about the first generation of human enrolling in an intergalactic school after mankind enters into a pact with other races? Your setting will probably be on an alien planet. This part is simple enough, but only the first step of journey.

Once you have the general idea of when and where your story will take place, it’s time to dive into location specifics. This part will absolutely take research, even if you’re writing about the city you grew up in. What plants grow in the region? What are the rivers like? The topography? The last thing you want to do as a writer is add a plot hole by introducing a plant or animal into your story which absolutely could not survive in the environment you have it set in.

It is also important to look into what sort of housing is available in a given region. Indiana won’t have adobe houses, but Texas will. Your icy alien planet will most likely need heavily insulated, practical buildings as opposed to open, glassy show pieces. Environment will also dictate jobs, needs, and behaviors.

Once you have the environment and cities planned, the people who will be part of your world also need to be thought up. Depending on your needs, you will have to decide how each community your characters will interact within is going to function. What diversity is present? If you’re in a pre-Civil War southern town in America the answer will be not much. If you’re in present day New York City, the diversity will be much higher.

Even if you create a planet, if you’re not looking for a homogeneous masked society where any one person can be mistaken for another, looking at real life statistics for the distribution of social groups, morals, customs, and other aspects will make your writing far more believable. Speaking of morals and customs, what are those? People are hard pressed to agree on those even when they try; it is unrealistic for any place to be of one mind. Unless you’re dealing with a hive-mind situation.

Challenges with Setting

As you may have guessed, this is far from an all-inclusive list. Each piece of what makes up a good setting for a story can be given a full-length 1,000-word article. Similarly, an article could be devoted to each different challenge presented during setting construction.

The first coming to mind when going over a list like this is just how much more an author will need to come up with than will ever reach the novel page. You might not spend a long time detailing plants in your book, but you had better know what kinds are local to your organic herbalist. The local customs of your alien race may seem trivial, until you have them all acting in a certain way but can’t pinpoint why. Multiple book and movie franchises will release some of this lore in exploratory compilation works. Other than that, much of it won’t reach the page.

Skipping out on the research stage can create an entirely new laundry list of problems, primarily with consistency. Why did this group act differently than that one? How can your character tell one person or group from the next? How did a parrot get involved in a story set in Michigan? Even if you plan on handwaving the event through science, magic, or irresponsible pet ownership, it helps to know what needs to be handwaved and how soon to avoid alienating your readers with a mix-up.

The Great Awakening Setting

The setting for my current WIP, The Great Awakening, is our present-day earth. I haven’t made any extensive changes to what you might experience on the streets today. What I did include is an alternate, sealed away history (so it won’t be remembered or contribute to how the world runs), plus a process of change taking place throughout the story to relearn lost information and return the world to how it once was.

That, of course, doesn’t eliminate my need for research. Most events take place in Washington state. I’ve never been far west of Indiana, so there were definitely things I’ve had to learn about the weather and where the most desolate locations are; to name a few.

I’m also trying to be slightly nebulous with some facts, not wanting to single out any place too specific to free up the imagination. However, that doesn’t mean I didn’t look up what sorts of trees grow in the national parks in the state, nor does it completely erase some subtle clues to real-life counterparts to some background characters, even if I only give then a title.

There is also time travel involved in my story. Ancient time travel. To make it believable, my main character is going to have an opportunity to learn a dead language from one of the few ancients who still remember it before hand so she will have a reason to understand what is going on once she enters the past.

If you’re a writer, what is your favorite part of world building? What part could you just as soon do without? For readers, what book or movie has your favorite world building? The worst? Thank you so much for reading and commenting! Have a great day!

Top 10 Favorite Tropes

Everyone knows what a trope is, right? A person, place, or thing included in a story–book, movie, or video game—used so frequently that anyone who has read more than one book can pick out.

Writers are warned to avoid tropes; told they make their writing worse or predictable. I say that with thousands of years of storytelling and human experience to draw from, tropes are recognizable for a reason and, as long as a writer puts in effort to freshen up the idea, tropes are a fun part of the writing process that can connect your work to the history of the craft. And if there is one thing I love, it’s near pretentious sentimentality like that.

In the spirit of praising tropes for their impact on literature, I decided to make this top ten list.

1) Treasure Hunts

I’ll attribute this to my favorite moves growing up. Muppet Treasure Island, The Goonies, Indiana Jones: I loved anything with a good treasure hunt. Bonus points for the wild and crazy traps that the main characters had to overcome along the way. I feel that either with the technological advances or our rapidly decreasing attention spans that show are moving away from this type of story and sticking with races and explosions. Which is a shame: bring back my bone pianos and riddles about invisible bridges!

2) Off Gender Hobbies

This one is something that I noticed more in 90s and early 00s media. Like the episode of Fairly Odd Parents where Timmy becomes a girl for a day to choose a good present for Trixie. This leads him to find out she likes video games and comic books. Their day together helps him feel better about getting a scalp massage and manicure while watching soap operas at the end of the episode. This was huge to me as a child who liked knights and knives more than jewelry and tea parties. It made me feel normal and helped me to realize that I didn’t have to restrict myself to choosing between ‘girl stuff’ and ‘guy stuff.’ I wish more people would bring this back, especially without any added subtext.

3) Redemption Arcs

Who doesn’t love a well-thought out redemption arc that isn’t contrived and that centers around a villain actually making character growth? See what I did there? This trope has the unfortunate symptom of too many authors wanting a redemption arc but not wanting to take the time to properly write them. This often centers around handwaving, or completely ignoring, any sort of character development in the ‘redeemed’ character. If a character is going to be believably redeemed, they need to hit their lowest point, whether physically, mentally, or emotionally, and realize that they just can’t continue what they are doing. After all, they chose their side with conviction. They should have a reason for overcoming that decision or it will never feel genuine.

4) The sassy talking weapon or mascot trying their best

You know this character. The talking sword, the computer with an attitude problem, the cute cat who thinks it’s a lion: they are fun to watch and read about because they offer levity and personality to any situation.

5) Rival friendships

The rival or arch nemesis doesn’t have to be an evil person. They usually just don’t like the protagonist. That doesn’t mean they don’t like anyone, and that’s very rare; even for a lone wolf personality. This is why I love when they are given real friendships. Someone to help them through their struggles and often helps them realize when it is time to give up.

6) Rivals or villains with a moral code that the hero can sometimes get along with

Just because I’m trying to take over the world doesn’t mean I don’t have standards. Rivals and villains normally confront the protagonist on sight. Occasionally, by the time they hit the scene someone else has already put the hero on their back. A rival or villain who are not really evil as much as just antagonists will sometimes help them to the hospital with a note saying they will be back to totally defeat them later. Other times, they will put in the effort to help themselves with only mild suspicion and a few over-exaggerated threats strewn into the mix. I live for those interactions which show the humanity of everyone on different sides of a conflict.

7) Fights that are more like a game

Give me the wild eyed, grinning fights with powers between friends or rivals. Ones with banter and over the top moves that they can only use because of their respect for one another, even if they don’t always see eye to eye. It’s especially fun when they wind up laughing and exhausted in a draw and are toted away to recover over food and conversation.

8) Rivals joining forces with the heroes

If you haven’t guessed it, I like rivals and heroes who come around to being friends in the end. This is normally one of the things that pushes them to that point, or at least to the point where they care and trust each other enough to not just throw hands the second they see each other from that point forward. When someone so loathsome comes along that the hero and normal rival or villain team up together; it makes them all relatable and leads to emotional growth and I love it.

9) Grizzled adult changed by the love of a child

Naruto killed me so many times with this. The traumatized men who recognized the suffering they went through in someone else and strove to change things for that child. Before that, my favorite example was in the Redwall series. In one book, an otter (who was experiencing PTSD and possibly psychosis of some sort from being tortured by toads for an extended period of time) is dragged along on an adventure because his brother needs to go and no one trusts the otter, who is still running on feral survival instincts, to not murder them all in their sleep. Through a distracted moment, a happy-go-lucky squirrel boy, who takes no nonsense for grumpy breakfast skippers, makes a connection with him through not showing fear and talking to him like he is still a person. By the end of the journey, though he still has his issues, the otter is leagues better thanks to his new best friend.

10) Emotional release

I didn’t really know what to title this, so let me explain. When a character has gone through hell and has put up that angry front to cope, and they find a friend/someone else they can trust, and suddenly, they KNOW they don’t have to deal with their pain like that anymore. The abuser is gone, they can trust and love again, when the burden of the world falls away in a cool breath of air. That’s one of my favorite moments in a story. I love when a character who has been through so much finds that safety and happiness.

I think I found something of a theme in there. What are your favorite tropes? I’d love to read your comments and find out! Thanks for reading.

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Alice in Wonderland was one of my favorite movies growing up. Like Peter Pan and the Wizard of Oz, it crafted a magical land that let my imagination run wild; even if I didn’t care for the main character as much as I like Ariel or Peter or Tinker Bell. When the reimagined Alice in Wonderland came out just after I finished high school, I adored the land even more and finally had an Alice that didn’t annoy me completely. Love the world of imagination and nonsense as I did, I never managed to read the book itself as a child. I decided to rectify this when I came across an old copy.

The book, while containing all the wondrous wackiness that made it into both films, had exponentially more insanity than I would have imagined. It also had more annoying, know-it-all Alice. The narrator’s humor, which pointed out how silly she really was the whole way, actually helped to balance out the girl who thinks a bit too highly of herself.

There was an introduction poem before the main story got underway, All in the Golden Afternoon, that was turned into a song for the animated version. I could never understand the lyrics when I was younger, but reading them really put me in a different mindset about the story. It talks about little children begging for a story and the author delivering one that spun fanciful for hours as they repeatedly asked for just one more verse, one more chapter. The story has a feel like that: a narrator who is just taking the whims of a young audience and flying through whatever thoughts they prompt in the silliest way possible. I think it would be fun to see more stories like that, winding and weaving like the imagination of a child.

Other parts of his writing style are not as endearing, however, and left me baffled in an entirely different way. On the second page of his manuscript, Carroll writes a paragraph that is 145 words long. This wouldn’t be odd if it wasn’t also a single sentence. There are parenthesis, quotations, commas, and semicolons strung together one after the other in a way that I both admired and feared. As unimaginably odd as it was: having snips of dialogue hidden in parenthesis, trifling thoughts pushed into the middle of the sentence to interrupt the flow, and sentences that wound on forever with nary a period in sight; I have to admit it added to the overall feel of whimsical insanity the book had. You could feel the way thoughts started and stopped, and the way it felt like the author was making it up as he went along. Dinah, Alice’s beloved cat who she continuously torments a mouse and other small creatures with, is introduced (in parenthesis) halfway though Alice’s ramblings about her beloved pet.

So much about the book throws everything that story telling “should” be out the window. It has odd pacing, subjects, and characters that are all handled in the manner of the fun uncle who was left to babysit on a rainy day. It adds a level of charm to the story that can’t be recreated in a film. It also has a deranged cook and a crude Duchess and several other things that just couldn’t make it into the movie but were all fair game for an old children’s book.

I’ve heard debates centered on this particular story and the meanings woven into it. I’ve read articles and heard reviews that say the book is about puberty, drugs, anxiety and the effects it can have on your mind, among others. I’ve also heard it said that Lewis Carroll himself dismissed such claims and held fast that it was merely the rambling musings of the mind of a child. Reading through, I can see why the argument would happen as I can easily spot hints of both in the work. There are times when all that you can see is pure and innocent fun, and then between the cake and the potions and the mushrooms edibles seem to be secret meaning. In my own opinion, I think there is a bit of both going on.

When writing it, Carroll most likely had nothing but humor on his mind. However, no person, adult or child, exists in a vacuum. Our experiences, both good and bad, are melded into how we perceive the world around us. This means that if anxiety tinging the author’s reality gave him the occasional sense of being taller or smaller (called Todd’s Syndrome or Alice in Wonderland Syndrome) even if he didn’t intend to include it as a tribute to the illness, the symptoms still made their way onto the page.

Things like this happen in most, if not all, stories. Biases and trauma make their way into the work, even if we aren’t yet aware of what we are experiencing. Going over my earlier writings I’ve found plenty of examples of this happening. My favorite are the Happy Time flowers I invented as a child which could both help you relax from any amount of stress and give you jitter-free energy, depending on the color and tone of the flower or leaf you consumed. It also had the ability to clean out your lungs of all other damage if you smoked it. Knowing now that I have general anxiety, and taking into account that I lost my grandmother to lung cancer, it’s easy to see where these ideas stemmed from when ten-year-old me just thought I was being clever and silly.

Even if such experiences snuck their way into the story, it doesn’t take away from the whimsy of the book itself. It doesn’t remove the spirit of fun and adventure and silliness that was created. In fact, I think one of the things I like the most about the story is the way it showed how the fun could go on, even when things became odd and stressful. Every moment of tears has its fun after. Every terror filled moment will give way to the discovery of something new. Taking yourself too seriously is the real enemy in life. So throw aside the over analysis and just have fun.

Balancing Writing and Revision

Writing is a long and sometimes difficult process. Some days, it feels like you just can’t write no matter what you do. Others, it’s like a burst pipe streaming content onto the page at all hours. Mostly, it’s a steady medium which is enough to get your ideas down on paper. However, no matter the speed of writing, there is always one thing that needs to be done throughout the process: editing.

While looking through some tips on the lesser known sides of writing, I came across many different ideas on how the editing process should work and what should be avoided. I’m going to point out the top five ‘do’ ideas that have worked for me, and the top five ‘don’t’ ideas that I feel need the most attention.

My Top 5 Editing Do’s

  1. Do a brief edit every few chapters. How many that ‘few’ is will be up to you to decide; five, ten, or twenty could all be appropriate depending on your style and the size of your chapter. Some would put this in their ‘don’t’ category, but I find that it’s helpful to overall story progression to go back over, do a brief look over for typos, and check the overall pacing and plot progression. It’s especially helpful if you’re stuck in a rut and feel like nothing is happening. It can be helpful to step back and take in part or all of the story again to help put the one sequence you’re working on into prospective. It can also be helpful for keeping details like injuries or upcoming events fresh in your mind so you don’t have a scar that disappears for long periods.
  2. Do take a break before diving into your editing. If you’ve been struggling to put words on the page, you’re likely going to be frustrated with your story once you end that chapter. If you’ve just gotten off of a six-hour binge of writing, you’re most certainly going to be exhausted. If you feel like you still need to keep going that day, take a fifteen-minute break to drink water, make sure the blood circulation in your legs is still going, and take care of any other health or sanity needs that you’ve been putting off. This not only will help you to clear your mind and allow you to have a fresh take on the issues at hand, it will also prevent that nasty, aching feeling in your body that will be a major distraction to anything you try to do.
  3. Do edit for one thing at a time. There are many different things that you’ll need to be looking for during edits. Grammar, spelling, flow, overuse of a word or phrase, consistency; all this and more will be striving for your attention. It can be overwhelming when you attempt to switch back and forth between tasks. This is why you shouldn’t do that; especially at the end stages when you are working with your entire work. Take one piece at a time: get rid of those red and blue squiggly lines on your first read through, then search for any word that stuck out to you during that read-through, and then you can move on to more in-depth things.
  4. Do have multiple edit cycles. I’ve already mentioned how you should edit every few chapters and edit at the end for a list of things. To add to that, you will likely have multiple edit cycles like this. You will also eventually involve others in the process and will need to repeat the cycles afterwards. Don’t just look it over once and then mail it to the publisher, you won’t really like the outcome.
  5. Do involve others. When I was younger, I knew what editors were. I was mistaken to think that they were optional. Beta-readers are still a new concept to me, though I did have my mom and a few friends look over my old pieces. That doesn’t tend to work if they are super nice or don’t know how to give feedback. Neither process is optional, and if I’m not mistaken, can also take several tries to make sure your piece is as good as it can be. Skipping either step will likely show drastically when the final product is scrutinized.

My Top 5 Editing Don’t

  1. Don’t skip editing. This may be obvious but it bears keeping in mind, don’t skip the editing part of the novel writing process. People will be able to tell. If you are aiming for traditional publishing, they will be able to tell too. Especially an editor you hire will be able to tell that you skipped the self-editing process and will fill the pages so full with red on small details that there won’t be room for serious edits.
  2. Don’t wait until the end to edit. Again, some may disagree, but I feel that if you don’t go over your work occasionally, you are more likely to have plot holes, inconsistencies, and be completely overwhelmed when it comes to the final edit. Balance is key, so it’s also important that you…
  3. Don’t go overboard with the edits. While multiple rounds of edits are extremely necessary, there has to be a cutoff point. Editing every chapter more than a quick glance over is pushing it, trying to edit every page as you go is only going to grind you process to a halt. You need multiple cycles of the editing process, but if you’ve done five rounds of beta reading with ten self-edits in between, you’re never going to get your book published. Perfection is an illusion, it’s unobtainable. At some point, you’re going to have to take a deep breath and go for broke.
  4. Don’t lowball hiring an editor. You get what you pay for is as apt here as it is in most other industries. If you are searching for editors and one sticks out for having dramatically slashed prices, chances are they are going to have dramatically slashed results as well. Going for the most expensive isn’t the answer either, necessarily, but you don’t want to spend money on something cheap only to turn around and realize you have to buy the more expensive option anyway.
  5. Don’t rush the process. By the time you reach the final editing stages, you’re probably about done with your book, your writing, the colors black and white, and anything and everything associated with the process. There can be a temptation to rush through the final stages and just get through with it. This would be the greatest disservice you can do to yourself and your novel. Hang on for a bit longer and make sure all your hard work has the biggest success imaginable.

Top 10 Ways to Corral Your WIPs

Writing has been a passion of mine from a young age. From the little books written on construction paper and stapled in the middle to fan fiction of movies and books before I even knew what fan fiction was to finally starting to pursue original works; I’ve always had a few projects swirling around in my mind.

While I’ve always loved the way my mind has been a fountain of creativity, the constant influx of inspiration has lead to moments of frustration, times of feeling overwhelmed, and periods of wanting to avoid writing all together. It has never been my burden to lack ideas, but in exchange I am one of the many writers who faces the conundrum of what to write when or which idea can be worked into what story.

I’ll admit, I don’t think the struggle will ever be something that I can completely do away with. That being said, I’ve come to learn a handful of ways of managing the ideas and cutting back on the negative side effects of having approximately twenty-six different story ideas floating around.

1) Keep Your Notebook or App Close by

Ideas can come from anywhere: a billboard, a conversation, a small detail in a show that is interesting but completely overlooked, a dream. Having a notebook or using your note app on your phone is a good way to record an idea or inspiration when you run into it. Whether it’s an idea for a new story or something you might add to your current project, being able to write it down and know it’s not going to disappear is a good way to cut stress out of your writing process. It also enables you to pull your thoughts away from it for long enough to give you a fresh perspective when you return to it later.

2) Lists are Your Friends

My current WIP list is in a word document that is separated by degree of completion. The categories are: currently writing, full or partial outline, and ideas only. It helps me to keep track of what I have in the works and makes it easy to know which project I should pick up next.

There are many different ways you could organize a list of projects. It could be by genera, something I note on my list. It could be by series. Alphabetical order or order you thought of them are also viable options as long as you find it understandable. That’s the main goal of making a list: easy comprehension of what you have to work with.

3) Get to Know Your Characters

What do characters have to do with WIP lists? Everything! Knowing your characters is an important step to knowing what ideas will and won’t work in a story, what kind of story you will be writing, and how long your story will wind up being. Knowing your characters will prevent you from getting bogged down by unnecessary ideas during the planning process and will keep each project heading in the right direction.

4) Outline

One of the most frustrating things about having multiple WIPs in the works is gaining new ideas to add into your novel as you think and work with it. This is probably the #1 reason I did not get a book published when I was younger. Whenever I would get an idea, it would usually be transferred onto my favorite original characters and things would swing wildly out of control.

Soon, I had a hero’s journey in a college on two different planets with aliens and there was this library with special books and also… you get the idea. I had no control, nowhere to start, and was just about ready to give up on writing all together to get rid of the terror of trying to untangle the mess that I had made.

This is why I strongly suggest making at least a partial outline for each of your WIPs, even if it’s only as far as the short synopsis. If you are using a model similar to the one I talked about in my early posts (that I would be ever so grateful if you checked out by using the outline tag in my tag nest) you will have the main five of your story—character, setting, objective, opponent, and stakes—all tied together in a paragraph for your convenience. Knowing this will help to limit what you try to squeeze into one story. So killer robots from the future? You’re going to have to go in a different story than my Victorian era romance. So sorry.

5) Write Your Stories!

This is probably the most obvious one on the entire list. The best way to cut down on your list of WIPs is to turn them into works completed. Once you have your story written and published, it’s no longer in progress.

6) The Great Big Book of World Building

Knowing my luck, there is probably a book out there with this title, but I’m not referencing it here. What I am referencing are those massive books that come out a few years after a major movie is made, most often if it was a huge process or if the fandom for the book is large and spans generations. They normally walk you through the creative process of both the movie and, if applicable, the book it was based on. One thing that many of them have in common is the added cannon lore that affected the work but never made it into the final product.

This is part of the reality of media. The mind is a massive expanse that we still are incapable of knowing fully. The imagination goes on for miles and never runs out of ideas or areas to explore. There is no real way to work every idea or every character into a story.

Once, these ideas and characters were relegated to the cluttered notes of writers that rarely saw the light of day except in the occasional appendix. Many went unknown until after the author’s death and were placed in examinations of their work. We aren’t so limited now. With social media and blogs, it’s possible to spread the ideas around and even use them to whet people’s appetite for what’s to come. Just make sure it works with and supports your story and doesn’t contradict your work to appeal to a group of individuals or a fad. People won’t like that.

7) Add a new WIP

I know, this may seem a bit counter intuitive to suggest in a post about getting your WIPs under control, but hear me out. Sometimes books need sequels. Not all the time, but some times they do. Sequels can prevent a story from coming off as rushed or from being too intimidating for many readers to pick up.

If you can’t get rid of the school, the library, the aliens, or the international politics, you are probably going to have to break it down into different stories. First a school coming of age story with a library with special books that hints at world issues. Then a sequel that makes those world issues its main focus as the different world governments try to come together to work on a solution to the alien problem. Those two books will seem far more manageable than the one mega compilation, and admitting you need two books and planning for it will help you feel better and calmer about your situation as a whole.

8) Schedule an Update Day

If you couldn’t tell, most of the previous tips are about adding to or deleting from your list of works. This is going to be a flowing process and if you don’t take the time to deal with the main spreadsheet, you’re going to have a larger mess than before you decided to organize. And if you try to organize all the time, you won’t get anything else done. This is why I would say once a month or once a quarter, go through and clean up your list. It will be up to you to decide what works best for you.

9) It’s Okay to Let Go

I never want to let go of my ideas. It’s hard, especially if I’ve held onto them for a long, long time. Sometimes, it’s for the best. Recently, I had to scrap the majority of one of my book ideas and start from scratch with nothing but my characters and an overall idea. Not only was it too busy, but when I was honest with myself, too much outside influence had crept in and it felt like I was more mashing other people’s works together as opposed to honoring ideas from those I admired. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve had to do, but sometimes, it’s for the best.

10) Don’t be Afraid to Dream

This is probably the most important one. Yes, too many works unorganized can be daunting, and yes, not everything will make it onto the page, but don’t shut down your thinking, your dreams, no matter what. Ideas are the real tool and inspiration that we work with, they power not only our writing but our view of the world. Don’t let the struggle to work on one project close you off to others. It’s easy to write down an idea and move on, it’s difficult to come up with a new idea when you’ve trained yourself to ignore them.

Monday Motivation

Today seemed like a great day to tackle tips for staying on track with writing, or whatever you’re working on. I’ve had a TB test for work, a blood draw, and found out I have a cavity; so I need a positive spin on a grumpy Monday. Everyone has had a moment where they thought they couldn’t press on another step so I’m going to talk about some things that I have used before and rate them on their effectiveness.

Disclaimer: This sort of this is, obviously, subjective so feel free to try or ignore what I have to suggest. I’d also love to hear what helps you! Thanks for reading and commenting.

Take a Nap

I have always used dreams as a source of inspiration in my writing. At least the ones that make sense on some level of reality anyway. If I’m feeling overwhelmed, lost, confused, or frustrated, a nap can help me set aside the issue and come back to it with a fresh mind and possibly new inspiration.

Effectiveness: 55%

Reason: Easy to overdo and not always an option if you’re trying to write within a time constraint. Dreams also don’t care they have the ability to inspire your writing and might just stick you with the stressful “wake up only to realize you’re still asleep sixteen times in a row until your brain starts to malfunction and you have to will your body into consciousness” nightmare.

Work on a Different Project

This one is going to get under the skin of some people. However, there are times when I just can’t look at my WIP for a second more or I’m going to cry because I can’t deal with the emotions or the one spot I’m having trouble navigating. To both pull away from the issue while still being productive, I’ll pick up another, often less developed, WIP and start to work with it. It can be anything from working on the long outlining process to writing a chapter or two for a casual fanfiction. It is a good way to come at the problem from a different angle. Sometimes you have to take a break from fantasy politics to explode an alien attack ship in order to realize that there is an entirely different way for your elves to handle the meeting; aka what the exploded aliens realize they should have done to not have their guts scattered across an asteroid.

Effectiveness: 85%

Reason: You’re always working on something so you aren’t wasting any precious time by staring at a blank page and waiting for the answer to jump out at you. The downside is if you don’t keep yourself in check you can be like 19-year-old me and have 12 WIPs open at once and spend precious years screaming at a blank page and waiting for one of them to grab your attention more than the others. Never a good look. There is also the chance of getting your story streams crossed which can both be a simple sign of a writing style or come out looking like a copy paste extravaganza.

Just Write Something

This is the one that is most common to hear, just keep writing. You’re never going to get through your work unless you are putting words on the page. It doesn’t matter if you are stuck for a week and only manage 500 words a day. This sort of stagnation will pass and the next thing you know you’ve spat out three chapters, totaling 11 pages, in an eight-hour binge. It will always balance itself out eventually.

Effectiveness: 80%

Reason: Many would disagree with my thoughts on this but, even with the best intentions, there is only so far that you can go if you’re walking on broken feet. If you are seriously stumped and getting to the point where you are questioning life and everything involved in it, you need to step away from the problem for at least some time. Skipping around, writing nonsense, and forcing things to happen are all going to cause you greater problems and hours of alterations or total rewrites in the future. If your problem is more motivation than inspiration, that’s when this tip will be most effective. Yes, that little game on your phone is pretty but you need to buckle down and produce something if you’re going to get past the first draft.

Do an Activity

Preferably, this is exercise or something at least semi-social. Writing, even if based on a time and place far removed from the here and now, is attached to our feelings and interactions. Dialogue will sound better if you interact with people. Nature descriptions will be more vivid if you get out into it. It’s much easier to write if you’re not jittering from your third coffee as you reach your ninth hour at a desk.

Effectiveness: 75%

Reason: From what I’ve heard, many writers are introverts and have small social batteries. I am like that to a degree, mostly I have a hard time finding friends who are cool with the fact that I prefer watching things than participating in them on many occasions. Exercise is a good part of this too, though depending on health and the weather it might be hard to do. Just remember, even if you are stepping away for something other than a different project, never do nothing. Unless you’ve scheduled some me time as a reward.

Fichtean Curve

Hello and welcome back! During my post about forming a plot skeleton for a novel, I focused on the classical Hero’s Journey and the parts of it that I find particularly crucial to a good story. I mentioned some other outline ideas as well and wanted to take time to go over what each entails.

While struggling how best to manage the various parts of my different WIPs, I came across the Fichtean Curve as a model for plotting a novel. I had never come across this one before, even in my college creative writing class, and I wondered why. I love it as a concept and it virtually eliminates one of the biggest problems with one of my potential novels. For this reason, I wanted to talk about it first as I don’t think it has quite enough attention.

What It Is

If you’ve ever made a story outline graph in elementary/middle/high school then you’re likely familiar with the six points of introduction, exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. I remember having to fill in the blanks on paper for books and short stories in class and on at least one occasion create a very primitive work using that model. It is an important thing to learn as it is the form most stories take, even if they ditch or rearrange a few pieces.

The Fichtean Curve is one such model that tends to keep the elements, though they are rearranged. Beginning with the rising action, stories plotted in this style will be thrown right into the exciting bits, ramping into a crisis within the first few pages in many cases. From there, the story will dip down into the valleys of the consequences of their handling of that crisis and some sprinkles of background information to help catch the reader up on why they should care as the consequence revs its way up into a brand-new crisis.

This series of peaks and valleys will result in the climax, the ultimate crisis, then taper off into the falling action that will help to establish a new normal for the characters of the book.

What It Isn’t

Hearing that the story starts with the rising action sounds like another style of outlining that is much more frequently spoken of: in media res. This style is known for dropping the reader in the middle of the important actions and then meandering towards the climax and what comes next. They easiest way to think of the difference is by looking at the pacing. The Fichtean Curve is a quick ride of ups and downs, whereas anyone who has read the Iliad or the Odyssey is aware that in media res does not require speed by any stretch of the imagination.

What It’s Good For

There are plenty of uses for the Fichtean Curve in storytelling, which is why I was surprised that it is not more widely taught. It particularly helps with one of the issues that I was facing with a particular story idea of mine: consistent pacing.

When I sat down for this particular outline, I quickly realized there was a problem with how my story was unfolding. I had mountains of background that were all important and helped to set up the coming plot, however they were spaced so far apart and so numerous that I was actually thinking of ways to put flashbacks in my exposition. Never a good sign; especially when the action portion happens in a shorter time frame and a much faster clip. In media res sounded like a good idea, but the Fichtean Curve was even more appealing.

The curve did something similar to in media res, dropping you off at the start of the action as opposed to the middle of it, with the added bonus of helping you to keep your story progressing at a fast pace. This meant that I could start with my characters marching on the leaders to begin their revolution, cut to why that should matter without having to bother with taking the long and extremely mundane road to get from A to B, then swing back to describe how that all mixed to create the military joining my heroes and not their rulers.

To put it quickly, it helps to trim a great deal of the fat, without making it seem like there should be filler content or *two months later* after every incident. It is especially good for action novels, and perhaps a fast-paced mystery that needs a good hopping back and forth between setup and payoff.

Has anyone ever read a story they think fits this model? Do you think it should be taught in more classes on writing?

Source: https://blog.reedsy.com/story-structure/

What Was It? Fitz-James O’Brian

I wanted to do a book review this month, but I haven’t been as much in the mood to read as I normally am. For this reason, I reached for the horror anthology on my shelf that I had never managed to get through and thumbed through it to find something new and interesting to talk about. I chose What Was It? by Fitz-James O’Brian written in 1907. It is, unfortunately, merely and extract of the whole work (something I did not know about this book when I first bought it) but I think the main idea was retained even if something was removed.

The story begins with the main character, Harry, conversing with his friend, Dr. Hammond, on a July evening at a lodging house. Despite many attempts to turn their thoughts to pleasant musing about travel and spectacular marvels, their minds are repeatedly turned back towards the occult, as if it was a force that was enchanting and ensnaring them. Eventually, they abandon their attempts at redirection and the question of what the greatest terror in the world must be.

Harry thinks about some past events in his life that might qualify, such as watching the death struggle of a person play out before him: though he can think of ways that such a scenario could be made worse and quickly decides that he does not care to delve further into thought about it. Hammond agrees that it is a difficult subject to muse on, mostly because he, after listing several fictional horror accounts, concedes that there is likely something so horrific that their mind cannot hope to imagine it. Growing weary of the subject matter, Harry blames Hammond for being the source of bad thought and leaves him to go to bed. Humorously, the book that Harry has been reading at night turns out to be a book entitled History of Monsters which he proceeds to hurl across the room upon realization and decides to instead try for sleep.

I will admit, I have a nasty habit of attempting to decide as I’m reading where a story will turn. Perhaps it is due to the twists that are so common in contemporary pieces and my desire as a writer, or as a know-it-all big sister, to prove myself capable of predicting where the mind of the particular author went during his or her writing progress. Taking on a piece more than 100 years old seem to be a good solution for confounding me, because when the story got to the point of describing Harry grappling in the darkness with a naked and unseen opponent, I fully expected to have it revealed to be a bewitched Hammond when the lights were turned back on. This was not the case: instead, Harry had been assaulted by an invisible gremlin who he and Hammond tie up and proceed to attempt to classify and figure out what to do with.

And for the speculation part of the program. My first instinct was to attribute this to simply a period piece where horror was young and the thought of a material but transparent being was just going to be seen as scary. After all, I doubt there were extensive books written about cute invisible anime girls who walked around in uniforms or family comedies with a floating pair of glasses that can’t seem to decide if he can see himself or not. However, I didn’t have to look too far to find what I think the author was trying to say is the scariest thing in the world and it is not fear of the unknown.

Helplessness. That is truly the most horrific thing that a man can experience. Being completely and utterly unable to do anything about a situation as you watch it unfold before you. Perhaps it is even worse when you should have control, when you do have control, of what is happening but you are utterly unable to produce a favorable outcome. There are several examples of helplessness that Harry experiences to drive home the message.

While thinking over the question of what the most terrifying thing is, Harry, unlike Hammond who is focused on beasts and disembodied voices in fiction, thinks on a dark day in reality when he and a group of others were in a building sixty feet high overlooking a river and watched an unfortunate woman drown without the ability to do anything about it. His take on abject horror is the prospect of death and the ramifications of ways to amplify that terror he saw in her last moments, glossing over the terror of the experience itself. This instance can be said to be something Harry had no control over due to his distance, which in this idea would make it far less frightening than what was to come.

The next instance of helplessness encountered by the lead happens moments before the arrival of the titular creature. When trying to sleep after his disturbing talk with Hammond, Harry is assaulted by the dark and wandering thoughts brought on by his conversation in the garden. This is a situation that Harry feels he should have control over, making it much more exasperating when his intellect is unable to build a sufficient barrier around what dread he has to allow him to sleep. The assumed control makes it a worse scenario, but still not the absolute worst.

Receiving a break from the helplessness, Harry is assaulted by the invisible beast, that seems to fit Hammond’s thought of what true horror might be, and is successful at overpowering and subduing it. This establishes his control as well as he two men of science proceeding to take on the enigma, as they label it, in a variety of ways to determine what it is. Hammond suggests that like glass or the air, there must be a logical way for a physical form to achieve transparency. He uses reports of spirit circle rituals to prove that the phenomenon is not unheard of: however, he stops short of claiming it is a spirit. It is a wise decision, for after having a cast made using chloroform and clay, the final true horror unfolds. They have here a living being with a heartbeat and breath, invisible but with the capability for movement and a need for nutrition to support life. They even have its face, uncanny as it is yet still they call it a man, from their casting of the one in their control.

That control winds up losing its meaning to helplessness once again. The beast will not eat anything they set before it. They listen as its heart rate slowly fails and nothing they try will get it to eat. It is dying and the only other option they have to prolong its life, releasing a beast who was first caught attempting murder and possibly cannibalism, is unthinkable as a real solution. This means that despite having control over the situation, Harry is placed back in the condition of his worst experience where he is completely helpless.

The best part, in my opinion, is that despite of calling the beast an enigma, despite seeing that its form is hideous, despite knowing that it had murder and possible consumption of Harry as its motives for revealing itself; Harry at no point dehumanizes the creature. He consistently calls its form human, he never once denies that the creature is alive and that he holds that life in his hand. He feels for the enigma, he is compassionate towards its plight even as he knows to release it would be to give a likely death sentence to another innocent person. He had pity on the creature’s slow starvation as he stood by helpless to provide it with something palatable and unable to kill it as his understanding of its possible personhood made the thought like murder in his mind.

Three terrible decisions to make, in control but helpless to create a positive outcome. What it was and the unknown may be terrifying, but the reality of the weakness and vulnerability of the person is so much more so.