On the Pros and Cons of Fanfiction for Writers

The Pros and Cons of Fanfiction for Writers

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I don't write fanfiction. If I'd had access to the internet at a certain age, I most definitely would have, but the fact remains that I discovered fanfiction at around 20. By that stage I had already muddled through about five first drafts of my first original story, and then four sequels, and then two other original works.

The mere idea of using someone else's character's terrifies me. I don't know them. Not like I know my own. I could probably give it a go, but honestly, I feel like I should leave it up to those who are already good at it.

I do, however, read a lot of fanfiction. Namely because I find the dynamics between characters within interesting. There is some excellent fanfiction out there. I've read fanfiction that I enjoyed more than published and paid for stories. In fact, there was about an 8 month period in which I read nothing but fanfiction.

Why? Because I knew exactly what I was getting into. Twists related to the plot and the worldbuilding, not the characters. I read primarily for the characters. Your plot could be amazingballs and spectacular and be shooting rainbows out of it's third eye and if I did not connect with your characters? I would stop reading. On the opposite side of the coin, I've been known to ignore gaping-size-of-the-pacific-ocean plot holes if I like the characters in something. All is forgivable if I'm in love with your characters. Except the worst of prose. Or racism and sexism. That tends to send me running.

So what are the pros and cons of fanfiction for writers? Obviously, this is only my opinion, but it's something I've thought about a lot, especially as there are writers who make the transition to original fiction, some who don't, and some who just want some good old fashioned respect from the rest of the world. Fanficition does tend to get waved off as teenage girl crap (which is an issue in and of itself - who the hell made "teenage girl" synonymous with "no cultural or story relevance"?)

Pros:

• The Sandbox Argument

Fanfic gives a writer a place to experiment. She/he can focus on one aspect of their writing without having to worry about others. They can fiddle with language, with sexualities, with different narrative POVs. I've seen a bit of second person in short fiction, but more of it in fanfic. And some of it is horrible, but a lot of it isn't.

• Community

 You meet people in fanfic. People beta your work because they love the characters and the worlds you're writing about as much as you do. You get cheerleaders and find other people who finally get you, you meet people who have the same crazy ideas you do, you rework each other's pieces, mix things together, translate works you've loved into your own language, create audio versions of work you've loved... It just goes on and on. It's a nice place to be. Also, instantaneous feedback. There's no 20 drafts before you let someone see it, then only letting certain people see it, then waiting six weeks for a publisher to get back to you to say they didn't like it.

• Fun

This is inherently connected to the topic above. Fanfic is done for the love of it. It's fun. It's something you do to unwind and relax. If people don't like your work, they tend to just not comment or kudos, most of the feedback is positive, because this isn't a space for line by line critiques. It's a space for figuring things out and having fun with characters that you love.

• Narratives outside the male, white and middle aged

This is one of the big reasons it took me so long to get back to reading original fiction again. For all the shortcomings that fanfiction can have, it does tend to be rather inclusive. Here you get queer narratives, the narratives of young teenagers, the narratives of women with kids, the narrative of their kids - it's a welcoming space. You want your two main characters to pair off, despite the fact they are of the same sex? Go ahead! Want to have a minor character rise up and be the hero? Go ahead! The world is your sandbox.

Cons:

• Less set-up required

 This is partially what makes fanfic so useful as a sandbox - you don't have to worry so much about introducing your worldbuilding and characters. Everyone knows your characters already. Exposition is not the issue it is in original fiction.

On the other hand, this also means you don't get much chance to practise weaving exposition into narrative. You also don't get much chance to world-build or create original characters. Like anything, these things take practise to do Fanfic skips this set-up and exposition for the large part.

•  Back-scratching

As mentioned before, fanfic is done out of appreciation for the original material. People write because they enjoy themselves, because they find it a way to wind down, because they wish to contribute to the community.

As such, there's not much in the way of constructive criticism. If a person doesn't like a work, or how it's written, they tend to just click on or not comment. No-one wants to be the wet blanket. (And by constructive critique I mean a line by line - this sentence didn't work for me because of a, b or c reason sort of thing). This is partially made up for behind the scenes with beta readers and the like, but not everyone has a good beta reader.

• Bad reactions to cannon events

Like any community, fanfic can be a bit... disturbing sometimes. Witness the death threats to the actress playing Mary Morstan in Sherlock because she would "get in the way" of the major pairing in fanfic, John/Sherlock. Witness how Uhura is often sidelined and made a horrid person in some Spock/Kirk fanfics. GinnyBashing is a tag on A03. The Internet exploded when they realised that Tauriel was included in the second Hobbit movie. Then there's showing porn that you've written/created from edited together vids to the actors involved (linkage here to the esteemed Rachel Acks tumblr ). Although to be fair, members of the media have been known to do the same, and this hardly accounts for all of fanficerdom. Most fanfic'ers don't do this stuff. But there is a visable presence that does act out in the oddest ways. Like anywhere I suppose.


So yeah. Fanfic can be awesome, it can be difficult, it can be a useful place to learn, it can be overly hand-holding, it can be a way to express yourself when you don't fall into the dominant narrative space. If I ever do decide to write it, I will be joining a cohort of people who write primarily for fun, and that's not necessarily a bad thing


1) Sourced from: http://freerangestock.com/details.php?gid=&sgid=&pid=2913 Attributed to: Bradley Strong 

The Effect of POV on Narrative - Manipulating the Reader and What they Know for Greatest Effect

The Effect of POV on Narrative - Manipulating the Reader and What they Know for Greatest Effect

This is the second topic in my exploration of narrative. The introductory post and the other posts I've written on the topic can be found here: Narration vs Dialogue and Action - Where it Fits in the Tool Box

Now. POV (or 'point of view' for those not familiar with the lingo), impacts on narrative style significantly. What is described is inherently influenced by who describes something. Description and exposition that is done well pulls it's weight.  And that, in my opinion, is the most important thing when talking about narrative description and exposition: that your narrative does more than one thing.

So your reader should be able to learn something about your characters from how they filter the world. If you POV is 1st person (I, me, we), then you're going to be quite heavily filtering all your descriptions through the character. No two first person characters should walk into the room and focus on the same things, or describe them in the same way.


If, for example, you have a character from a desert country (character A), and a character from a country that is temperate, and has no issue with water conservation (character B), and you have them walk into a room with a dripping tap. Maybe they'll both notice. More likely, however, character B will focus on what is important to them in the room - the open windows if they're cold, or the way the room looks like it's going to cost less than 30 dollars a night to sleep in. Character A will focus on the dripping tap. It might not be their primary focus, but if they're from a place where you can't water their lawns, and water sometimes has to be trucked in? It's going to annoy them, dripping away in the back of their mind until they finally crack and turn it off.

So our character's backgrounds influence how they see things. So too do their goals and ambitions. If Character A has just brought the place and intends to let it out, he'll be focusing on the scuffed carpet, checking if the windows close, thinking about re-doing the plumbing because surely the tenant wants taps that actually turn off. Say character B has said he's coming along to look at renting the place, but he's actually trying to get off the streets while the police seek him out. He'll notice the open windows, assess them as both an exit and entry point. He'll notice the table, which might just be solid enough to hide behind. He'll flinch when the Character A's phone goes off, both because he's easily startled, but he also may notice that there's a siren in the background of the song. He'll be looking towards the door, listening to every car as it passes by outside. Waiting, just waiting, for one to slow down and stop.

The realtor (Character A) will also be waiting for one to slow down and stop, but he'll be listening out for new tenants, thinking about how he can rent this place to them. He might be eyeing up those who come in the house, more/or less (it could go either way) inclined to rent to someone from the same low class background as himself. He may be proud of this place, running his hands over the furniture, rapping his knuckles on the wooden kitchen bench because no place he'd ever lived had furniture made off wood - too expensive.

Notice these descriptions, and how they perform double duty. We can also see something else in this scene - the potential for conflict. Character A wants to rent the place out, make a respectable profit. Character B couldn't give a damn about profit, or the possible damage done to the place - he just wants to get away from the police.

They are not going to have the same goals if an off duty policeman walks in the door.

Close third POV (he, she, they, but staying mainly in the thoughts of the characters, a-la most of Harry Potter) operates under the same sort of boundaries, but with the ability to draw back from the effects of character POV on narrative. Close third can contain more than one POV (as can first, but it's less frequently done), and can give different perspectives within that same room.

Close third can also use a narrator. As can third POV (mostly the same as close third, but much less in the head of the character, and much more a narrator saying what's going on in the character's head than the reader hearing it directly.) A narrator is itself, another character. Whether it's an actual character (like Death in "The Book Thief"), or whether it is just the writer telling the story, it too will focus on certain characters, and thoughts, depending upon what the narrator feels is important. In our above scene, it might focus more on the possible tension between the two men, and describe the approaching off-duty policeman. In doing so, the narration is not just describing things, it's ramping up tension. Given what we know of these characters, the introduction of this third element invests us in the story. We, as readers, can guess what might happen when Character B discovers that the other prospective tenant is an off duty cop. It's probably not going to be pretty.

Omniscient works in largely the same way - it's an all-seeing narrator telling and showing us the characters thoughts as they see fit. The same rules apply - description and attention should only be given when the description matters, when it tells us something else about the characters, the story, or prospective conflicts. Every narrative description should do double, sometimes triple duty.

Narrative exposition is the same. It shouldn't be there unless it has to be there. The back-story of Character A, regarding his lower class background, matters only if it influences how he acts when the off duty cop walks into the room. The fact that Character B has a sister that he stole medication for only matters if you want the readers to feel sorry for him.

As writers, we exist not just to tell the story, but to involve the reader. We want to manipulate their sympathies, their direction of thought, what they notice. This allows us to set things up, to surprise, to engage. Narrative can be really good at doing this - don't waste words on just describing things, or giving exposition. Describe things that matter. Give exposition only when it is relevant to what is about to happen. We are situating the reader, drawing them in, and making them connect. Whatever POV you use to do this will influence that.

Happy Writing,

Sian

Wound Care 101 for Characters

Blood Loss and Wound Care for Characters: 

As with most things, there is pretty much a sliding scale for wound severity. It stretches from "put some antiseptic on it and slap a bandaid/bandage on," to "okay, you're not going to die from blood loss, but a doctor, so stitches and an antibiotic would be handy", to "you need a surgeon to look at that yesterday."

Here's a pretty line to demonstate:

The way you look after/treat wounds therefore varies accordingly.

Before I start though, a few things that just need to be said. I am in my last year of an Emergency Health Degree, and hopefully will be gainfully employeed as a paramedic sometime next year. For those in countries where paramedics doesn't need a degree, think of it as the equivalent of a nursing degree, just specalised in pre-hospital care rather than long term patient care. I am not a doctor, or qualified in any way shape or form yet, so most of what I talk about you could probably find in a variety of textbooks. Think of me a filter. This way you don't have to read all the textbooks.

And it goes without saying that the only people that this advice should be used on are imaginary characters. This is not any type of real medical advice - if you need that, you should be seeing your GP or someone else in the flesh.

That being said, here we go. This post will focus on cuts and bleeding wounds. I might do another one on specific wounds (head wound, eye injuries, ect) later.

Given the sliding scale, there are some pretty universal treatment under pinnings.

• Pressure

For any wound that doesn't involve surgery, this is the be all and end all. A lack of pressure = a lack of clot = bleeding. For all wounds that to involve surgery, there will be pressure applied to visual holes and tears until surgery is viable. 

• Saline soaked dressings

There's some research onto why these work, but the general consensus is that they work well. One of the explanation behind it is that  saline (0.9%) dressing is isotonic, and thus does not the damage done to exposed tissue. The idea is that if you have an open wound, or an evisceration, or an eyeball pop out, you want to keep the tissue from drying out, and you want to prevent further damage via contact with the dressing you use to apply pressure. So gauze, soaked in 0.9% isotonic saline is preferable. You can but it from the supermarket, people use it to clean their contacts. You are using this saline soaked gauze either to protect the tissue from drying out, or as "saline packaging" - so your essentially applying pressure to an open wound in the least damaging way possible. A dry bandage goes over the top of all this.

• Managing Blood loss

There are several ways to manage blood loss. One of those ways, as mentioned, is applying pressure and stopping the bleeding. If, however, the bleeding cannot be stopped, or there is too much blood lost, other measure are generally taken.

Basically, the body needs a certain amount of volume in it's blood vessels to keep all the good stuff circulating. If that volume drops too low, your heart won't be able to speed up enough to correct for it, and you won't be able to breath in enough oxygen to pack into what little volume you have left going around your blood vessels.

This loss of the "good stuff" (oxygen, nutrients ect) leads to debilitation and death if left long enough. So thus the volume lost should be replaced. Or you can "load" a patient up pre-emptively if you think they're going to loose a lot of blood.

There are several liquids used to do this. The one's I'm familiar with are isotonic saline and blood. Regardless, the principals are basically the same: If there is not enough volume of liquid in a person's veins to move all the "good stuff" around, you replace that volume via an IV drip. Thus you increase that volume, then "good stuff" can move where it needs to go, and everyone's happy.

Well, not entirely. Fluid replacement is contentious. Everyone agrees it should happen, but when it's not blood you're using to replace the blood you've just lost, there are all sorts of argument about how much fluid should go in and when it should start to go in. Internal injuries are also difficult, because internal bleeds release blood into the body cavities - if you can't stop the bleed, than all your fluid replacement isn't going to do much, as whatever you put in will end up coming out through that same internal bleed that you can't do anything about.

And at the end of the day, anything that's not blood only really buys you enough time to get to the surgeon. Depending on the injury, sometimes blood can only buy you enough time to get to a surgeon.

So, some guidelines. Here's our scale again:

Let's call this side "Injury A"                              This "Injury B"                                And this "Injury C"

If your character has injury A, your main issues are going to be pressure, pain relief, and infection control. Whether or not you use saline soaked gauze depends on whether the injury counts as an "open wound." So you look at whether there's exposed tissue, and go from there. Pharmacy meds should do for pain relief, and topical infection control (antiseptic creams ect), should work. You should clean the wound with a dribble of water - no taps, as that will just damage the wound, dry it, put antiseptic cream on it, and then bandage as appropriate.

Injury B generally means the wound is big enough that you've lost a fair amount of blood, may need stitches, and topical antiseptic will probably do more harm then good. You don't want to damage any exposed tissue, so don't go putting creams on it. Wash it, saline packaging (so gauze soaked in saline as the dressing), pressure, and get to the doctor for for stitches, possibly an oral antiseptic if it's needed. Your character may or may not need some form of fluid replacement or transfusion.

Anything between Injury B and C is probably going to start affecting your character's conscious state. They may become woozy, there may be amnesia issues, and they may loose consciousness. As discussed before, loosing consciousness for period over 5-10 minutes is bad, loosing consciousness for over half an hour starts to imply long term disability as a result. This Injury needs all that Injury C needed, except you've got to worry a lot more about fluid replacement or blood transfusions. The patient is also probably going to need surgery, within the next hour.

So yes, I hope that helps. To define - anything over about 750ml of blood loss is significant, more than 1.5 litres and you're looking at a loss of consciousness. It doesn't take much blood loss to upset everything.

If anything in this doesn't make sense, feel free to comment. Feel free to ask questions too. I might not be able to provide all the answers, but I have access to people at university and on placement who might.

Details in Narrative - Anchoring the Reader, Painting Chekhov's Gun Bright Red, and Sentence Rhythm

Okay. Detail.

I've read some very good stories today. One was exceptionally short - a retelling of sleeping beauty, but with an entirely different and satisfying ending. It clocked in at under 1000 words, but contained an exceptional amount of detail.

Note: It told an entire story in under 1000 words. The details that it picked were vitally important. They lent themselves to the mood, what the character noticed, and showed us how the in-story world structured itself. It showed us what was important to the characters. It lent a rhythm and cadence to the story. It also showed us what was important plot wise.

And that's probably the three most important jobs of detail in narrative: To situate and anchor the reader, to give rhythm to your paragraphs, and to tell us when to pay attention.

Firstly, on anchoring the reader:

The easiest way to explain and think about this is to compare two genres. Lets go... contemporary romance and fantasy. Say both books have Character A walking into a room and Character B waiting in the room to talk to them. You have a myriad number of things to describe, lots of narration to provide. So how much detail do you include?

Given that we're talking specifically about anchoring the reader? The fantasy is probably going to include more detail than the contemp romance. In the fantasy, I would focus on the things in the room that tell the POV character who this stranger is, maybe focus on the things that he's either wearing that can tell us about his status, how these two relate, ect.

But more than that, I can describe things to add to world-building. When my character leans up against a desk and notes with surprise that it's made of wood -because wood is generally spelled into uselessness by the woodland fae, and thus mighty expensive - that's interesting because it shows you a bit about the world, and about how the character relates to it. She hasn't treated this expensive thing in a blasé manner, so she probably can't afford it. Which means they're meeting in the room of someone wealthy, and that this conversation is probably related to those of wealth.

Note, I don't do much more in that example other than describe the table through the POV of the character, and her surprise at it being there. This piece of  narrative description isn't just describing something, it's giving insight into character, the social structures of the world, the fact that this world has a magic system, and also hints at the involvement of others in this conversation about to come up. It's not just describing something - you're making those words work for you.

In the contemp romance, the details would focus more on the characters, and how they relate to the room. Whether Character B seems comfortable in the space, whether his clothes suggest something about status, or where he's been in the last five minutes. The descriptions may focus on the things the Character A finds attractive about him, or how he uses the objects in the room.

We know what a room looks like in our world. (This is presuming this contemp romance is based in a western country.) It doesn't need describing or explaining because it doesn't add anything to the story other than a detailed description. Most readers do fine with a basic description to figure out where they are and what's going on. Detail is used to try and negate that confusion and to situation the reader in the characters and the world you're creating.

This leads nicely onto my next point : detail tells the reader what is important in the scene.

Say you've just started a book. There's a basic description of a street, and then the author spends a paragraph describing an old, beaten up car; the way it's out of place, the way it hasn't moved for days, the fact that is has a myriad of scratches in the paint down the left side.

As a reader, I'm placing my bets on that car being important in some way, shape or form. I am now focused on the car. If done well, the author may have even built up some anticipation about the car.

Be aware that you are doing this when you write detailed descriptions. You are literally circling Chekov's gun on the mantle piece with red texter and tossing glitter over it. A detailed description is almost a promise to the reader.

And lastly rhythm. 

Sentences, paragraphs, and chapters have a rhythm. I'll talk in one of my later posts about macro level pacing, but let's concentrate on the sentence level rhythm for the moment.

Narrative draws the inner eye of the reader. As you add detail, you're making the reader focus on what you're describing, making them slow down before you move them onto the next point. If you're descriptions are sparse of detail, the reader is going to move from one thing to the next in quick succession: bang, bang, bang. Detail, or lack of it, is something you can manipulate in a sentence to slow down or speed up the rhythm of a paragraph.

I hope that gives you some insight you haven't had before. Enjoy all,

Sian

Narration vs Dialogue and Action - Where it Fits in the Toolbox

The other day, I went searching for some blog posts on narrative. I'd found some very useful ones on plot previusly, and although I like to make things up as I go along, I do like my stories to have some sort of structure to refine. So I read a lot about plot and use it in my revisions.

But when I googled narrative, most of the more popular articles were about cutting it out all together.

This... confuses me, because you have to describe things. Nobody needs 20 pages of sunset descriptions, but we're not writing a script here either. This is not talking heads, it's a book. Part of the best thing about fiction is how it can get into people's heads - it's one up it has on other narrative forms. The Book Thief comes out in cinema's soon, and I have no idea what they're going to do with it, because the more important parts of that book happen in narrative and the thoughts of the characters and the narrator, which is Death.

So I'm left with the same issue as before - I know narrative is important, but how to write good narrative is something I'm still trying to figure out. There's several ideas that I plan to explore. Firstly, what narrative is good for vs what dialouge and action are good for. That's this post. Then, in consecutive order

• Detail in narrative
• POV - how it effects narrative
• Distancing and getting close to characters through narration

But why do we need narrative anyway? It's just describing things, isn't it? Well, maybe. But narrative breaks up large chunks of dialoug, helps to anchor the reader to the story, and gives the brain something to follow. Narrative also works very well as a form of exposition - how you describe a world and a story ties into how the character sees that world. It shows us details we wouldn't be able to see otherwise - thoughts and consequences and information that can't be shown in a visual medium. I've mentioned previously that sometimes you need to tell, rather than show, because there's only so much information that can be gathered from watching someone do something. Narrative gives us a window into the unseen. As such it should not be overused, because overused, it becomes condescending - you're taking the hand of the reader and telling them how to think and feel about a situation.

But it is, in itself important, and it is purely unique to prose. And while movies and plays can do many many things, one of the things that fiction is best at, is looking into the unseen.


Enjoy All,

Sian

On Turning Points, and Small, Non-Act Defining Ones Especially.

One of the books I've read recently has been "The Rook". Despite being mostly exposition and talking, it managed to hold my attention so completely that I finished all just-under-500-pages in a day. It's about a woman who wakes up with no memory, and only letters from her previous self to guide her through the totally bizarre world which she apparently used to help run. There's not a lot of action, most of what goes on is internal, and takes part in offices and in letters from her previous self. There are a few notable exceptions, but it is largely much more a political thriller/mystery than an action novel.

 So I went about looking for what kept me interested. And it was quite straight forwards: I was introduced into a world I knew nothing about, and every time I got used to everything, something happened which would either propel me further into the world and the politics, or would force a turning point.

Now, to define turning points as I see them: they rely heavily on character choice and resolution. They are, essentially, the character changing their mind about how to solve their major problem. This can either come as an active choice:

•  I did this before, it's not working, time to try something different 

Or

 As resolution by the character:

• I've been thinking about this, now it's time to fully commit to this action.

Ideally, a turning point also represents the growth a character has undergone.Their decision or resolution is a result of all that has come before.

You can find them in every story - to make an example of Harry Potter - the first turning point is where he agree to go to Hogwarts. Second one is where the trio decide to go and fetch the Philosopher's Stone for themselves. The third is when he decides not to hand the stone over the Voldermort.

None of these would have been possible without all that had come before. If Harry hadn't spent his life being mistreated by his aunt and uncle, and hadn't just been dragged around the countryside for a month and had his birthday completely forgotten, his decisions about going to Hogwarts might have been different. He may have made the same decision "go to Hogwarts", but with different implications. He may have kept in touch with a nicer family, may have been less desperate for acceptance and friendship when he showed up in his new world. His second major decision, to go get the Philsopher's Stone himself, would not have happened without everything that went on before that - finding out about the Philospher's Stone, facing the troll and Fluffy with Ron and Hermione, having Ron and Hermione there to back him up.

And the third major turning point would not have happened if he hadn't created a place and a family for himself in this new world. He might well have accepted Quirrel's offer.

But these are the major turning points. They are the decisions that bookend acts. What about in between? Especially in books, which tend to be longer than movies. Are there smaller turning points within acts?


I would argue, that yes, there are. Not every decision in a story changes the entire direction of the story, but they do make an impact on the character, and what they try next. They are not

• What do I have to do differently to solve this big massive problem?

They are instead:

• What do I have to do differently or strengthen my resolve in to resolve this issue in front of me right now?

And that's what The Rook did well. There was one scene in particular, where the MC acted differently from how those around her expected her to, given how her previous self had acted. And the MC, despite the danger of someone discovering that she'd had her memory wiped, resolved to act how she wished to act, not how her predecessor had.

Now, this decision didn't change the way the story played out, but it did foreshadow other major decisions and changes of direction. The character took charge of her narrative, and it led her onto her next set of actions.

These smaller turning points, when I looked at the book, popped up every 30 pages or so.  They weren't huge, I wasn't getting whiplash from a rapidly changing story, but they were there, and they were interesting enough that I would then read the next 30 pages to witness the consequences of that choice. And then another turning point would pop up, and I'd want to see the emotional consequences of that decision.

This interests me, because previously I'd been led to believe that turning points only came at the end of acts. But if you look at any story (of sizable length), you will see more than three turning points. You just can't go for 50,000 words without the characters making decisions of import.

So what can we learn from this? Well, I made a short list:

1. Keep your characters involved and active in their destinies. Whatever the circumstances, have them make decisions about what to do
2. this will depend largely on the type of novel you're writing, but I think a good rule of thumb is to put a small turning point every time the consequences from your MC's last major decision have run their course.
3. Try and give these turning points emotional resonance. Irregardless how small, they should both impact on the character, and show the impact of the last run of events. The decisions the character makes 60000 words in won't be the decisions they made 30000 words in.

So yes. Things to keep in mind I think. I hope everyone is enjoying their holidays, and writing all the words.

See ya invisible readers :D

Goals for 2014

It's been a while since I posted here. More than a while actually - probably a couple of years. I tried, at one point or another, to start a new blog, but that didn't grab my attention, so I decided to come back to this one.

So - Goals for 2014. This will be a big year for me - last year of university, first year I won't actually have to work to support myself and pay my rent (scholorship ftw. Finally). I'll also be on placement a lot more, so that means more time in the back of the ambulance, more experiances, more life. More death, probably.

I'm currently halfway through a contemporary fantasy, so I want to finish that within the next month or so. My first drafts are almost always fast, because I am, at heart, a Pantser (ie, I make shit up as I go along), so that shouldn't be too difficult. I also think the thing will be fixable, which is a marked improvement on previous attempts at novelling.

I know enough about structure now that I won't be literally re-creating the story from scratch in the second draft.

All these factors combine to mean two things: I will have spare time on my hands for the first time in ages, and I will have to use it wisely. I need to find an actual job at the end of this year - not a supermarket one, but I'll have to be presentable as a paramedic. That makes me wary. I'm 22, I'll be 23 when I start applying for work - older than some of my cohort, but young in the scheme of things. Age matters for something, I think, in professions like this, so I'll have to show experiance through experiances rather than just time spent on this planet.

That equals voluteering, hopefully in something related to healthcare. My scholorship is tied up in tutoring for the university, so that will keep me busy too.

This year I also want to have an actual go at starting a writing career instead of just writing. I've been just writing since I was 13. I've completed 7 books, not counting total revisions. I think I need to actually start looking at what to do with all this.

To that end, I've devised a plan, of sorts. Whether it'll hold is another matter entirely, but here it is:

The first draft of a book, and a readable, "as good as I can make it" version of the same book every four months. So two months for the first draft, two months for the "ignore it till you forget it" bit and the general revision and editing.

Two short stories a month. Find a beta, a permanant beta, and make these as good as I can. Create a list of magazines, and send the lovelies out on a roster. If I have 24 stories in circulation by the end of 2014, one of two things will happen - either I'll be published, or I'll have learnt enough to be published the year after. Either is a win.

Beta someone's story now, with the goal of having them beta my own novel later in the year. I have time now, being on summer break, so I should build up brownie points rather than trying to cram beta-ing into semester time.

So, in summation, at the end of the year I want: A job, in my actually profession. At least one story published. Two novel length stories finished and ready for shopping.

This list is quite wishful, and I'm not sure if it'll get done, but worst comes to worst, I'll just disappoint myself. And I get over disappointment quite quickly, so I don't see any harm in it.

Happy New Year all.  :)

Making Narration and Detail Matter Through Character

Characters. I've come to the conclusion that they are one of the most important things within a book. They define the plot, the emotional connection that a reader has to the book, and the tension.

Without the characters, there is no plot, even if your characters are mearly vechials of said plot. But more importantly then that, and something I'm only just realising: Your characters are your desciption.

How do you make description matter? Well, you narrate through your character, and make it matter to them. If you want to get across the fact that your female MC is a buxom beauty, you don't say: She had an hourglass silhouette with perfect lips, blond hair and green eyes. That is a list of physical characteristics.

But if you describe the female MC through one of the other characters, it makes those details matter to the reader. Because while you're still describing physical characteristics and telling us about them, you're also showing the effect that these characteristics has on your viewpoint character. In essence, telling by showing.

For example : Christy reminded her of a whore sometimes - puffed up lips, dyed platinum hair and a chest that was too large to actually be real. But every now and then, there was a flash of something in her probably fake green eyes that made Sara hunt her down every time she wanted information.

Now, you're still getting across exactly the same details. But these details are now important - they effect the standing of Christy in Sara's eyes, and they influence how she acts around her. The have importance to the character, and because character and plot are connected, to the plot.

If Christy had been the bookish type, maybe the contrast between her appearance and the knowledge in her eyes wouldn't have jumped out as Sara quite as much. Maybe she would have gone to someone different.

And thus, you would have a different plot.

Characters determine plot, and plot determines characters. But by telling us things by showing it to us through the reaction of characters, you make the telling a lot more interesting and meaningful

Telling instead of Showing - Because none of us can read minds

Show, don't tell. Hallowed writing advice, definitely. The whole point of it is to involve your readers. To pick on an clichéd example, writing : "he slammed the phone down" is infinitely better than "he felt angry". By showing, you're inviting your reader to participate in making their own conclusions about the character's emotions
.
But you can go too far. I see this happening in my own work, and when I'm betaing, when a characters thoughts are involved. Some things have to be told. Prose is not a movie script.

For example, if a person is hovering on the edge of entering a building, they may be nervous, anxious, sort of hoping that the person they're going to meet isn't in there, while at the same time knowing that they need to meet this person.

Fear, anxiety - all that can be shown through the bodies reactions. But the moment you start trying to show the thoughts of that character, you can get stuck. A sentence along the lines of "he doubted he was going to get anywhere with Chris's help, even if the fear screeching at the back of his brain told him otherwise" is fine in this situation. You're telling. You're telling that he's afraid, that he doubts he can go further without this.

But you're also inviting the reader into the characters mind. Something you can't do just by showing. If you say something like "he hoped from foot to foot, hesitating at the doorway", that shows that he's scared. It doesn't show us his thoughts on his fear though. I doesn't show us how he's made mentally as a person.

The whole point of showing is to involve the reader, to make them part of the story. But you can only show emotion, not thoughts. And while actions do make a person individual, thoughts make them unique.

It's entirely possible that there could be two people standing at that doorway, both nervous and scared about going in. Both could go in. But one could be formulating a way to go about his objective if this fails, while one other is totally in the moment, and just hoping to hell that this works.

There's a significant difference between inviting the reader into a person's mind, and hitting them over the head with things they could figure out for them selves. But none of us are mind readers, so telling definitely has its place

Conveying you world in flashes of detail

For me, the first major issue I come across is figuring out what the hell is going on in my story. I do plan the plot out before-hand, because it saves me from having to do four first drafts, but my planning is more like:

Needs to establish relationship and find out about Otherkind.

So there's no character notes, no description, nothing. I know where the plot is going, but not much else. For me, the first draft if figuring out secondary characters, scenery, dialogue, emotions - the tendons and muscles that go on the bones of plot.

As the story progresses, it gets easier, because I'm using the same characters, or similar scenerary, so I don't have to go and invent everything. I know what everything looks like, and how everyone acts.

Inevitably I end up writing an awful lot of drivel, just so I can figure out what the hell is going on.

And the second draft, for me, is condensing all this knowledge down into moments and flashes.

The human brain is a remarkable thing. Perhaps you've see the chain email or text, where all the letters are rearranged except the first and last letters of each word. You can still read the paragraph - your mind fills in the blanks.

To me, a writers job is to give that first and last letter to the readers. You need to give the reader flashes and moments that their brain can take and extend. This may seem like it's less work for you, but it's not. Because when you write half a page of description, you're conveying facts. And people can't make up facts, so you have to cover them all.

When you describe in flashes, you're conveying mood and emotion. That mood is tacked onto a couple of facts, and the reader is able to fill that description with all the images they have associated with that mood.

One example I have was when I was describing the neighbourhood that my main character grew up in. I described a train ride through the city, the slums, the houses, the way the roads went. That was fine when I was writing it for me.

The second time round, I described the train station - a hunk of concrete sitting in the middle of the rubble of last year's houses. I described that the dirt-track roads, with the occasional brick lain down - testament to a fools attempt to civilise the area. I described the rotting carcass of a dog, which underneath the preparation area for a street vendor who sold street food.

These are details that show you things. They show you the area is run down, hobbled together, a place that has lost a great deal of it's hope. A place where people don't care about food poisoning, because they're probably going to die of starvation in a week anyway.

Those descriptions took up a paragraph when clumped together. But it took time to think them up. I had to sit down and write a list of what I needed to convey about this place to my readers. Facts, mood and emotion had to be conveyed in a couple of details.

It takes time, but it's well worth it. So when you've written down the facts of your world, contemporary or otherwise, go back and look for the mood and emotion. Look for the facts you need to convey. Combining them in details gives the reader flashes of your world that they can extend. This makes for readers involved in creating your world - and there's nothing better than that level of involvement.

How a Query can actually manage not to be the epitome of evil

Yes, it's hard to believe. Queries, for those who don't know, are a small paragraph of no more than 250-300 words, in which you try to tell someone what happens in your story, why it's cool, and how totally awesome you are as a writer.

Unfortunately, you can't just come out and say this (Imagine that - I am a good writer, and this is the best most fantastical book ever). No, instead you have to show them that by weaving a compelling and individual narrative (ie, you can't have just a premise - you have to show what happens in your book, what the stakes are for your character, and give some hint of what they do).

There should be conflict, tension, character, plot, good writing... in about 250 words. Thus, queries have a reputation for being evil. Their primary purpose is to sell your book, or net it some representation from an agent.

But for me, at least, queries have quite a nifty little second use, which is not quite as evil as the first one.

Okay, you've got 250 words. In that sort of space, you can't muck about. A query forces you to get to the very essence of what your story, characters, themes and ideas are about. That's what makes it so bloody hard - most of us don't try and think that way to start off with. Whether you're a planner or a discovery writer, most people will think out their plot, characters and story, but they won't think about the essence of all those things. And most people don't know what the essence of their story is. Well, they have a generic idea. For example, my story The Manda was about shades of grey in people and civilisations - the idea that no-one is right; that there is only perspective, and while a person can be kind in one instance, they can be downright horrible in the next.

But that has been done before. It's a very broad idea of what my story is about. In a query, you need to be specific - you have to figure out the essence of your story, characters, plot ect, and then you have to figure out what makes it individual, fun, terrifying, brilliant.

This takes forever, or at least it does for me. I spent hours on my last query - it didn't take too long to figure what my themes were about, but to par my characters, plot and structure down into short succinct ideas, and then combine those ideas to make a compelling narrative - took about two weeks, working at it for something like five hours a day. This doesn't sound too long. Then you realise that this is only 250 words I'm talking about. I wrote, and rewrote, and agonised, and cut, and scrapped, and started from scratch, and cursed and got second opinion and third opinions and went through at least 100 drafts of 250 words.

So. Whatever way you look at it, creating a query is evil. But once you have one, they can be gold in so many ways. Once you've had to write a query, you know what you want your book to be about - you know it's essence, not just the big things that make it go. And in my honest opinion, once you know the essence of a book, you can fix anything that's wrong with the plot, story, characters or structure. That fixing may take a entire rethink. (That circumstantially is what I'm doing with The Manda). or you may find your query closer to what you wanted than you thought it would be. Either way, once you nail a query, you've nailed your stories soul.

Then there's just the problem of communicating that to a reader, which is a whole different kettle of fish. That's where the perception gap between what a writer wants to say, and what a reader actually receives from you words, comes up.

But with a query, at least you have a start.

So my suggestion: write your story. Either planning or not planning, however you will. Then agonise over your query. Then, once you've got your query, and know it off by heart, (you will to - believe me, you can't create a query and not be able to quote it in your sleep by the time you've done) look again at your story. Take a good long look. Try and put yourself in the place of the reader, and see how big that perception gap is. If it's huge, make it smaller, until you can't notice one. Then, depending on what type of person you are, send it to a beta reader, or to a publisher. You'll either get a rejection, telling you that that gap is still there, or a report back from your beta reader, telling you that that gap is still there. Read the query again. And again. Think about the soul of your piece, and shorten that gap.

It's worth it. That "ah-ha!" moment you get on figuring out what's wrong is like drinking a redbull + espresso + no-doze shot. That sort of zing is worth being given a Medicare number for financial re-reimbursement.

(Oh, and this is written to hype myself up before I start query writing for my steam punk novel. There is a hidden motive here - if I remind myself of the benefits, I may actually look forwards to putting myself through the hell of writing a query. I'm also going to revise the Manda - this is to hype myself up for that too.)

Anyway, regardless of your motive in writing a query, know that they are evil to create. But bloody useful thereafter.

Enjoy creating~

Sian

Betaing and the Revelation of the Perception Gap

Something odd happens to a person when they write a story out. It becomes very precious to them - they'll put up with all sorts of crap from it because they love it. I can say in all honesty that that is one reason that I've not given up on the Manda after about 5 drafts - I adore this idea and these characters. Never mind the plot holes, unsympathetic characters and the like.

This is a good thing - it allows a writer to go through the insanity of drafting, re drafting, editing, nit picking and so on. But the very obvious down side to being in love with you work is that you don't see it's flaws.

This is where the Beta reader comes in handy. these are the people (they can be other writers or just readers) that go over your work and point out everything that your love addled brain can't see. Now, some of these things you will notice if you leave the manuscript alone long enough, but you will never be able to pick up all the problems.

So the Beta readers point out the problems, and explain why they are problems. You can either agree or disagree (a lot comes down to perception as well, as it tends to do when it comes to that which is creative) but if more than one beta points something out, then you know you've got a problem.

This is bloody useful because once they explain something to you several times around, you actually start to get it, and notice it yourself, sometimes even while you're writing it. But even more useful a process, is your reciprocation.

While someone is tearing apart your piece, and you're feeling like crap about it, you get to tear apart theirs. Now why is this important? It's important due to the fact that you know exactly how they feel about this piece (it's their baby, they're attached to it, it has not a fault in the world) because you are feeling exactly the same thing as they tuck into yours.

And once you make that empathetic connection, you start to think that maybe they're not being vindictive when they point things out. Maybe this is god to honest what they see when they read your work.

Which brings me to the single most important thing that beta reading reveals. The gap between author intent, and what the reader actually receives in character, plot and narration.

Say you write a story about a woman who runs away with her child, out of what you want to communicate is an emotionally abusive relationship. However, your reader sees her as a hypocritical bitch who has just kidnapped a man's life and joy. That is a huge gap - the closer you bring the readers perception of the story and what you intend to say, together, the better your story gets.

Now, this isn't to say you can close that gap for everyone. A perception gap relies on... well, perception. So when it comes to betas you can take one of two roads - either rely on your instincts as to what the beta is correct/incorrect about, or have more than one beta. Or a combination of both.

I have immensely enjoyed both betaing for other people, and having them beta for me. It broke me out of the "writing for myself" stage, and drew me on to "writing for an audience". Strangely enough, when you're writing for someone else, you start to do things in your novels a lot more consciously.

I've found it useful :D

Enjoy creating~

Sian

Second Draft Miracle

There's something wonderful about being able to write when you know exactly what's going to happen. It allows you to think more about what you're writing now, rather than "where the heck do I go with this next?"

Some would argue that is what plans are for. But for me, I do a first draft which is mostly worry and "good god, what have I done". Then I get to the end, and I rather pleasantly know my characters, and have a plot.

But there's something strange about second drafts. Sometimes, there are big problems in the first draft that have to be corrected. Logically speaking, you don't know if your corrections are going to work - you just know that they're fixing the current problem. How then, is it that the corrections work themselves out? How can removing an entire scene, which would have effected the MC in a variety of ways, and driven the plot in a variety of ways, not actually change the book so much that you end up with another first draft?

This happened to me recently - I realised that I had a scene I didn't need. I cut the scene, wrote some other stuff. Not once was there any guarantee that the other stuff would bring me directly back into the plot line, but it managed to. I've been a little perplexed as to how it worked out so well.

I think it comes from my changing of my MC's main motivation.

At the end of the first draft, I knew my MC and her motivation didn't fit. Her motivation didn't drive her to do what she was doing by the end of the book. So I went and changed it, to fit her actions at the end of the book.

This new motivation not only drives her to those actions in the climax, but keeps her on task for the rest of the plot line. There is no other way she can go, given her circumstances, who she is as a person, and her motivation.

Neat, huh? I was quite pleased with this revelation, and quite heartbroken by the fact it means that I've got to go in search of motivation in another WIP. But this revelation provides a tool for fixing things, and that is always useful.

So when you know how things are going to turn out, and you know who your characters are, make sure their motivations are going to drive them towards the appropriate actions. If they are of a certain character, that character, paired with the right motivation, will keep them on track.

Enjoy creating~

Sian

Change of Motivation

Now, this is a rather recurrent problem with me. I tend to think of the action of my MC first, and then their motivation. Side characters, other main characters - generally fine. But the MC is the one I start off with, and it is quite literally impossible for me to know them before I start writing them into a situation, because I don't do a heap of planning when I first start out.

The question is, what do you do, after powering through the first draft to the end, after realising your characters motivation is flimsy? How do you even recognise it as flimsy in the first place? (I had a lot of trouble with this one).

It all boils down to one very simple point. If you start the first draft without a plan, or without background information on you characters, you're going to get a lot of contradictory traits and motivation within your characters to start off with. Somewhere around the 1/4 mark, you'll figure you're main character out, and foget about that bothersome motivation that started the story off.

But it's still there, waiting for you when you get back. So how to fix it?

Just to clarify, you should not really be asking yourself what motivates your characters halfway through the book. If you still don't know them by then, you should really stop and think about what sort of people they are, what sort of history they have. but otherwise, there is normally one of a few things (or more) wrong with your character's motivation:

The motivation doesn't fit the character. It fits the plot, but not the character that you have by the end of the book.

There is no motivation, the character just does what the story requires


In both cases, it is a matter of deciding what you wish to change. It's your story, you can change everything in it. So do you change the motivation? Do you change the character so they fit the motivation? Or do you change the plot, so that the character that you have discovered by the end of your first draft now dictates a new story?

All of these can be done. Changing motivation is easier than changing an entire storyline, or changing a character to fit that motivation. For example, say Jane wants to get into a big business because she wants to get rich. By the time you get to the end of the book, you realise Jane doesn't care about money - she cares about her brother's health, and she needs to be in this business, because they're creating a drug that will help her brother with his illness. Now, you can go back, and change the motivation, make Jane want to get in to reassure herself about the drug from the start. Or you can make it so that she's originally interested in the money, but subconsciously, and gradually conscientiously, she becomes concerned about the medicine that her brother needs. That's changing the character so it fits both the motivation at the start, or the character they become. Or you can give up on the idea of the business entirely, and have this character, who you now know intimately, do something else to guarantee her brothers health.

In the end, the question is what do you like most about your first draft, and which solution is most believable? The character at the end, the new motivation you can come up with, or the old motivation. It all comes down to both personal taste, and believability.

I find it hard to believe that Jane would enter the company purely to check up on her brother's new experimental medicine. But join the company because she needs and wants money, and then slowly get drawn towards information on the drug? that I could believe.

Enjoy creating~

Sian

Inner Demon - just a quite note :D

Might as well. Here we go, inner demon of doom :D

My writing will suck. It will be terrible.

You know what? I'm going to make it better.

There will be characters as flat as ipods, with very little in the way of 3D resolution.

You know what? The main characters aren't flat, and I love them. And I can improve the minor characters.

There will be subplots that have no business being there. The main plot will undoubtable twist inexplicably.

I can manipulate the plot, I can fix it. Hell, it's my plot. That's my job.

Just thought I should let you know that, Inner Demon of Hell, before I started on the second draft process.

Now go F*** yourself. :D

Coming Back

You may have noticed the odd quiet hanging around here of late. That is mainly due to the fact that, well, I've been writing a first draft, and it does tend to rather consume one's life.

So. I have mentioned my writing process before, but here's something else that starting a new project taught me. I may be getting just a little bit better.

Why? Well, this time round, there was a certain level of detachment and experience. I knew when I did things that were wrong, I knew when I had to go back and fix things. But I knew that as I wrote it, which has never happened for me before. It's always been the process of getting incredibly attached to something, then not being able to see it's flaws until a month afterwards.

This time round, I expected it's flaws. I still have a little voice inside my head informing me that "this is crap, this is crap, this is crap". I have ignored it thus far, and will continue to do so. But it's there, which means I'm on the look out for mistakes. I'm making notes in my head as I go, I'm still loving the story, but looking at it with a much clearer perspective then before.

Frankly speaking, I'm gearing myself for the next haul. The first draft took me 20 days to write, and it's not entire crap. this is always a good start. Over the next two days, I go through, make notes on character, plot, motivation, sub-plots - pull it apart and and analyse it, as it were.

Then we start on the second draft. And by the end of that, I should have something that's not embarrassing. Still needs a lot of work, but you get the idea.

So yes. I'm back. :) It feels wonderful, a bit like work sometimes, but satisfying work.

Enjoy creating~

Sian

The Effect of POV on Detail in Description and Narration

It's funny, really. When I first sat down to write a manuscript, I didn't realise the process I was entering in to. I mean, I was 13? What 13 year old realises all the effort, the multiple drafts, the world building....

It was a wonderful, innocent time.

Regardless, I'm writing a new peice again, and it's the same as it was the first time. I feel like I'm dancing on the edge of a cliff, making up new bits of the land as I go.

But it's getting easier. The characters, plot and world are gradually coming to me. It's good. And because I know that there's a long process in front of me, I'm thinking about the next step. Which is the addition of detail.

But where do details come from? I think this has a lot to do with POV, myself. Each character is going to notice something different. When you're writing in first person, you can only describe what the characters see and what the characters think about them. So when you're narrating from the POV of a character who is used to the world you're in, you can't explain things that they already know about.

This presents many problems, which I think I'll talk about later (a post of first person will be forthcoming, me thinks :) ) But I think that it's interesting that you have something similar going on in third person limited. You can explain slightly more outside of the characters head, but I think the third person limited works best when you think about the world of the story from inside the characters head and embellish it with what they notice.

So what's the different when it comes to detail? Well, IMHO, it is that in third person limited the narrator can inject. They can tell you things about the world and story that the character couldn't. This can become overused and badly done, but it can also be done well. When it is, it lends itself to both easy description (you can explain things that need to be explained that the narrator wouldn't explain) and you can make your writing come alive (as in you can describe things in a way unique to the MC.) The best of both worlds. :)

Third person omniscient, however, is an entirely different kettle of fish. You can dive into characters heads, describe what they're seeing, describe things in their POV... but the way things are explained, exposed and described is in a different voice entirely. The voice of the narrator, the teller that sees all drives the story and the descriptions.

I experimented with this in a short, and it was amazing. I still had to think about how the characters would describe things, but... it was me describing it. I didn't have to immerse myself for every single word (would they use but, or would they say however?) in the characters minds, it wasn't as exhausting.

Because that's what POV writing can be. Exhausting. Utterly so. I once started a story (Varrick, actually, for those who have been following along) and it was told from the perspective of a forty year old man who had seen way too much and had way too much death on his hands. I remember coming out of a chapter and falling asleep for the next two hours, irrespective of the coffee consumed before hand. It was draining in a way I never thought a book could be.

I think it warrants thought before you start. How intense it this POV? Is it going to be able to tell the story I want it to tell? Am I ready for the investment that 1st person requires?

Anyway, I'm off to get ready for work. It's going to be another late night - I have at least 5k to write, and now that I've been called in for work, it's going to be interesting trying to fit it in.


Enjoy creating~

Sian

My Problems with Description.

This seemed timely, as the same problems are cropping up again and again. So I thought if I explained things through to everyone else, I might explain it through to myself at the same time.

I have read books for such a long time. And I read fast. Super fast. Never, once, in all that time, all those books, have I ever had a book play itself out in my head. Ever. I don't get images from prose unless I'm really concentrating on it. Details matter little to me unless their wrong (funny that it works one way and not the other). When I read, I somehow skip the "seeing the book play out in my head" bit, and just absorb the characters and the plot. That's it.

When I write, however, things are different. I see things play out in my head - but they are still very shaking images, very much things made up as I go along. And that is all I need to be in the head of the character - shaky images. You tell me I'm in a room, or a fort, and that is all I need to be drawn into the character's stories.

Turns out this is quite uniques. One Beta who read "the Manda" put it as "You under-desribe as opposed to over describe. I can't tell what's happening." Another Beta put it as "this feels like a first draft - I'm not being drawn into the story."

Now. I logically understand their problem. But having never experianced it myself, I find it incredibly confusing as to how to know when it's too much, and when it's too little. I just don't get confused when I read through my stuff, because I don't need that sense or orientation of place that other people need. I just don't.

So, how to deal with it. Well, the first thing I did was find the most descriptive books in my genre I could find, and read them. Multiple times. Then I listened to a bunch of podcast on descriptions. And I have finally come up with something that may help.

• Set the scene
• point your descriptions to what is important.
• Don't leave out the outside bits (the bits outside the action). Describe them as succinctly as possible. Choose only certain details.
  
• Imbue your world into those descriptions

Will this work? No idea. But it can only be tried.

Enjoy creating~

Sian

Update: 4/11/2010 我真的很高兴！！！！

First things first: 我真的很高兴! (I am very happy)

Why? Well I got into contact with my Chinese host family, and my Chinese wasn't so terrible that I couldn't understand them. I used a dictionary a heap, yes, but... they miss me! And I miss them, and everyone's all missing everyone else, and they're all lovely...

I just feels great that I was able to contact them, have a proper conversation with a minimum of misunderstandings, and that they still like me.

*runs through blog throwing happiness about.*

Secondly: nanowrimo is going well. Both my books are at the first turning point, which is great. Now I've just go to figure out where to go from there, but it'll come. I've got two random new characters in the steam punk novel - one that is entirely new, and is going to be a major character. I love it when things go well.

Viva la Revolution! Well, in colonial Australia, anyway.

I've also figured out how to fix a major plot issue in my other book (The Manda). I am tossing up whether to get to that now, or after november. It's probably going to be after.

But things are still percolating. I think I may be at the stage where I can start sending this thing (The Manda) out December/January. And then, if it doesn't get any bites, I can put it away in full knowledge that I have other things happening.

The only bleak note on the horizon is that the accommodation people at my university have not gotten back to me. Ahh well, you can't have it all in life.

Tomorrow, I am word warring with a fellow writer, who writes 5k a day without fail. I'm going to be slaughtered. But I may get more done then I was.

So all in all, a pretty good update. :D

Multidrafting! (Or the Most Insane Fun you can Have With a First Draft)

I have never looked forwards to a blog post with more anticipation. Here goes.

This is how I approach the topic with multiple drafts - generally with much dancing and skipping around in happiness. This approach may turn some people green, but it is how I do it.

The first time I ever wrote an entire, original novel, I approached writing like this: write what ever comes to your brain, fix it afterwards. This is all very well and good, as long as you don't mind at least 6 total rewrites (I kid you not. And by rewrite I mean starting from page one on a blank sheet of paper).

Another method I have devised, which seems to work better for me involves three stages: Planning, writing, and fixing.

Planning, for me, consists of knowing what happens at the first major turning point, knowing my characters, and that's it. Nothing more - otherwise it just kills the story for me. It must also be noted that I do a lot of "percolating" before hand, where I think about the story and the characters non-stop for about a month. Some would call that planning in the head, but I think that's different. Planning requires structure, and there is no structure to my thoughts. They just... are.

Then I sit down, and write to the first turning point. I know what this turning point is, and I don't worry about the quality of writing to start off with (this is we the other drafts come in later). I don't really worry about world building either - if I have something fantastical/out of the ordinary that I have to describe, and don't know how to, I'll do something like this

(Insert description of slum here).

I do this because I know any attempt to describe it will be crap, unless I take a significant amount of time and put a significant amount of thought into writing it. There isn't place for that in my first drafts - it slows me down, and it makes writing hard.

After I reach the first turning point, I stop, and think about my second turning point and end. By this stage, I know my world and my characters, so I think about where I want both of them to end up. I think about potential conflict between characters. And then I sit down and write. And write, and write, and write. I don't describe anything that's too hard, I do a terrible job of the show don't tell rule, and my writing is generally atrocious.

But that doesn't matter - as long as the character motavations make sense, and the plot keeps going, all is good. (First time I wrote The Manda, I ignored both these things. Thus the 6 total rewrites)

Then comes the fixing : I look through the book, try and make sure I get rid of any plot holes, any character discrepancies. Large chunks, especially the middle, will be re-written. This is the second draft. I still don't bother with the writing all that much.

Now we're into third draft territory. This is where I sit down, realise no-one else is going to be able to understand this, and go through the entire thing slowly, chapter by chapter, filling in all the descriptions I left out, doing all the research necessary.

Then I leave it. And come back to it. This is the fourth draft - it isn't a rewrite like the others, but a revision. I strike out all the descriptions that hold the story back, rewrite the ones that don't work. By this stage, it's about ready for Beta readers.

They will find a heap of problems with it, I'll go and fix it, and the whole thing will start over. By the end of the Beta revision, I am done.

And that, for me, is multi drafting. Each draft has the possibility of extending into multiple versions of itself - for example, I may have three second drafts, each for a major plot hole or character inconsistency.

But for me, multi-drafting presents me with an immense amount of freedom. I can stuff up some stuff while I get the other stuff right. I'm only concentrating on one thing at a time (notice also that I start with the hardest things - plot and character - and work my way down to concise sentence building) It won't work for everyone, but I find it immensely helpful.

Enjoy creating~

Sian