Category Archives: Writing

Working on a project.

Writing

Writing Process 5: World Building and Maps

Leave a comment

World Building is fun. I do it at the drop of a hat. I’ll world build just for fun. Heck, I sell world building services on Fiverr. It’s not something I need prompting to do.

I do world building for stories fairly often. Lots of scratch paper and unsaved spreadsheets have been scarified to idle world building. But in the PBRG process, it’s not about doing the fun parts of world building that come to mind. It’s about identifying what I need to build, doing the work, and then saving the work so that I can come back to it and reference it when I need it.

This is a long process, so instead of one big blog post, I’m going to try to do this in four. In this post I’ll touch on maps, then I’ll do Histories. Post three I’ll do Institutions and Organizations, and finally Mythologies, Magic and Science. This may change as I develop this series, but I don’t want to get too much into it. I’ve still got Research and Gaming to get through.

I am also going to do the General of the Pen segments at the end of each section, instead of doing a new blog post for each topic.

But I will want to build more than that, because I expect that inspiration will strike as I write. I want the depth to be there, so I don’t stop as I’m writing. This means I will build (and may have to research) more than I initially expect.

What is World Building Again?

Real quick, let’s go over what World Building is and how it’s different from Plotting.

World Building is building the depth behind the story, including aspects that may influence the story without actually appearing in it. If Plotting tells me my characters of going to Plotburg, World Building will tell me the size, the layout, some important places, the local government, the demographics, etc.

The purpose of World Building is to give me a good depth to the setting. It gives the places a better feeling. It gives the characters the ability to makes choices based off something other than plot. It gives me answers to questions I don’t know I’m going to ask while I’m writing.

It also gives me consistency. Remember, I’m building this process because my original process was too slow. And part of that was too many times where I wrote contradictory things I had to go back and fix. Oh, is Plotburg six miles from the river or eight? Now I’ll know ahead of time.

World Building Step Overview

The World Building step begins with a list of items from the Planning process. This list will include maps, character bios, institutions, mythologies, etc. Essentially, anything for the story that I should build before the story begins. It will grow as I plot, plan, research and game.

Now, I should have at least a good idea of what these things are and how they’re going to influence the story. I know where they’re going to appear and their importance. This give me a minimum of what I want to build for any given item.

So, let’s get into it, shall we?

Maps in Theory

There’s no project I’m working on that doesn’t require several maps. Maps of regions, maps of cities, maps of star systems or star charts of entire clusters. Lots and lots of maps. Oh, so many maps.

Maps aren’t just pretty, especially the early maps. They provide a good sense of how scale. More than once I’ve had to heavily revise a story once I realized the characters were moving too fast (it takes how long to walk a mile?) They’re helpful to track the location and movement of people and military units. And if I have to game out a campaign, I need the map to game on.

The number and details of maps can vary between projects. I generally find myself putting them in two tiers.

Tier I: Detailed Maps

Detailed maps I will need to reference often. I may need to game something out on them, or even put them in the book. These maps will have a key and a scale, a compass and a grid. They’ll be detailed, and probably in color.

Tier II: Basic Maps

Basic maps I don’t need to reference often; I just need to know what they look like. They don’t need to be detailed; just some simple bubbles showing the relative directions, with maybe some general distances listed. That’s all they have to be.

Maps in Practice – The General of the Pen

Now let’s consider my project, The General of the Pen. I’m going to start by listing the maps I’ll want to prep for the story.

  • A continental sized-map, so I can determine where various nation-states are in relation to the area of the story.
  • A regional or national map
  • A map of the area the book will take place in.
  • A map of the main city
  • A map for each of the battlefields of the book (three planned books)

That’s seven maps. Not bad, really.

Next, I want to divided them into Tier I (detailed) and Tier II (basic) maps.

The continental and national maps I can put in Tier II; the story is going to stay in a valley, so I just need to have a general idea of what’s outside the valley.

The valley I need a detailed map of, since I’ll be gaming out military unit movements and campaign operations, so that’s a Tier I.

The main city I’m actually going back and forth on; some scenes will happen there, but not enough to warrant a very detailed map. I will put this in Tier II for now, and if I need to work on it more as I go, I will.

The battle maps will, almost by definition, be Tier I maps. I may or may not game out the battles, I haven’t decided yet. But I want the details so when I’m writing the battle scenes, I can write them believably.

Drawing the Maps

For the basic maps, I really don’t need to put too much effort into them. Now, if I do, great. Nothing wrong with that. But I don’t need to. I just need them to be broadly done.

A simple map that shows the story area in red; the nation in green; allies in blue, and bad guys in black.

For the detailed maps, I’m going to put some effort into them. And probably go through several drafts. In the past this has meant a lot of pen and paper as I’ve worked through multiple iterations. Recently, I purchased a map program called Wonderdraft that I use to build maps for my RPG games. This allows me to build, fix and play with my maps without needing to start all over.

The valley, showing the cities, towns, rivers, roads, and unfinished railroad.

Even this detailed map is missing a few things. What is the scale? What about town names? Still a lot to do to finish this map off.

Now, I haven’t built the maps for the three battles yet. Before I do, I want to puzzle out about how big the battles will be, how exciting they’ll be, and what I’ll want to have happen. Then I’ll build those maps.

Conclusion and What’s Next

The world building process is to establish consistency. Building the maps early helps me keep people moving at appropriate speeds and in the right directions.

Coming up, I’ll look at world building histories, including those of people, places and entire worlds.

Writing

Writing Process Aside 01: Art Before Writing

Leave a comment

[This post is part of the Writing Process blog series, but it is not part of the normal line. It is a stand-alone article.]

I had an experience in preparing the supplement books for Champion Bold that made me take a step back. It reinforced how important the PBRG process is and will be for future projects. And made me realize I need to draw (or model) more during the PBRG process.

The Incident

There were two bits of artwork I wanted to get done that I didn’t want to do myself. I wasn’t sure of my skill, and one of the characters represented as too important to be done by my hand. This had to be a good quality image. The character was that important.

I went on Fiverr and found an artist who did some work I thought looked good. I contacted him and discussed the project; he expressed interest and sent me a quote. It was higher than I expected, but that’s not uncommon on Fiverr. Custom quote for a custom project.

Things started going wrong pretty quickly. the artist kept requesting reference images and details. More and more. He provided basic sketches, which weren’t bad from a technical standpoint, but he was ignoring much of my input. The process was slow, and I was starting to get frustrated.

Then we hit the deadline…and I had nothing. Instead, he requested more reference images. I sent them. He went silent. I heard nothing. I asked for an update. He did not respond. A full day after the deadline, with no word from him, I cancelled the order and got my money back. Fiverr, at least, made this part easy.

What went wrong?

The artist was technically proficient, but I did not like working with him. He did not listen to much of my feedback. He did not communicate well. The deadline passed by, and he did not come close to meeting it.

But I can’t lay all the blame at his feet. During the process, I realized that I didn’t know what I wanted. Yes, I wrote these aliens, but my description wasn’t good enough for an artist to create an image from. The artist needed reference images from my because I gave him so little to work with.

The problems across the board was communication. I don’t know why he was bad at it, but I know why I was.

I didn’t know what I needed.

It’s hard to tell an artist what an alien’s ears look like when you don’t know. The same with lips, or skin texture. I wrote the character, but when you’re trusting a reader to build the alien in their mind, you don’t consider all those details that an artist needs.

Is this a new issue?

No. I’ve run into this issue before. I’ve had to do some pretty big re-writes when I finally settled on a map and realized it didn’t match what I’d written. And in some of the previous artwork I’d commissioned, I’ve had problems with the artist not paying attention to some of the details of my requests.

A picture is worth a thousand words. But I don’t want to have to write a thousand words to get the picture I want.

How is this going to influence things in the future?

As part of future projects, I’m going to be sketching out a lot more than just maps ahead of time. Alien races, spaceships, uniforms. Anything that might need a description, I’m going to have a visual representation prepared.

That doesn’t mean it’s going to be great artwork. I’m getting more proficient at Krita (digital art) and Blender (3D modeling), but I’m not professional level. But what I can do is make sure I as a write know enough to describe the person, place or thing accurately and consistently.

And I can ensure that the next time I commission artwork on Fiverr, I give the artist enough information they can get to work right away.

Writing

Writing Process 4: Planning and Plotting in Practice

Leave a comment

**This is blog post number 4 on my revised writing process.**

Last post I went over the first step of PBRG, the Planning and Plotting step. I discussed the process I’m trying to use. Now, I’m going to show how that process works by applying it to a creative project.

The project is called ‘The General of the Pen.’ It’s a working title, and we’ll see how long that sticks.

Process 1: The Idea

What is ‘The General of the Pen’?

It is a story about a mid-level general, Gerhard van Rumm, in a mid-19th century world. He is caught up in an independence movement and becomes a leader in their army. This army is fighting an initial campaign to buy time for outside support to come in.

First, I consider what’s unique about this story.

  • The technology level is mostly new, with cannon and muskets instead of machine guns. (American Civil War instead of World War 1).
  • Gerhard is a mid-level commander of an army, who gets to make strategic and operational decisions for the story.
  • There is a much larger, world-wide movement that impacts the story; they’re buying time for other factors to come into play.
  • It’s a new world I haven’t fleshed out yet. There’s a lot of unknowns I can play with.

Those all sound good, but what’s not new? What’s similar to what I’ve done before.

  • Gerhard is a bookworm, like Sasha Small (Renaissance Army series)
  • He’s also level-headed in battle, like both Sasha and Augustine de Zama (Champion Bold).
  • The scope of the story shares a lot of similarities with the Renaissance Army story, as it is about an uprising against a superior government force.

The similarities are something to be wary of, but they’re not story-breakers. I’ll give Gerhard some unique traits for my characters: he wants to be loved and have a family, or maybe he already does. I can keep the story focused on the campaign and not the social movement, so it’s not the Renaissance Army redux.

Remember, a lot of the differences will be fleshed out during preparation and writing, so I can accept a larger ‘This is similar’ list and trust I will fix it later.

Process 2: The Five W’s (and that H)

The next process is to work out the Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How of the story. After several passes through the first process, I should have a good idea of each of the answers.

Who*Gerhard van Rumm, a mid-level general who is shanghaied into fighting in an independence movement.
*A friendly general who wants van Rumm there.
*An influential character who doesn’t want van Rumm there.
*Minor generals.
*A love interest.
What*The army begins to assemble.
*Training and teething issues.
*An enemy formation comes up; a fight occurs.
*Protagonists lose the first fights, win the last ones through work and determination.
When*The story takes place late spring/early summer.
*It will take place over several weeks, maybe even months.
Where*This story takes place around a city on the border of the independent region and their overlords.
*Must of the action occurs in a mountain valley, covering several hundred square miles.
Why*The region is trying to declare independence.
*The main character gets involved and wants to win.
How*The independence movement will fight against long odds.
*van Rumm will have to make difficult choices.
*they will buy enough time to finish the narrative.
‘The General of the Pen.’

I’m keeping this process down to a few pullet points per question, but ideally, I’d write up a paragraph or two. Just looking back at this list, I know I’ll want to expand on Gerhard’s motivations to win and detail the independence movement to give it a unique flavor.

Again, this is a series of processes that don’t stop until it’s published. A lot of these aspects will change as the story progresses.

Just a character, standing in a setting, ready to go.

Process 3: The Acts

Okay, now I’m dividing my narrative into acts, segments of the narrative.

I know I’ll have an introduction act: the reader will meet the characters, learn about the area, and discover why the story is happening. It won’t be long, but all stories start with it.

The conclusion act will see the heroes victorious, tie up any plot strings that need tying, and prep the next story (if there is one).

Those are the two easy ones. Now let’s build the middle.

I want this story to be short, but also full of action. And I want the characters to suffer before they win. So I’m going to have three Major Event acts. I’ll put a development act right after the introduction, and then two Recovery Acts between the three Major Events.

But wait! Is there a better way to do this? Something more exciting?

What if I removed the development act, and consolidate the information into the introduction? The crisis starts early, and we see the characters in action before they’re ready.

I consider this option. I’d need to be wary of making the introduction too long to make up for sudden event act, but maybe I can do it.

You know what? I’ll do that. The worst that happens is after a few passes, I add in the development scene. It’ll be easy as pie.

Now, I’ve got my seven-act plan. It looks like this.

Act List

ActTypeStory flow
Act IIntroductionIntroduce characters, setting and conflict
Act IIEventBattle; minor, but influential because of inexperience. Enemy wins.
Act IIIRecoveryCharacters react, make plans, train
Act IVEventBattle; another minor battle, good guys do better, draw, but have to retreat.
Act VRecoveryCharacters plan for final battle
Act VIEventFinal battle, major battle; good guys win, but it’s rough. Enemy withdraws.
Act VIIConclusionCharacters take stock, rewards, plan for next phase of the war.

Part of me is already twitching at having no development act. But I want to give this a shot.

Process 4: The Important Scenes

Now I get to plan out some scenes. Not writing scenes (though some of them I’ll be writing in my head) but identifying what scenes I need for each act. Reminder: I’m aiming for three scenes minimum.

Act I is the introduction. The first scene I’ll introduce the character, Gerhard van Rumm; he’s approached by his friend to join the army at a critical moment. The second scene, they arrive in their area of operations and Gerhard (and the reader) learns the terrain. Third scene, he meets some other key players, and the reader learns about the politics of the movement.

Act II is an event scene; the enemy is advancing into the mountain valley and wins a small battle. Okay, so I have one scene where the characters learn the attack is coming. They rush forward to find the battle underway (second scene), and a scene where they get their troops to retreat (third).

Act III is recovery. The characters discuss the events, and by discuss they yell and shout (first scene). The leader makes decisions and prepares for the next battle (second scene). And Gerhard has some time to reflect on the situation (third scene).

I’ll skip over writing the scenes for Acts IV through VI, though they’ll be listed on the chart below. Let’s look at Act VII, the conclusion.

In the conclusion, I need to reference the status of the movement as a whole, the situation in this valley, and Gerhard’s personal journey. I’ll first write a scene where the situation in the valley is confirmed, and a second where the national situation is addressed. Finally, I’ll had a scene with Gehard considering his part in past events, and look to the future.

Scene List

ActTypeScenes
Act IIntroduction1: Introduce Gerhard van Rumm and his friend
2: Introduce the mountain valley, geography
3: Introduce minor characters, and political situation.
Act IIEvent1: Characters learn of a battle up the valley.
2: Characters arrive at battle, try to influence victory.
3: Victory not possible; army withdraws / flees.
Act IIIRecovery1. Leaders yell accusations, refuse responsibility.
2. General makes decisions, not all of them correct, to prepare for next battle.
3. Gerhard considers what he’s done, how he can do better, and what their odds are.
Act IVEvent1. An opportunity to fight from a superior position arises.
2. Army moves into position, anticipation.
3. Enemy comes into view, attacks hard.
4. Army forced to withdraw but does so in good order. Tactical victory.
Act VRecovery1. Bad officers removed from duty
2. Learn of outside developments; importance of their victory
3. Officers learn of enemy movements, make a plan.
Act VIEvent1. Enemy force moves into area.
2. Army counters; fight develops
3. Army wins
Act VIIConclusion1: Situation in the valley is established, reported up the chain of command.
2: National / international situation and what that means.
3: Gerhard considers his place in things.

Process 5: The B, R and G lists

As I’ve been building this story, I’ve also been making lists of what I need to build, to research, and to game out.

As I’m writing, all of these lists will change as inspiration and the story’s course have an impact.

World Build

I stated above that as this is a new world, there is a lot I need to build. this can be intimidating (a world is a huge place), so it helps to make a list of what I need to build for this story.

  • The geography of the continent, the nation, and the region the story takes place.
  • The culture of the people fighting for independence, their overlords, and the allies who might be coming to help.
  • The technology available to all sides.
  • The timeline of the past: how long ago was the conquest?

Research

Research can be a hard one to plan ahead on, so this list looks pretty large scale at the moment.

  • 1860’s train speeds; construction of railways; ease of transporting goods and people.
  • Telegraph operations.
  • Development of battlefield medicine over the 19th Century.
  • Civil War-era weapons: construction, maintenance, usage.

Game Out

I know how I want the battles to go, but I’m more concerned with how fast units and information are moving about the valley. Here, I want to prepare a map of the valley, figure out roads, railways and telegraph lines, and create rules for movement of units and information. Then I’ll spend a couple of evolutions gaming out the campaign.

Will I game out the battles? I certainly could. I have a couple of tabletop systems that could work, and one or two video games where I could custom build levels on, just to see how they would work. But I would do that to see how things could progress. The final writing would not be dictated by the game.

Conclusion

Okay, so I just ran General of the Pen through the Plotting step of the process. What do I have now?

  • I’ve got a list of scenes to write.
  • I’ve got a list of topics to research and world build.
  • I’ve got some sequences I want to game out.

Now, I could start writing right away, but we’ve just finished one of four steps. And while I may not need to knock everyone off the B, R and G lists, there are things I will want to prepare ahead of time. So we move on to step two.

Join me next blog post, when we discuss the B-step, (World) Building.

Writing

Writing Process 3: Planning and Plotting in Theory

Leave a comment

**This is blog post number 3 on my revised writing process.**

Okay, I’ve so I’ve got an idea. Normally, I’d write the first scene and just start running with it, but I want to run it through this process. I was originally just going to go through the steps and explain it, but I decided that if I’m going to go through this process, I’m going to do it with an example project. So, this post will go over the step in detail, and then next post I’ll apply it to a project.

The goal is to end this step with an outline of the story, and a list of things to World Build, Research and Game out.

There are five processes to this step:

  1. Flesh out the idea.
  2. Answer the 5 W’s
  3. Prepare act list
  4. Work out scenes
  5. Build the B, R and G lists.

These are not ‘finish one and then move on to two and you can’t go back to one.’ These are happening simultaneously. I’m making notes on BRG lists while I’m prepping the 5 W’s, and I’ve got scenes in mind as I’m processing the ideas. Back and forth, over and over again.

So, let’s go over the processes.

Process 1: The Idea

First, I think about the idea. Now, you may wonder if I’m starting too simple, but I’m serious. I take my idea, and I challenge it. Is this a good story? Is it unique, or is it too much like another story I’ve written?

These are serious questions I need to ask. Too often I’ve had to make changes to a story, or even abandon an idea, because I realized it was taking the same character from Story A and putting them in a different genre. Or that two narratives were too similar to each other, and they both lost their unique flavor.

This process can take a couple of rounds until I get the idea down to something I’m comfortable moving forward with. And I have to accept that no story will be 100% different from other things I’ve written. There will be some overlap. The challenge is to emphasize what’s new with each story.

Process 2: The Five W’s (and that pesky H)

If you’ve forgotten what these are, it’s the Who, What, When, Where, Why and How of a story. At this point, I’m still looking at the broad strokes, without getting into the acts and scenes of the story.

WhoWho is the main character? Who are the other big players in the story?
WhatWhat are the big events of the story? What are the personal events for the characters?
WhenWhen does this story take place? How long will it cover?
WhereWhere does this story take place? How much area will it cover? What sort of terrain should I plan for?
WhyWhy is this story happening?
HowHow will the story develop? How will the characters?
The basic questions.

There answers need to be as long as I need them to be. Some will be pretty simple. Others may be entire paragraphs. But I need good answers to the questions.

Here, I’m also taking several passes. What sounds good one day might sound poor the next. But ideas that pass through several iterations are good enough to keep.

Process 3: The Acts

Process four is to divide the narrative into Acts.

In my process, an Act is a distinct section of the story, designed to advance the narrative through one leg of its journey. I plan acts to either provide information to the reader, allow the characters to respond to the story, or cover a major event of the narrative.

Broadly speaking, I’ve found my acts can divide into five categories:

  • Introduction: Introduce the characters, location, story, challenges.
  • Development: The characters interact with the world, things change.
  • Major event: these acts could cover battles or political conflict.
  • Recovery: the characters react and respond to a major event.
  • Conclusion: the last act, which wraps everything up.

Most of my stories have between 8 and 12 acts total.

For this process, I take a look at where the story begins (the introduction act), decide where it ends (the conclusion act), and then I focus on the middle parts. I look at the five W’s, especially the events, and plug them in, trying to keep track in my head of the pacing of the story.

I usually take several passes at this part, playing with different combinations. It’s important to pay attention to the flow. Multiple event acts in a row may overwhelm the reader. Too many development acts and the story doesn’t go anywhere.

At the end of this process, I will have my act list. And then I move on to scenes.

Process 4: The Important Scenes

I say important scenes because I’m not going to know every scene I will add into the story. I’m aware that as I write, there will be inspiration and ideas that pop-up and get added. So, this isn’t a final list. It’s a guideline.

With each act I have a series of questions and considerations I have to take into account. The overarching question is ‘does the scene advance the narrative?’

It may take several passes before I’ve got a good list on hand. To start, I aim for three scenes per act, minimum.

Introduction Act

This act includes a gimme; the first scene, which sets the tone for the book. Do I want this intro to be a prologue, or a first chapter?

I need to introduce the main character(s), the setting, and the plot elements. Are these different scenes? Usually, yes, because I need to be wary of dumping too much information onto the reader. But I’ll make that consideration here.

Development Act

A development act is simply an act where the characters progress and build themselves (or the narrative) up for the events of the story. Think of it as the downtime between big events.

These scenes will have a lot of little things that lead to the big things.

Event Act:

An event act centers around an important occurrence in the story. This could be a single action (the death of a character) or a longer process (a battle).

These scenes involved the immediate lead up, execution, and draw down of the event. Lots of action and excitement.

Recovery Act:

A recovery act is like a development act, but it has to do with the characters responding to the event. They’re learning and growing, making decisions and acting on what happened.

These scenes should include a lot of introspection and decision making.

Conclusion Act:

This is the second give me of the act process. Every story ends. This is where the consequences come clear and the loose ends get tied up. We say goodbye, and look to the future.

These scenes need to wrap things up, so more introspection and moving on.

Process 5: The B, R and G lists

This process I’m writing last, but in truth it’s been happening the entire time. I’m making lists of the World Building, Research, and Gaming I expect to need to finish before I write.

World Building items are background items that I will need to prepare beforehand. This list will include character biographies, maps of nations, cities and regions of the story, and organizational details. Science fiction stories will include technology and rules of physics. Fantasy stories will include rules of magic, mythology and races.

Research is a list of topics I cannot build but have to discover. In the past this list has included military trains, movements times for horses across various types of terrain, and lots of research into historical military and political organizations.

Gaming is not always going to be something I have to do, but I’ve learned from previous projects that it can be extremely helpful for sequences with a lot of moving parts. In the past, I’ve gamed out land campaigns and space battles. I’ve considered gaming out migrations, civil wars, and political maneuvers.

Conclusion

At the end of this process, I have an outline of the story I want to write. I have lists of items to world build, topics to research, and games to play.

Of course, this outline and these lists are not set in stone. The story will adjust as I review it. The lists will shrink as I cross things off and grow as new ideas reveal themselves. It’s a process that doesn’t end until the book is published.

So, that’s my Planning and Plotting process. Next blog post, I’ll take this process and apply it to a tertiary project I’ve had on my mind for a while.

Until then, keep on writing. Cheers!

Michael

Writing

Writing Process 2: PBRG

Leave a comment

**This is the second post in a series on my writing process, how I’ve analyzed and adjusted it over the last few years. More posts will follow.**

Okay, I’ve acknowledged I have a problem: I am not writing efficiently. I’m spending too much time stopping to work out something I could have done ahead of time, but I failed to do so because I’m too much of a pantser. I want to become more of a plotter. How do I do that?

The system I worked out I call PBRG for short, after the four steps of the process. This article will give a quick overview of the process and how it works.

What is PBRG?

PBRG are the four steps of the new process. they stand for:

  • P – Planning / Plotting
  • B – (World) Building
  • R – Research
  • G – Gaming

The process is simple enough. I start by planning and plotting out my story, working out the who, what, when, where, and why’s of the story. then I build, research, and game out anything I need to flesh out the plot.

The overall idea is that when I get to actually writing, I have everything I need to just pound out the words for a good first draft.

P – Planning or Plotting

Just keep plotting. Just keep plotting.

Planning or Plotting means to work out the Who / What /When / Where /Why / How of the story.

I already start all my projects with planning and plotting, but it’s been very simple. I figure out the overall acts of the story, the important characters, and a few other bits I need to know.

In the new process, I want to plan or plot out as much as possible down to the scenes if I can. I want to know every location I have to prepare, character I have to name, and event I have to plan out. And then to sit down and prepare, name and plan out everything listed.

B – (World) Building

No story happens in a vacuum.

World Building means to create the world beyond the story.

World building is fun. I do world building almost every day, taking one of any number of fantasy and fictional worlds and working on part of it. I even sell world building services on Fiverr.

In this process, I mean to identify what I need to build before the story gets going. It could be the history of a region, the specifications of a space ship, or the type of artwork a race idealizes. The idea is to have everything ready and worked out so I don’t leave myself a ‘come back to this’ note.

R – Research

Research, but don’t forget to take notes.

Research means to learn the knowledge I need but don’t have readily available.

This is one thing that tripped me up a lot in earlier drafts of stories. I’d stop mid-story to research trains or steamboats, or to research how far horses can move in certain conditions. There are plenty of notes in earlier drafts of me saying I’ll come back and fix you later (as I did with world building)

In this process, I mean to identify what i need to research, conduct the research, and have an answer prepared for writing.

G – Gaming

You shall not pass . . . until the plot demands it.

Gaming means to find complex portions of the story, and to work through them step-by-step to determine how they would work.

A game in this step is about consistency. It’s about making sure the units are all moving the same speed, and recording what conflicts happen where. It’s about identifying important choices various decisions makers had to make, and considering what they would do in that situation. I’ve done it a few times for the books I’ve written, but only after a first draft has seemed to go by too quickly.

In this process, I mean to work out the course of a complex activity ahead of time, and then write the story to conform to the process I worked out.

A Positive Test

Has this process been helpful? So far, yes.

I have a story project I call ‘Contrition’, a science fiction story set in the far future. It’s more of a secondary or even tertiary project, but it’s one I like to work on. For the first act, I applied this process.

  1. Planning / Plotting: I planned and plotted out the scenes. I identified what characters were needed and named them, preparing their personalities and impact on the story. I worked out place names.
  2. (World) Building: I build the geography, culture and economy of the planet the first act takes place on. How do the people respond to technology? How does the economy work?
  3. Research: I answered questions I knew I would need to ask. How hard it is for low-tech societies to build trade goods? How much space does a herd of cattle need? How fast to steamboats move?
  4. Gaming: Okay, this step didn’t come up with the first act, but I’m using a gaming process to work out how the decade in space before the story begins worked out. To make sure I’m consistent.

The result was; I wrote about 8,000 words in four days. I breezed through it. The first act, as prepared as I was, flew by. And then when I hit the first scene of act two, where I wasn’t prepared; boom. Like hitting a wall.

The process definitely has merrit.

Next Post

This was a quick overview of the PBRG Process, how I use it and how it’s worked so far. Next post, I will look at the Planning/Plotting step in detail, how I take an project from starting idea to scene breakdown.

Thanks for reading; I look forward to seeing you next blog post.

Cheers!

-Michael

Writing

Writing Process 1: Too much pantsing

Leave a comment

**This is the first post in a series on my writing process, how I’ve analyzed and adjusted it over the last few years. More posts will follow.**

Over the last few years, as I’ve worked to bring more titles to publication, I’ve had to face the fact that I’m not an efficient writer. My process involved too much stopping, too much re-writing, too much back and forth. I’m not happy with it. But this is not a question of writing more or writing harder. It’s about creating more efficiently.

I want to write more, and I want to write better. I feel like most creators understand how life and interrupt the process, sucking up our time and our energy, until we are looking for ten or fifteen minutes to sit down and do something for ourselves.

In this first post, I will look at how I found my writing process to be lacking. I will discuss what I found my problems were. And I will mention some initial steps I took to improve it.

2024: Planned and Actual

When I was publishing my first book, Renaissance Calling, back in 2017, I made up a list of everything I wanted to publish. It was — and still is — an extensive list. 30 plus books, including short story collections. The list included six sequels to my book, two prequel books and three short-story collections. There were three different science fiction universes, and two fantasy worlds. Many historical fiction stories and series spanning the course of human history.

Like I said, extensive.

I sat down and created a schedule built on the idea that it would take me six months to write a rough draft, and six months to revise a rough draft for publication. When I finished one rough draft and moved it to the revision phase, I would start another. Under the plan, I would publish two books a year, every year, basically for the rest of my life.

So, as 2024 starts, I was scheduled to have published at least thirteen books.

I’ve done two.

What went wrong?

Pantser vs Planner

Creative Carl goes with the flow (Panster)

Most discussions of writing process include the descriptions of pantsers and planners. This post will also discuss the difference. If you don’t know what those words mean, let me explain.

A pantser is someone who writes off the cuff. They let the story surprise them, developing in the moment as they write, They may have an outline they follow, but it’ll be broad, and subject to change in the moment.

A planner is the opposite. They plan extensively before they write a single word. Every scene will be plotted and planned, and when they write they’re just executing the outline.

Most people fall between these extremes. As a writer, I tend to fall to the pantser side of the equation. I write and let the story develop.

And that was my problem. A poor writing process.

There go my pants

The benefit of a pantser is that I often inspired while writing. Just this morning, I was writing a scene that I expected to end with the character making a decision, but while writing I realized she had a different option available that made more sense. Great, right?

Sure, in this case.

The problem arises when I hit something that makes me stop writing completely. What is this character’s code name? How does this historical process work? Why is this event I just mentioned important and what does it mean?’

These sorts of questions will stop me cold. I one spent an entire lunch hour contemplating one character’s code name. Not efficient whatsoever.

The pants fell down and tripped me up.

Making changes

Logical Lou follows the outline (Planner)

Between my first book and second, I made several changes to my writing process that started shifting me away from pantser. I would work out characters names beforehand. If I knew something was important for the story, I would research it and be ready. Little things that planners do naturally.

Little changes are good, but if I want to publish more, I need to be much more efficient. A book every four or five years isn’t enough. My main series (planned for seven books) would take thirty years to publish. And I have other stories I want to tell. Science Fiction. Fantasy. Historical.

I need to make bigger changes for the future.

I need better plans.

PBRG

Acknowledging that my writing process isn’t working, I developed a system for my future projects that I call PBRG. Next post, I will describe this new system and give an overview of what it looks like.

Until next time, keep writing.

Cheers!

Michael

Writing

How is it October already?

Leave a comment

2020. Man, who thought this year would turn out the way it has. All the conventions cancelled, Books and Beer on hiatus, plans disrupted, then burned, then buried in a bog. Just…wow.

Earlier this year, when I found myself facing furlough, I promised myself I wouldn’t just let it pass me by. It was going to be an opportunity to get stuff done. I was going to write so many books, and lose so much weight, and just get so much done.

Of course, that’s not what happened. I got some writing done, but no where near the tsunami of publishable materials I thought I might get done. I actually did a NANOWRIMO challenge in July to write a science fiction novel, a way to force myself to relearn how to write at home. And as I’m back to work, I can get some writing done there. My coffee shop is still pick-up only, but I’m hopeful for the future.

What I’m Writing

I’ve got a couple of projects going. The main one is re-writing a fantasy novel to prepare it for publishing. I’ve got some good feedback on the story from some alpha readers, and I might make it a November Writing Challenge to rewrite the thing.

I’ve got the July SciFi story, which is a very rough draft. It’ll need some significant work to get it ready, but it’s doable. Book 3 of the Renaissance Army series is getting picked at; I’ve worked out some timeline and story concerns that were bugging me, now I’m writing some scenes, storyboarding and researching. Always researching.

Working on short stories. Have a couple it might be fun to send to magazines or the like. We’ll see if that works.

What I’m Reading

Right now I’m working through ‘The Complete Novels of Jane Austen’, which is one ebook with nine Jane Austen books. Before I’d seen the movies of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice¸ and I really enjoyed reading those stories. Whomever made the movies did a good job of consolidating characters and trimming the plotlines. The confusion I found in the books weren’t in the films.

The rest of the stories I’m reading cold, which makes for a bit of a challenge as I’m two centuries removed from Jane Austen’s time. I’m sure there are things I’m missing. But I’m still enjoying the dialogue. It on a level all of its own.

Fini

I don’t know how 2021 will look. I’m guessing it’ll be a slow slog back to normal, or what will pass for normal after all this. I won’t have a book out this year, that’s for sure, but next year I hope to publish at least one.

Of course, that’s still a lifetime away.

Cheers!

Michael

Writing

500 words a day

Leave a comment

As a resolution for New Years, I challenged myself to record at least 500 words day in writing. I could have gone for more, but I wanted a nice, comfortable goal, since there are days when I have little time to actually write, and there are days where I don’t feel like writing. So, I set the goal at 500 words.

It turns out its usually a bit easier than I worried. I’m at a coffee shop most morning a little after 6 AM, starting my day off hitting the goal. Some days, I exceed a thousand words, and sometimes even two thousand.

There are off days, of course. There have been days where I’ve just pushed myself to get 500 words total, writing obvious crap, saying ‘a rough draft is just words on the page’ and I’ll fix it when I revise. But I’ve made the 500 words every day.

A benefit during revisions

It’s come in handy. As Book 2 of the Renaissance Army series has gone through revisions and out to some Alpha readers, writing 500 words a day on other projects has kept my creative juices flowing while I’ve been dealing with the mechanical and stylistic issues that revisions include. And it’s advanced a few projects from ‘neat idea’ to ‘words are on the page’. I’ve got a lot of stories to tell, and it’s good that I’m getting to them, even if they are of secondary or tertiary importance.

So, even as I get stuck on some matter in the revision, I at least make some headway on another project. So I feel I’ve gotten something done every day.

Some Math

Out of curiosity, I took a look at the words I’ve recorded in yWriter. Now, there are things I’ve written that aren’t recorded in yWriter, but I didn’t want to spend hours finding every single word I’d typed and adding it, so this is just a rough, quick calculation.

Since New Years, I have written 98,909 words in eight different projects. The vast majority went to Book 2 (58,000+), and with a fantasy book taking second place (29,000+). Book 3 was begun, with just shy of 3,500 words. Which means, over 106 days (as of writing), I’ve averaged 933.1 words a day. Well above my goal.

Try it!

If you’re a writer, try it out! Setting a simple, low goal and sticking to it is the way to accomplish a lot of goals, and with writing it helps to bull rush your way through the writers block and doubts and just get words on the page. Because once they’re on there, they mean something.

Review, Writing

Non-sequential writing

Leave a comment

This last weekend I finished a rough, rough draft of Book 2, my sequel to Renaissance Calling. It took a lot longer to finish than I expected, in part because I had to learn how to write a book in a  non-sequential fashion. Between the length of time Book 2 covers (a year as opposed to two and a half months) and the need to fit fourteen backer-created characters into the story, writing the story from start to finish wouldn’t work, unless I was willing to write out a 300,000 word monster of a rough draft. So I started jumping around, writing scenes as I had them and working from both ends towards the middle.

Like a pyramid being built without finishing the foundation.

It was interesting and frustrating, with a lot of false starts and dead ends, but ultimately it got me to the end of the rough draft and into revisions. As I move on with both this book and other projects, I want to take a moment and share with you some lessons about non-sequential writing I’ve taken from the experience.

Start at both ends and work to the middle

Starting at both ends and working towards the middle was the first thing I started doing. It made sense, since I knew how the story began and ended. Working from both directions, I can approach any problem I came across from either the front or the back. Sometimes I had to solve problems by writing the solution first, and building up to it.

Keep an eye out for lessons the protagonist needs to learn

By writing the end I gained a huge advantage; I figured out what the character needs to experience to have the impact I need her to have at the climax of the story. That helped me figure out what I needed to show the reader, versus what I could tell the reader. It’s a huge benefit to non-sequential writing to know what you don’t have to write.

Write scenes independently; don’t worry about flow

By flow, I mean the attention of the reader as they go from one chapter to another. I quickly stopped paying attention to flow for my rough draft. Scenes begin and end rather abruptly. Annoying, yes, but finishing the overall story was the main goal. Working on the flow is for the revision phase.

Don’t describe a secondary character when you first write him/her:

Jumping back and forth, I had no idea when this character or that character was going to be introduced. The first few times I wrote a character I included a description, but several times I later wrote them in an earlier scene. So I stopped writing descriptions. Instead, I’m saving the description until afterwards, then I’ll add them when I know where their first appearance is.

Keep a list of ‘Bits to Add’

Instead of jumping around to fix things every time they come up, I’ve been keeping a separate document where I write down the ideas I want to return to. The point is to get the side-thoughts out of the way without interrupting the work on whichever scene I’m focusing on at the time. There will be enough time to fix everything later.

 

I’ve already started applying these lessons to other projects. It’s really helpful to get things moving when something is getting stuck, or simply to just get words down and counted. One project in particular covers almost a decade of time, and already I’m making huge strides in it because of these lessons.

Have any thoughts or tips of you own? Feel free to let me know.

And as always, keep on writing.

Combat

Writing Combat: Introduction

Leave a comment

In my recently published book, Renaissance Calling, I have no less than ten fights. These range from one-on-one fisticuffs to small battles. Fighting of one sort or another is prominent in most of the stories I’m working on, so I’ve got some experience in planning and writing fighting and combat scenes.

I’ve been meaning to write an article on this for some time, but there’s so many thoughts and concepts floating around that it’s been hard to organize, so I’m switching playbooks.

Instead of one long article, I’m going to write several, with no expected number planned. I might write about something I’m currently working on, or something I’ve done. One post will be about planning battles from the eyes of the generals, another about what a character might be feeling during combat.

The idea is, instead of trying to shove everything into one article, to focus on one idea per post, and really get into it, allowing each idea to be entertained in depth.

Why Combat? – Because I know it

For a first article, I figured I would discuss the obvious first question: why so much fighting?

I’m a military historian by education, growing up with access to my dad’s Civil War books. I grew from looking at pictures to reading the stories, evolving into an interest in both personal accounts and primary sources on one hand, and the overall philosophy and culture of war on the other.

And of course, I consume a significant amount of fictional media on the subject. Books, movies and video games are plentiful, though I can find as much fault with a lot of them (both in terms of combat and in terms of story-telling) as I can enjoy them. Roleplaying games are also heavily combat oriented, which means on game night, we’re probably going to fight.

So for better or worse, fighting is something that features in almost all of my stories.

Also – Excitement

As a last minute addition to this article, I wanted to say one more thing about writing combat. As I’m working on book two, I’ve had to contend with worrying about keeping the book exciting. Yes, not all drama in a book has to come from battle, but it helps to have the option, if only to vary the source of the drama.

Being in a situation where fighting can happen for various reasons (as I had in Renaissance Calling) allowed me to use combat to control the excitement. A bandit here, a betrayal there, I could count on fighting to give me control over the story. In most of my planned projects this is possible, though I do not want to make it the soul source of excitement.

***

Anyway, I know this is a short article, but I didn’t want to make it long just for the sake of making it long. This is only an introduction, after all.