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Writing

Writing Process 8: Magic, Science and Mythology

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Magic, science and mythology are three broad categories to cover. Each one represents a deep part of the lore. This is getting into the metaphysics of the story, building gears that grind layers beyond what the characters do and the reader sees. They represent aspects that can influence the characters’ understanding of the world around them.

I mean, that’s a lot to put on the categories.

Not every story will need magic, science or mythology. Some might not need any of them. But if the story does require anything, I’ve found it helpful to build a framework beforehand so I can remain consistent.

After all, we don’t want to break the story, do we?

Break the Story?

Yes, break the story.

Using magic and science to solve plot problems is a time-honored tradition. But use it too much, and it becomes a joke (see Batman’s utility belt or Star Trek technobabble) and the story breaks. There needs to be a balance, otherwise the reader will be left thinking that it was too easy.

And mythology may not be about solving problems directly, but it is about how characters interact with their world. And if I build an entire mythology, only for the characters to never reference it or react to it, then the world breaks, and then the story.

I want to be careful that the rules I’m building remain important but constant. Part of that means considering what I need the system to do, and what I need it not to do.

‘So…think Michael will learn to draw hands sometime? I’d really like thumbs.’

Magic and Magic Systems

A magic system is a set of rules for extra-normal powers and abilities that can be accessed through natural talent or learned ritual. It can run from the wizards and artifacts of a fantasy story to the psionic and telekinetic powers of science fiction.

I have several projects that need magic systems. Champion Bold needed some rules for psionic powers for consistency. Orcfyre needed magic rules for not only spells, but the influence of divine power on the world. Several of my minor projects (fantasy and science fantasy) require their own systems.

The important thing I need to keep in mind while working on these systems is that I’m building guidelines. I don’t need to work out every single variation of spell that exists within the world. I just need enough that the story is consistent. With that in mind, I want to build the rules specific to the project I’m working on, while leaving enough room to build on for future projects.

Building a Magic System

When I’m devising magic systems, there are a couple of important questions I want to consider first.

What can it do and what can it not do? It’s important to set boundaries. Is magic common: have practical utility or tactical use? Or is rarer, used by the elite for grand purposes?

Who can access this system?: Not everyone can cast spells or conduct rituals. Who can do it and how they access it? How rare are magic users? What sets them apart?

How is the system received? A magic user could be accepted and protected, or they could be feared and persecuted. How are magic users incorporated into different cultures within the world?

What are its consequences? Magic should have a consequence, even if its as simple as exhausting its user. Something needs to keep magic users from using their magic on a whim.

Example System – Vi World Magic Spirits

I’m going to bring up my Vi world magic system, as its the system I’ve developed the furthest.

Vi world is a fantasy world I’ve been building for some time; it’s the setting for Orcfyre, my ‘someday this’ll be ready to publish’ fantasy novel. It has a long mythology that I’ve worked out over the years, built around the idea that the spirit world exists alongside our world. And the spirit world is where magic comes from.

Magic is what happens when spirits are pulled across the divide and used to influence the real world. This can be hurt or heal people, change an item, or seek the truth about secrets.

Asking my questions

So, let’s consider my questions.

What can it do and what can it not do?: The magic of Vi world can do almost anything, from levitating small objects to divining the future. But because of how difficult the magic is to use and control, it’s not a common. If you see someone on the street corner offering spells, it’s more likely slight of hand.

Who can access this system?: Anyone who can pull a spirit across the divide can use magic. This isn’t easy. Unless you’re at one of a few spots where the divide is weak (commonly where temples and oracles set up shot), you have to use force. That means either a natural talent due to heritage, using an item or ritual, or sheer willpower. Even then, it’s not easy.

How is the system received?: Every culture in Vi world accepts magic in one form or another; none reject or persecute magic users. But every culture also has their own set of norms and expectations, and magic users who reject such expectations can find themselves in danger rather quickly.

What are its consequences?: Using magic is exhausting, even with training. Unless an individual’s heritage (racial and familial) is inclined towards magic, even a single spell can drain a person, perhaps even unto death. In many cases, multiple spellcasters will be used to reduce the impact on any one user.

Impact in the Story

Within the Vi world, magic is a known quantity. It exists, and everyone knows it. When it happens, it has an impact. But getting it to work usually requires significant effort, so it is not commonplace. it allows me to write a story where the characters know such magic exists, but do not feel the worry that it will erupt at any time.

Magic’s rarity is in contrast to our next topic, which requires as much effort to construct, but with the expectation that it will be used far more often. Now, we will discuss science systems.

Science

A science system is a set of rules for branches of knowledge and avenues of advancement that are accessed through technology. It can run from steampunk airships and mechanical suits of a fantasy story to the energy weapons and space travel of science fiction.

Science is rooted in the real world, which makes building a science system a different challenge from a magic system. Anything I need to build will have something similar or related I need to research and incorporated. Even FTL travel — with no working real-world examples — needs to take into account the speed of light, distance between systems, and the strength of gravity.

Building a Science System

As with magic, it’s important to remember I’m building guidelines to remain consistent. I don’t need to build everything. I need to build what I need for the story, and enough extra to give it some depth. But that’s it.

And there are the questions I need to consider.

How reliable is the science or technology? An established empire will have reliable technology, while frontier societies will need more maintenance. Also, this is an important question to ask in the context of the story; if I need it to be reliable, or to fail, I need to account for that.

What does the science/technology do or not do? Just like magic, I want to consider what the technology of each system can or cannot do. There should be limits.

What is the math? Yes, there’s that math. I need to have numbers in mind for firing ranges of weapons, speed and acceleration of space ships, communications time, etc. A lot of little things that I want to make sure are consistent one chapter to the next.

How knowledgeable are most people about the science and/or the technology? Not everyone can know everything, but there’s a difference between a ship’s crew knowing the basic principals of how their engine’s work, and believing it to be esoteric witchcraft.

Example System – Light Star Universe

The Light Star Universe is home to Champion Bold, my recent science fiction novel. It’s always been a pretty standard science fiction universe; what made it special was not the technology, but the aliens and the stories we told.

How reliable is the science or technology? Most of the technology encountered in Champion Bold is reliable and known. That isn’t to say experiment tech doesn’t exist, but it’s not put into mass production if it’s not ready for use.

What does the science/technology do or not do? The technology of the LSU is generally pretty standard sci-fi fare. It allows faster-than-light travel, artificial gravity and space combat. It does not bring back the dead or teleport people across vast distances.

What is the math? I won’t bore you with equations. I will say that after I worked out the math, much of the story had to change. A couple of combat chapters were re-written to be consistent, and the length of the story doubled once I accounted for FTL travel speeds. But, overall, it strengthened the story.

How knowledgeable are most people about the science and/or the technology? It’s roughly equivalent to modern industrialized society and the technology we use on a daily basis. Most people understand the basics and the principals, but they wouldn’t be able to repair or rebuild it without some training or education.

Impact in the Story

The technology of the Light Star Universe exists to allow the stories to take place. It is not there to dramatically change things, but is a stable and reliable base which the characters can expect to do what it’s designed to do. But most importantly, it’s consistent, which means the story can advance without the reader pausing and asking ‘wait, I thought ….’

If magic is rare, and science common, our next topic is so common as to be subtly invisible. This is our last section of the post, mythology.

Mythology

A mythology system is a set of stories and beliefs that guide and influence a society’s morals, decisions and responses to the events they are experiencing. It’s a broad heading, that covers small sects of Christianity to fantasy world mythologies to alien philosophies.

(I debated using philosophy or belief system for this part of the post, but I’m going to stick with mythology.)

At first glance, you might think it looks out of place here. Mythology, after all, doesn’t give people special powers or abilities. But mythology in one way or another does shape how the characters in a story interpret the world around them and the events they experience.

Mythology was fairly minor for the works I’ve published so far. I’ve only had to build a sect of Christianity and some the cultural mythologies of some alien cultures. But having these worked out , even in their minor forms, was still important for the characters’ arc. But for future titles (Orcfyre being a prime example).

Building a Mythology

As with anything, I start with ‘what do I need to build for the story.’ Then, I move on to my mythology specific questions.

What are the important tenants of this mythology? Every mythology has something it emphasizes that makes it different from others. I want to consider a bullet list of what the mythology teaches, preaches and demands of their followers.

Who is the mythology for? Not every mythology will be followed by everyone. It could be a very elect group of people, or perhaps followed by citizens of a certain city or members of a certain species. But I’ve found defining how someone becomes a follower really helps, even if its as simple as ‘an alien mythology followed by a race of aliens.’

How do followers of this mythology act differently? I want to have some basic idea of how a follower of a mythology acts in accordance with their beliefs. More specifically, how does a follower act differently from me and what I consider normal. I also consider questions of devoutness; some people will take the beliefs as iron rules, while others will pay lip service and go about their day.

How real is this mythology? Every mythology will include myths, but there’s usually a grain of truth in the middle. Depending on the story, the grain could be pretty close to the mark, or could be pretty far off. How close it is could be a matter of contention with the world, and could be a source of conflict within the story.

Example Mythology – General of the Pen

For the example of this portion, I’m going to return to the General of the Pen, the story we’ve been developing as part of this blog series. In particular, I want to build the mythology of the Campilesian Church. I know the organization of the church from a previous post; now, I’m building the beliefs.

What are the important tenants of this mythology? The Campilesian belief system is very close to Christianity in a lot of ways. This system has a firm belief that everyone has a passion in their life, which leads to their high number of saints and grand patrons. They also are less strict on gender norms (usually) and abhor slavery.

Who is the mythology for? The Campilesian system is for everyone, from the common farmer to the ruling lord. They accept converts fairly regularly and easily. Most Campilesians live within the Campilesia region, or in a neighboring region.

How do followers of this mythology act differently? The belief that everyone can be great at something means that most followers have some passion they pursue. Some may make it the main part of their life, or it’s something they engage in outside of their profession. But they are generally supportive of everyone around them.

How real is this mythology? The basis for this belief system is an ancient philosopher who works for the survival of the Campilesian people when conquered by the Ferrans. His system allows them to survive as a people under centuries of rule by other people. The religious aspect — spirituality and afterlife — are believes, but not perfectly known.

Impact in the Story

The Campilesian religion gives the people who make up most of the characters in my story a shared belief system. A system that encourages people to find their one passion, which could be Campilesian independence. It also means that the people view the sacrifice of military service in a very high light.

Conclusion

Magic, Science and Mythology are all broad topics that I’ve bumped into during this post. In each case, I’ve provided a brief overview of what each one means and how I start their creation. The actual work would include pages of notes and histories, spreadsheets of math and lists of entries. Unique questions for each system that don’t apply to the others. A lot of work and information that the reader will never see.

With the end of this post, I’ve finished my four posts on the World Building aspect of the PBRG system. Next up, I’ll go over the Research aspect. I don’t imagine that’ll be more than one blog post, but we’ll see how that goes.

Until then, keep on writing.

-Michael

Writing

Writing Process 5: World Building and Maps

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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 3: Planning and Plotting in Theory

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**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

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**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

Creative Practice

Creative Practice: Inspiration

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No idea if this is going to be more than a once in a while thing, but we’ll see.

Creative Cal has shown up in pictures before, usually with his giant quill. He represents the creative aspect of writing, the imagination and the inspiration.

Logical Lou (with the mustache) represents the logical aspects of writing. The planning, the determination, the grind.

Writing

500 words a day

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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

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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.

Writing

Choosing Projects

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I want to take a moment and write about the projects I’m working on. Specifically, about how I decide what projects to focus on and which ones to put on hold.

In preparation for this article, I sat down and worked out every project that I’ve done some work on. This does not include passing ideas that I’ve thought about, only things where I have put something on paper or saved to the cloud. The question was ‘How many books am I trying to write?’

I came up with 29 distinct projects, some organized into larger fictional worlds, while others are standalone books. And while I was coming up with this list, I found that I might be able to condense a number of the fantasy and science fiction projects into fewer projects. But for the purposes of this article, I’m going to continue with the original 29 projects.

12 of those projects I hadn’t done enough work to figure out how many books they might turn into, and two of them are strings of short stories that would probably just be anthologized. So, of the remaining 15 projects, how many books are planned?

38 books.

That’s quite a lot. That’s more books than years I’ve lived. So I better get writing.

Seriously, though, looking at this list of projects, I’m already sure a lot of them aren’t going to get written. Not because I don’t want to write them, but because I probably just don’t have the time. It’s one of the reasons I try to set a lot of my fantasy and science fiction stories in the same universe; so I can re-use the same geography, politics and mythologies in different stories.

Just for fun, the numbers of projects by genre:

  • Speculative fiction (3 projects)
  • Fantasy (10 projects))
  • Science fiction (9 projects)
  • Historical Fiction (5 projects)
  • Other (2 projects)

Main Focus

My main focus right now is on the Renaissance Army series, which counts for three of the projects and ten books (seven main-line books, two short-story anthologies and a prequel). Even then, it wouldn’t surprise me if I find other stories to tell in the world. In fact, I’m almost certain I do, I just haven’t gotten to them yet.

My goal with the seven main-line books is to publish one a year. Now that I’ve got Renaissance Calling under my belt, I feel pretty confident I can get those seven books out. I don’t know that it’ll be one a year, but I mean to give it a go. I’ve been paying attention to my process, figuring out how I can outline better, paying attention to what trips me up or disrupts my process. Basically becoming more proficient.

The Great Fantasy Series

My secondary focus is what I’m calling the Orc-kin series, a set of seven trilogies that follow half-orc characters through the centuries of a fantasy world. I’ve written the first book, and I’m writing the second, with others being aggressively outlined as I go. At the very least I’d like to publish the first trilogy. I might not go so far as to publish all seven trilogies, but outline them all and then only publish the best ones. I don’t know yet.

Write me! Write me!

How do I decide what else to do?

That is the question, ultimately, of this post. I have so many ideas, things I honestly believe are good stories. How do I decide which ones to write?

When I look at the other projects, I imagine all the work I need to do to bring them to fruition, and it can get a little daunting. Though depending on the genre, maybe for different reasons.

With the Fantasy projects, I can get all but one of the projects into the same world, but one of them is going to be stand alone. That certainly makes world-building easier. It’s more likely I’ll publish a fantasy story next.

Science Fiction can be difficult because so much of the science fiction I’ve been reading has been particularly heavy on the science (see David Weber’s Honorverse or Andy Weir’s The Martian). I imagine my own science fiction will have less math in it, and more fiction. Although I have been using the Kerbal Space Program to learn orbital mechanics.

Historical Fiction is one area I know I want to write more on. But it requires so much research to feel comfortable writing a historical book. I know I want to try to get one out, but there’s a lot of research to be done.

You didn’t answer the question: how do I decide what to do?

Oh, you noticed that, did you?

The fact is, I’m not sure which project (other than the Renaissance Army series) I will focus on next. Yes, I’m one book into the first fantasy trilogy, but I want to write the whole thing out before I revise, so I’m two books away from advancing that series. I have a lot of resources for the historical fiction books, but I haven’t gone through them and organized them. And I keep getting worried about the science in my science fiction stories.

So, the answer is, honestly, whatever I end up working on. Other than the Renaissance Army series, I end up jumping from project to project pretty quickly, working when inspiration strikes me. For all I know, I’ll have a burst of insight and speed write a science fiction book for NANOWRIMO. We’ll see.

In the mean time, I’m making progress on Book 2.

Thanks for reading!

-Michael

Writing

A Writing Vacation

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As a vacation this year, I spent a week at a cabin in the woods.

No, this was not some Unabomber shack with a hamster-wheel for generating electricity.  It was a nice cabin in the north woods of Wisconsin, complete with running water, electricity, and better cell reception than my apartment just outside of Saint Paul (thank you, Verizon).  It is the family cabin of a man who has been my friend since kindergarten, and they were kind enough to let me use it.

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Now, it may not be as exciting as traveling Civil War Battlefields or foreign countries, but it was just what I needed.  Time to read, write, and just reset.

FOOD

I was excited to grill out.  I’ve never done it by myself, having lived in apartments for all of my adult life.  I grilled out the first three nights, trying corn (did not turn out well), brats, salmon, chicken, and pork chops.   I even mixed vegetables, coated in oil and season, wrapped in aluminum foil, and grilled those.  Turned out pretty decent.

Non-grilling was mostly sandwiches, eggs for breakfast, toast with jam or various fruits for snacks.

Meal soundtracks provided by ‘Welcome to Night Vale.’

READING

I was halfway through Mockingjay when I got there, finished it by day two.  Lovely reading on a porch, though some areas better than others depending on the location of the sun.

Go through two graphic novels: The Dark Knights Returns, which I’d realized I had read before when I was much younger, and the White Donkey, a serious story about a Marine who goes to Iraq and back.  Both were good reads.

I also read through Atlas Shrugged for the second time.  No, I’m not a philosophical follower of Ayn Rand, but I think she is a terrific writer, and I wanted to see if I could understand a few things that did not make as much sense the first time.  And, truth be told, I did understand a bit more.  But not greatly.  I still spent some time researching specific questions afterwards.  Also, still couldn’t make it through the 75 page speech.

DRAWING

The reason I don’t draw much at home is lack of a drawing space, which is why I’m making a concerted effort to keep my dining room table clear.

I brought up a couple of drawing books I own (including one that thinks Delta Force uses giant swords).  Did a couple of practice drawings that turned out better than I thought they would, but by no means am I going to start hiring out my skills.  But I did get some drawings done, and that counts for something.

Need to work on faces.  And arms.  And….yeah.

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WRITING

This was the main reason I went out there.

I wanted to finish a second book.  Not the sequel to the book I’m trying to publish, but the first in a fantasy trilogy.  I was about a third of the way through with it, but I hadn’t taken the time to sit down and get it done.  This was my chance.

I spent some time outlining, readjusting this or that, trying to get through three or four chapters a day.  I wasn’t sure I could actually finish it, but I thought I could come within striking distance.  The only annoyance was that I was using a laptop keyboard, and I’m use to ergonomics for most of my typing.

Tuesday night was the big change.  It was the only night where I had problems sleeping because of heat and humidity, so I spent the night writing.  I think I finished six chapters before I crawled into bed at three in the morning.

Wednesday I managed to slam home the rest of the book, even with a forced break when my laptop overheated.  Typed so much my hand cramped up for a few days.  But I got it finished. 50,000 word rough draft, but it counts.

THURSDAY

Yes, this day gets its own entry, because it was a very informative day.

When I was preparing for the week, my friend mentioned the cabin had a TV and Blu-ray player.  Now, I’m a technophile, but I was looking forward to getting away from the videos games and computers and distractions, which is why I spent a week in the woods instead of sitting on my couch playing video games.

Anyway, with the book wrapped up, I decided to watch something.  I had brought my Blu-ray collection of HBO’s Rome, and started watching it.

Immediately I felt like I had gone back into some cocoon.  Watched Wednesday, and continued Thursday.   All Thursday I didn’t read or write, didn’t try drawing, just zoned out.

I’d known for a while how much more I get done when the TV is not on at home, but going from five days of ‘got this done’ and ‘got that done’, to ‘I should do something after this episode’ was like jumping from a sauna into a snow bank, only the end result was less ‘exhilarating’ and more ‘frustrating’.

It made me realize just how toxic my apartment atmosphere is, and not because the building sucks or anything, but because I get too distracted by the giant TV to write, or draw, or clean, or host.  Yes, I enjoy the TV when I’m watching a movie or playing a video game, but I don’t need to turn it on every day, especially not when I’m going to watch something I’ve seen a dozen times before.  It’s been something I’ve been working on since I got back.

AND I’M BACK

I returned with a second book roughly written and a desire to keep moving on my writing career.  And all the work that leads up to that.