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Writing

Writing Process 6: Histories and Biographies

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This section covers anything where I’m building a background. This can range from a few important dates in the history of a city to a three-page biography of the main character to a ten-page report on the migrations of orcish tribes across a continent.

Why Write Histories

Writing a history provides several benefits. The first is consistency. If I know the year of a big cultural event, I can make sure it’s the same year every time it comes up. Same thing with the name of the school the characters attended, the name of the hero of centuries past, etc.

Second, characters and groups within the story will make decision, and those decision will often be influence by their histories. A nation will be wary of neighbor with a history of raiding nearby cities for plunder. A character who biography includes travel to a city will react differently than one who has never been there before.

What does the Story Need?

I start with the same question: what does this story need?

Logical Lou likes his lists

Through the PBRG process and looking at the Outline, I will have a good starting list of nations, cities, regions and people to work on. I don’t need to add every minor character or location to the list, but it should not be a small list.

Creating the list is one thing; staying focused is another. I was a history major, and I love going off on creative historical tangents while I’m world building. Do I need to work out the name of every ship in a fleet from 300 years ago? Or every monarch for a nation that’s existed for a thousand years? No, but part of me really wants to.

What does the entry need?

For each entry on the list, I think about what I need to build for it. And I don’t just mean in terms of length. I mean what topics do I need to focus on when I’m building the history or biography. Do I need to focus on political events of the city? The character’s education as they grew up? Having more info is great, but I want to ensure that I hit the important points while I’m doing my work, otherwise all it it’s for nothing.

Simple or Complicated

How simple or complicated any particular note has to be is pretty much a judgment call, based on my evaluation of the story and the topic in question. Where possible, I try to err on the side of ‘too much’ information, so that I have it and don’t need it.

Truth, Myth and Interpretation

This is something I actually have a hard time doing, because as a historian I kept researching to find the truth, so building incorrect history into the preparations can be difficult for me. But it’s something I have to incorporate into the prepared history. It could be due to the distance in the past, or because of conflicting stories, or deliberate misinformation. But not everyone has an interest in preserving the truth. And that should be reflected in the history.

Histories in Theory – Building the History

Once I have my to-do list, it’s time to get to work.

I’ve found the best way to approach histories is with a mixture of spreadsheets and word documents. The spreadsheets are great for timelines, where I can re-order and use filters to assist in the listing process. Especially when I’m doing myths, rumors and multiple interpretations, extra columns come in handy.

Writing histories: world building in 4D.

The word docs are for short reports or even short stories on the topics I need to expand on. Again, I want to have prepared more than I’ll need.

Historical Research

Preparing any history is going to involve some amount of research. It could be the average length of a renaissance lord’s reign, or the development of a certain technology, but I expect to take a lot of notes.

And I mean take notes. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I looked something up and incorporated it into my draft, and then couldn’t find the resource later. Oops, I hope I got it right the first time.

What I’ve started doing is having folders of screen shots, PDFs of articles or word docs of notes regarding specific things I’ve had to look up. Many of my scrivinr projects have link pages, so I can keep track of important and helpful websites, or the notes copied and pasted into the project itself.

But Michael, isn’t Research the next step? We are still in the world building phase.

Yes, but I mentioned that the steps are all intertwined. Research is part of working through each other step, as much as working through each step creates more topics to research.

Research, then record what you find, so you don’t have to research again.

Drawing on Real History

Researching historical parallels and characters is helpful, no doubt. But it’s important to remind yourself that you’re building a new thing, so it does not have to follow historical precedence exactly.

For example, if you’re building the history of an empire similar to ancient Rome, it doesn’t have to follow Rome exactly. Maybe it remained a republic, or maybe it never was. It doesn’t have to fall and splinter.

Same thing with characters. A character who is a great statesman does not have to follow the same biography of Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill. The research is meant to provide ideas for how life shapes the individual into who they need to be for the story.

Histories in Practice – The General of the Pen

Okay, so let’s take a look at what sort of histories I’ll prepare for the General of the Pen. I’m not going to worry about the history of the entire world. I’m going to build a timeline for the continent and the valley, and then some biographies of some of the major characters.

Overview and Influence

The nature of the story is analogous to the French Revolution in many aspects, so my focus is on cultural and political aspects. Social incidents are also common, and as I want the technological level to be further along the 19th Century, I’ll add a few notes about how long-ago trains, telegraphs and rifles artillery was invented and incorporated.

History of the Continent

This history is not going to be too detailed, otherwise I’d be recording events covering thousands of years of history, across hundreds of thousands of square miles for even a small-ish sized continent. My goal is to establish a few years of important events in the cultural and political development.

Let’s start in the stone age: there were tribes and city-states of several different cultures, whose names are unimportant. Then came the bronze age and two civilizations started to dominate on opposite ends of the continent: the Germanic peoples of the northwest (whom we’ll call the Nerweier), and the Latin peoples of the southeast (whom we’ll call the Soreran).

Ancient History

The two civilizations developed their influence, slowly dominating the people of the continent through military, political, social or economic power. By the Iron Age, certain city-states had developed into two great Empires, the Konigsen Empire of the northwest and the Ferran Empire of the southwest. The two met and clashed across the continent several times, but were unable to conquer each other due to a number of factors: terrain, size of the armies, and simple technological limitations.

And let’s not forget another important aspect of building histories: developing the calendar for the world. How do they measure days, months and years? How do they name them?

The Ferran capital was destroyed by invaders from the south, which left their provinces to act as independent nations for a time. Konigsen took advantage to secure a superior position and remained dominant for several generations, but was rent by several civil wars that kept it from conquering the entire continent.

Modern History

Several of the Ferran successor states grew to be regional powers in their own right. One of them, the southwestern power of Sur-Marais, developed into an empire. Its initial wealth came from gold mines and domination of some trade routes. Savvy political maneuvering and military decisions by the Sur-Marais leadership won it hegemony over much of the continent.

Within the last few years, something has happened that has begun to alienate the other states. Perhaps it is an internal event to Sur-Marais. Perhaps it is increased education or cultural development within the successor states. But something has happened that now, a big war is expected between the dominant power and the smaller states of the continent.

DatesEvents
~3,000 years agoNerweier and Soreran Cultures rise to prominence
~1,500 years agoEmpires of Konigson and Ferran form
800 years agoFerran capital destroyed
400 – 500 years agoKonigson civil wars
300 – 350 years agoRise of Sur-Marais

History of the Valley

With the history of the continent prepared, I can focus on the valley where the story is going to take place. Here I can add start with the base timeline of the continent and then add some valley specific events.

The valley of the story (The Valley of the Sky, or Valle del Cielo) is a long valley high in the mountains of Campilesia. Campilesia was one of the earliest provinces of the Ferran Empire: it resisted for a few generations but then became ‘civilized’. Northern warriors raided several times over the centuries, but never conquered the valley.

When the Ferran Empire fractured, Campilesia came under the control of the local governor, whose family ruled as petty kings for several generations before a trio of brothers split the kingdom into even smaller states. Over another century, Campilesia existed as a disorganized series of city and regional powers, none strong enough to conquer another.

With the rise of the Sur-Marais, Campilesia fell into line, the petty nobles and monarchs succumbing to the hegemony of the rising power. They remained unorganized politically, but culturally connected. With submission came stability and prosperity, and eventually the rise of political movements who question their submission to Sur-Marais. And these groups are prepared to take advantage of the chaos.

History of the Characters

Looking back at Post 4: Planning and Plotting in Practice, we have a list of various characters that we expect to find in the story. For each character I know we’ll need, I want to prepare at least a basic background, something that include their upbringing and experiences that lead them to this point of the story.

Gerhard Van Rumm: A mid-level general, late thirties or early forties, who fought in the Konigsen armies. He is on leave and is in Campilesia for his health. I will work out his educational background and some campaign honors, and maybe some personal events that will make him inclined to help an independence movement.

Alonso de Mendoza: A man of some wealth and experience and unlimited energy. He is a friend of Gerhard, and wants his experience and expertise for the rebellion. He has led a blessed life and is the sort of charismatic leader we all love to hate. I will work out his life story, filled with adventures, close calls, multiple love interests, and a growing demand for the independence of Campilesia.

Joel Villarreal: A man of limited wealth, self-educated and determined. He does not appreciate Gerhard; he wants to Campilesia completely independent, without outside help, thank you very much. He is the sort of naive firebrand that revolutions are built on. His background will involve a lot of heartbreak and conflict with the authorities. Despite this, he does love his country.

Mara Carmen Capitan: A merchant’s daughter of wealth but not of noble blood. She is the love interest of Gerhard. She is educated, but I haven’t figured out how I want her romance with Gerhard to go. So her background will be fairly neutral at this point. A lot of events, but not much in the way of substance.

How does this change the story?

Building the history of the world and the biographies of the characters influences the story. Don’t believe me? Let’s consider General of the Pen.

Creative Cal considers the consequences

Before this post, Gerhard Van Rumm was just a foreign officer who was in the area and became part of the rebellion. Now he’s from a military tradition whose lineage goes back centuries if not millennia. His friend is now a nobleman — or close to it — who does things that are rarely if ever unsuccessful. His detractor is a man who works for the people: we as readers will question is he’s as altruistic as he claims, or if he has ulterior motives. And his love interest has a name and a bit of a background, though much of her story is being left alone for now.

And their world now has names and histories attached. The local people have a strong cultural cohesion but not a political one; they’ll have to build that themselves. Similar stories are playing out in other regions, as the upper political turmoil of the greater empire is being removed and the nations are forced to fend for themselves.

Questioning the story

And now, this beings me to something that happens often during world building: when an idea forms that could make the story better, but changes it drastically.

In the original idea for General of the Pen, the southern empire (Sur-Marais) was the big bad, and over the course of the series would be the threat that the protagonists must fight. As the Campilesians form their politics and their armies and fight back, Sur-Marais sends bigger and bigger armies to reinforce their rule. The Campilesia and other former provinces of Sur-Marais combine to oppose the empire in a coalition.

But what if that wasn’t the case? What if we followed a different story?

What if the former provinces face off against each other? Campilesia doesn’t have to worry about Sur-Marais, but about their neighbors to every other direction. Why would they trust their neighbors anymore than they would trust their former overlords? Wouldn’t it make sense for Campilesia to seize that important city or strategic pass and then send diplomatic representatives? Realpolitics come first, right?

Or, I could mix the two. Sur-Marais is the threat, and the Coalition is forming. But the Coalition is rocky, and realpolitics is making things difficult.

The fact is that I don’t have to make a choice right now. I can plot a few options and prepare some possibilities, but we’re still world building. I’ve got time to consider options. I’ll make a decision at some point. But not now.

Conclusion

Building the histories of the places, groups and people of a story creates consistency. It also fleshes out those places, groups and people by giving them more background, which gives their decisions and actions greater context.

Both of these benefits assist me as a writer. Being consistent in the first draft simplifies the revision process. And knowing backgrounds for decision making can assist in getting through writer’s block or plot decisions.

Hopefully, I’ve managed to explain my history world building thoughts without losing too many of you. Can you see where I could easily be distracted with fun story ideas and tangents?

Next up is the post on building Institutions and Organizations and how — and why — I need to do that ahead of time. Until next time.

Cheers!

-Michael

Writing

Writing Process Aside: Project Priority

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One of my biggest challengers as a writer — or as a creator in general — is having too many projects on my project list. Sure, I know the two or three most important ones, but for a lot of the extra ones I had a hard time tracking them. Thus, [art of this whole revision process includes coming up with a way of prioritizing my projects.

What did I do before?

For several years, I’ve been prioritizing my projects as ‘Primary’, ‘Secondary’ and ‘Tertiary’. But this process wasn’t working.

As I said above, I could easily choose what my primary projects were, but I had a hard time differentiating between secondary and tertiary projects. For another, I really didn’t have a clear idea of what made a secondary project separate from a tertiary; or for that matter, from a primary project.

I could never settle on a list I liked. I ended up with too many primary projects, or too manty secondary. The tertiary list had projects that I was actively working on and projects I barely ever thought about. Were they all tertiary projects? But the ones I was working on couldn’t be secondary projects, they weren’t that important, or they weren’t far enough along.

No, I needed something new.

Defining the Levels

The first thing I needed to do was establish what each level was.

When I sat down to define my levels, I thought I would get away with three. But it became clear to me pretty quickly that I needed more, especially for the lower-level projects. I had to differentiate between what was just an idea, versus what was an idea in progress, versus what was a story in progress.

I eventually settled on five project levels. Starting at the lowest.

Quinary Projects are ideas I have that would be cool to write, or they’re far enough down the series line that I haven’t done any real work on them. They’re just some ideas, maybe some brainstorming or notes, lists of research books to read at some point. The fifth Sasha Small book and the historical dramatization of Winfield Scott’s life are examples of quinary projects.

Quaternary Projects are projects where I’m developing the broad strokes. I have a core that I like (some characters, or a setting, or a story), but I don’t have enough to start writing. I need to work out the big strokes, so that can build the details through the PBRG process. My science fantasy adventure story (project ‘Resurrection’) and the sequel to Champion Bold (titled Champion Impact) are both quaternary projects.

Tertiary Projects are projects that I’m running through the PBRG process. I’m building the world, researching the topics, and gaming the wars. I’ve probably written more than a few scenes for the stories, if only to scratch that creative itch. My civil war historical series and my collection of Renaissance Army short stories are examples of tertiary projects.

Secondary Projects are projects where I’m trying to get a Rough or Alpha draft written and revised to the point that I believe it is ready to publish. This could take a few rounds, so it’s not as easy as just writing a draft. Right now, I only have one secondary project: Orcfyre, my fantasy novel I just can’t get right.

Primary Projects are projects where I’m revising Beta and Final drafts for publishing. They’re also projects that are continuations of currently published books. Champion Bold is a primary project because its about to be published; The Colonel Lieutenant should technically be a secondary project, but as its the next book in my main series, I’m bumping it up to primary.

How do I process my projects?

I start with the five categories.

I take each project and sort them into the categories. This requires me to take an honest look at each project and ask some questions:

  • Where am I at with the project?
  • What do I need to do with the project?
  • How important is the project to me?

Unsurprisingly, once I take an honest look at my project list, I come to the conclusion that most of my projects are quaternary projects: no matter how much writing I’ve done or not done, the project needs a significant amount of world building to progress. I can write scenes, but I should avoid major draft writing until I’ve answered some big questions and have a good outline ready.

And that’s a good thing. The whole point of this process (both the PBRG and the Prioritization) is to make my work more efficient. to stop writing things before I’m ready to write them. And having stories where I don’t know the ending, or where I don’t know the McGuffin, or where I don’t know the characters: those are stories I shouldn’t be writing.

Rules for advancement

Which is a good time to bring up another aspect of this process: how do I decide when to advance a project from one tier to another?

From Quinary to Quaternary is pretty simple: I just take ‘that would be a cool idea’ and start working on it. I want to get it to the point that I can run it through the PBRG process. So, I take the idea, I get the Grand Overview, answering the big questions about the story and where its going.

Quaternary to Tertiary means I’ve got a story and an outline, and now I’m running it through the PBRG process. I (P)lot the story, then (B)uild the world, (R)esearch the topics and (G)ame the scenarios.

Tertiary to Secondary means I’m writing the rough and alpha drafts. I want to get a draft ready for other readers to read it and get me feedback.

And Secondary to Primary means I’m working to get the draft ready for publication.

Imperfect System

Now this isn’t a perfect division. Some of the projects on my list are sitting higher than they should because they’re part of a series I want to focus on, or because they’re dear to my heart. But that’s part of a personal system like this. I have to accept some oddities in order to make it work.

How does this help?

You’re not wrong. Once you get past the primary projects, what does it matter how the rest are organized?

I don’t know what to say. It just does.

I’m not kidding. Once I got this organization figured out and I organized I projects, my worry dropped. I had them in their place and I wasn’t going to forget about them. Each one is on my master to-do list, sorted into their priority group. Each one has several bullet points attached, listing characters, ideas or plot points I need to work out before I can progress the project to the next level. I stopped making list after list of projects, trying to get it right, because I did it.

I got it right.

Conclusion

From a vague and disorganized system that wasn’t working and was actually distracting me, I built a new system that works. I can track my projects, incorporate new ones, and feel confident that I’m not going to forget anything important.

I’m glad I got this reorganization complete. Since I finished this process, I’ve been able to focus on the important part of creativity: writing stories that people enjoy, and enjoying the creative process myself. I’m not making and remaking lists of projects. I’m creating.

Huzzah.

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 Aside 01: Art Before Writing

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[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

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**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

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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 1: Too much pantsing

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**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