Trey Stone's Blog, page 21

Book Review: Save The Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody

If you ever try to do anything creative, there will always be people trying to tell you how you should do that. Writing is no exception.

If you Google How To Write A Novel, you’re sure to be inundated with books, magazine, websites, sage advice from best-selling authors, self-proclaimed writers, readers, and editors, and tips and tricks from everyone who’s ever tried to put pen to a page. It can – no, it will be – overwhelming.

It can be difficult to take advice from someone on how to do something, especially is that advice feels like it forced onto you, but even when it’s not, the most difficult part is often to figure which advice to listen to. I spend a large amount of time on Twitter browsing hashtags like #WritingCommunity and #AmWriting, and if you have a look there you’re sure to find people saying that there are no rules in writing, that there are no rules except their rules, that you have to follow a step-by-step easy-to-follow 732-step on How-to-write-a-book, and everything in between. It’s exhausting.

In my time as a writer I’ve come across a myriad of these sources myself, and the only advice I feel comfortable giving is to be wary of what advice you listen to. But I have read a few books on writing, and I’ve tried to single out my favorites over on my Writer’s Resources page. They include, Goal Motivation & Conflict by Debra Dixon, Techniques of The Selling Writer by Dwight Swain, and On Writing by Stephen King, among others.

And now, this.

The beauty of Save The Cat – which it’s colloquially known as; a title that comes from the idea that to write an unlikable character, you have to give the reader a reason to root for them, so you make them save a cat – is that it never actually tells you how to write. It doesn’t require that you follow a strict formula, or use a certain system to plot your future stories.

What it is, in essence, is a system to help you understand which parts of a book does what. When you know that, it’s easy to identify what pieces are missing – and how to implement them.

Because whether you like it or not, all storytelling follows a similar pattern. All good storytelling follow that pattern even more than others. That’s not to say that you can’t be unique, can’t write something entirely originally, and can’t work exactly the way you prefer. If you want to write your book backwards, with vanilla yogurt on slates of granite while you’re jumping on a trampoline, be my guest. Save The Cat isn’t going to stop you being you. But it will help you identify your story.

It gives you a recipe. In a world where all books are bread, you can’t get away from baking a loaf of bread if you want to write, regardless of how you want to spice it up with sprinkles and flavors. Save The Cat does that. It lays out 15 easy-to-understand Beat Sheets, divided up into a three acts, to explain how story works. And that’s it. When you’ve read the first 25% of this book, I promise you you will have learned how to write a book. The remainder of the book is filled with examples, where Brody goes through popular novels to put Save The Cat to the test. She highlights 10 books, all serving as an example for a type of genre (of which there are only 10 in the whole wide world of storytelling), and shows you how it works.

In a world where all books are bread, you can’t get away from baking a loaf of bread if you want to write, regardless of how you want to spice it up with sprinkles and flavors.

What you do with it after that is up to you. I’m not a plotter myself, so I don’t make a massive outline before I start writing. But with my latest project, I did draw up a simple 15-point, one-sentence-per-point overview where I mapped out the story from A to B, and it gave me an entirely different outlook on my story.

One of my previous favorite books on writing is Goal Motivation and Conflict by Debra Dixon, which goes more into detail about how to write characters specifically. I highly recommend that one, in combination with Save The Cat. With those two books at your disposal, nothing can stop you from writing a killer story. I promise.

Book Review: Locke & Key by Joe Hill

Locke & Key is an awesome amalgamation of horrifying fantasy and mysterious Young Adult fiction that will grip you, thrill you and throw you spinning headfirst into the terrifying imagination of Joe Hill.

Let me begin with specifying that this review is based on the Audible Original audiodrama Locke & Key, written by Joe Hill. I realize, in hindsight, that though I had heard of Locke & Key before (and obviously became interested enough to grab a copy of this when I saw it on Audible), I was not aware that it was a series of graphic novels, and not a standalone book. And this work, which I ended up with, is a completely separate work again, featuring a full cast of voice actors and entirely unique plot.

The premise of Locke & Key (any installment or version as far as I’m aware) is incredibly exciting. It’s about the Locke family and their ancestral home, Key House, where they through generations have been living as guardians over the doors and the keys.

You see, keys can do magical and terrifying things in Key House. Depending on which one you have hold of, you can change how you look, gaze into your own mind, or open portals to demonic dimensions. Among many other things…

Such powers rarely come without consequence.

In this Locke & Key installement we follow Tyler, Kinsey, and Body, siblings whose father has just been murdered, as they move back to their ancestral home of Key House to live with their uncle. Full of grief and sorrow, they learn what it truly means to be a Locke – the exciting magical part of it alongside all the horrors.

Honestly – even though I didn’t really know what format this was – Locke & Key was just as good as I had hoped. The premise is really cool and opens up for some very exciting storytelling, with the siblings findings key that are able to take them in a myriad of different directions. I definitely want to pick up the graphic novels and experience this in the intended format.

Audiodramas can be very hit and miss for me, and though this was great, I notice that I sometimes miss the exposition you get from a proper reading of an audiobook. It’s difficult to keep track of where we are, beyond the occasional announcements, like: “Later that evening, in Body’s room.” Also, even though it should be easier to separate characters when everyone is done by a separate voice actors, I often find it more difficult. Sure, I can hear that there are two people talking, but a few chapters later I might not remember who’s who and if that character who suddenly came in from the sideline had been there before.

Anyway – terrific Young Adult horror story based on a very exciting premise. I definitely need to catch those graphic novels – oh! – and there’s a show as well? If it’s as good as this, it’s going to be awesome, I’m sure.

Book Review: Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett

Though I haven’t read much of either, I’ve been a fan of Pratchett since I read the first Discworld book, and Gaiman has come into my searchlight the last few years since the release of the show based on his American Gods book. When I saw that the show based on this book was developed – and thus realizing that they had written something together – I knew I had to read it.

I like to not know too much about books that I’ve decided to read, so I basically went in blind. I knew it had to do with the end of the world, and that there was an angel and demon teaming up for some reason, but other than that I knew nothing. And that’s often best – sometimes the hype and excitement around an older book ruins it for me.

Good Omens is first, and foremost, fun. In short, it’s about an angel and a demon, teaming up to stop the end of the world, because they like hanging around on Earth. To do this, they attempt to track down the son of Satan after he was swapped for another child when he was born 11 years ago. There’s also a couple of witch hunters (one of which is mad), a girl who reads prophecies, oh, and the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Everything about this book has that typical feel of British fantasy-comedy you might recognize from works like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I’ll say it again – it’s fun – and its strengths lie in the quirky characters and the interactions between them. The main plot kind of takes a backseat to everything else – sure, we know it’s there and that the end of the world is coming – but I found myself not really getting caught up with that.

What was fun was to read about Aziraphale and Crowley, about the Anti-Christ and his friends, and about the insane witch hunter. It’s light, it’s humorous, and it’s excellent entertainment. I didn’t care so much about where they were going – more about what they were doing to get there. And it was a hilarious road to travel with them.

When they finally get to the end, I wasn’t too impressed, honestly. The ending isn’t really an ending, it’s more of a full stop. Sure, it makes you think and it has some of the best dialogue in the book and I’m not saying it’s not all worth it – it just a bit… meh. After all, you’re expecting the end of the world – the end of all ends. That’s my only issue with this kind of book – you’re led to believe that there’s a mystery, that there’s some big final conflict to look forward too, only to realize it’s not about that at all. Not that’s a bad thing – like I said – it definitely makes you think.

If you’re looking for a book that’s genuinely fun – written by two of our time’s greatest authors – look no further. I haven’t seen the show yet, but I think I might just have to now. And I definitely need to find time to pick up more books by both authors.

Change of Plans – Veering Off Course At The Start Of The New Year

I had big plans for the start of the year.

I published my second book at the start of December, and as soon as that was done I was going to revise two projects, break for Christmas, get feedback from my beta readers, and then initiate Big February Plan #1.

You see, someone pointed me in the direction of someone who might want some of my work. It’s a thing I like to do with short stories and novellas, in-between self-publishing my novels. Try to find different homes for some of the stuff that comes out of this head. And when I saw an opportunity to do so, I got excited. Really excited. I mean, both my projects seemed to be a good fit. They seemed to be just the stuff they were looking for. So I jotted down February 1 in my calendar, and set to work.

I made it. I got it done – and I have to say I’m proud of where I managed to take these two stories. They were ready to go. But when I looked a bit closer at where I was sending them, I hesitated…

I realized I couldn’t send them off to this place after all

In hindsight, I should have looked into things better two months ago – not that working through my projects have been extremely valuable regardless, but I got overexcited. After delving deeper into things, who they were, what they were looking for, and what they had done in the past, I realized it wasn’t as good a fit as I was hoping. In fact, it wasn’t a fit at all.

Here I am, two months later, with both projects on hold again. I’m unsure where to take them now – not because I can’t self publish them or submit them to other places, but… I had a plan. And now that plan is gone. I feel like I was invited to a party, but was left standing in the cold.

It’ll be fine of course – I’m happy about my decision. I wouldn’t – as I’m sure no one would – want to send my stuff off to somewhere I wasn’t 100% sure I’d want it to be. At the same time, it sucks that plans change. It makes me feel off course, and it makes me doubt myself.

I’m sure 2021 will be a great year for my writing, nonetheless, I just need to get my head back in the game. In the meantime, I’ll just keep writing.

How’s your new year been so far? Working on anything exciting? Have any big plans? Let me know!

Book Review: Wolfe in Shepherd’s Clothing by Counios & Gane

If you’re looking for your new favorite Young Adult mystery series – stop what you’re doing right now.

This is a brilliantly written series of novels about two teenagers, Anthony Shepherd, a bright kid who does well in school and with sports; and Charles Wolfe, a brilliant kid with a troubled past, who has a knack for solving crimes. Together they get into – and out of – all sorts of trouble.

Now – this is the third book, so Tony and Charlie have already been through two cases together, horrific murders and terrible crimes that have shaped them bonded them. At the start of this book they become even closer as Charlie is taken in by the Shepherd’s – as a direct consequence of his old past coming back to haunt him – thus starts their third mystery.

The excellency of these novels isn’t just in the terrific mystery and the exciting crimes they investigate and inevitably solve – but in the relationship that builds between the two. They grow as the books go on, moving up through school and becoming adults, trusting each other more and playing on each other’s strengths and weaknesses. It’s great.

I’ve said mentioned before – when I’ve reviewed book 1 and 2 – that they remind me a lot of the Hardy Boys (which I read A LOT of when I was younger). It’s fun, charming, exciting, and (especially for this third book) terrifying, and with every book I read I’m becoming more invested in Tony and Charlie.

I know there’s a fourth book on the way, and I hate that I have to wait for it, because I’m really looking forward to it! Honestly – even if you’re not into Young Adult books, but have a knack for mysteries – I’d recommend these to anyone!

Book Review: Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

I’m excited to finally getting around to reading this! There’s been a lot of hype around this since it was released – and in an effort to personally read more books from marginalized authors – this has been on my radar ever since! I stupidly started it right before the holidays, which meant that instead of taking me maybe a couple of weeks, it took me 521521 years to get through, but I’m finally there!

The story follows Zélie, a young divîner girl who since the disappearance of magic eleven years ago, has lived in hiding and oppression. But there might be a way to bring magic back. Zélie and her brother Tzain embarks on an unwilling quest to do just that, clashing with the royal siblings Amari and Inan along the way – hoping that they might just be able to return the world to the way it once was.

This was a fantastic read. It starts off with a bang, throwing you right into all of it, and it’s amazing.

It quickly became painfully obvious that most of the fantasy I read is of a Western/Medieval variety. This is set in the fictional land of Orïsha, a beautifully crafted African-inspired land of deep jungles and boiling deserts, and it’s unlike anything I’ve ever read. The cultures, religions, and magics are well-crafted and thought out, and this just goes to show how important it is to read a variety of authors. This is beautiful.

It also became very apparent to me that this is heavily inspired by Avatar: The Last Airbender – a show which I’d seen for the first time only months before reading this – and the author also states that this was one of her inspirations. At times, it was almost too inspired, when you consider it’s about four kids (Zélie, Tzain, Amari, and Inan) caught up in a quest to save the magic of the world. There’s even an eclipse that is of importance in both stories, and I couldn’t help noticing the funny names and blending of animals. Maybe it was just because Avatar was so fresh in my mind – because I really love both stories – but sometimes it threw me a bit. But on the other hand: if you love Avatar you’ll absolutely love this!

Though I really loved this book, I felt the pace slowed a lot in the last third of the book. It might have been partially my own fault – something I’ll get to in a moment – but I felt like we were constantly going around in circles, having a little bit of a romance subplot (that didn’t ever seem to lead anywhere) before we got caught in some trouble, and then it all repeated again. Up until the halfway mark and near the end I was totally onboard for all of it, but there was a section there that I felt lagged.

Anyway, my biggest issue – and what leads me to think that maybe I’m to blame for being inattentive and not following the plot and pacing enough to properly appreciate it – was with the audiobook quality. Funnily enough, the audiobook of Children of Blood and Bone won awards and received a lot of praise, but sadly, this wasn’t my experience.

The narrator is brilliant, don’t get me wrong, but it essentially boiled down to the volume going up and down too much. There are a lot of emotional and excited scenes, where various characters yells at each other, and whether it’s an issue with the narrator being too invested, or the sound technician not mastering it well enough, I struggled to enjoy it. I constantly had to lower the volume when someone shouted at someone else, only to raise it again when the volume went back to normal. It was incredibly frustrating to listen to, especially since I listen to audiobooks when I lift weights or work with chemicals at work, and I’m often not able to reach for my headphones.

One example, which annoyed me most of all, was Admiral Kaea, whose only line seemed to be: “INAN!” at the top of her lungs, berating the young Prince. It made me want to tear my headphones out.

Anyway – I’d highly recommend this to anyone who loves fantasy, especially if you’re looking for more books by marginalized authors! (But maybe don’t get the audiobook version – if that’s an option.)

Looking Back – Writing, Reading, and Merely Trying To Exist in 2020

Ah 2020… Where do we even begin? It came. It went. It swept past in an instant, yet it also lasted four thousand billion years. And in a way, it’s not even over yet.

I figured I’d take this opportunity to look back and have a think about how 2020 went for me. It’s a thing I’ve started to do recently – not just when we turn the calendar – but looking back at where I’ve come from, what I’ve done, what I’ve accomplished and where I’ve failed can be a very valuable exercise. It reminds me that I’m capable, that work pays off, and that I can only blame myself when it doesn’t.

In case you don’t know me, let me tell you that my wife and I have been living apart for a while. Don’t worry, we still love each other – I just got a cool job. And early in 2020 we were looking forward to spending some time together for a couple of weeks. *BAM!* Cue the pandemic and lockdown. Suddenly my wife didn’t have a job to go back to, I was working from home, and our three weeks together became three glorious months.

Not going to lie – lockdown has been kind to me. I am (can be, at least) very introverted, and am happy to sit inside and enjoy a book, a movie, a video game, a TV series, or play my guitar for hours. Not being able to go out for drinks or socialize that much hasn’t really been an issue for me, because a lot of my socializing happens online anyway. I empathize with people struggling though, and understand the toll it must take on your mental health when it starts affecting your work and your relationships with the people you hold close.

At first, I was very happy with the idea of having tons of time to write. Unfortunately – due to many different circumstances (but mostly the pandemic) a few of my writing-related things kept getting postponed and delayed. I planned to release two books last year. In the end I managed one – the psychological thriller A State of Despair, which I am incredibly proud of! The other one is still on hold.

Instead of working on that, I spent a lot of time writing short stories and micro fiction, drafted two new novellas, and revised and edited some future novels. Two of my short stories were accepted (and I hope to be able to share more about them soon!) and one was picked out as an honorable mention in Tory Hunter’s New Year’s Writing Contest (scroll down a bit and you’ll find it). But I probably submitted several dozen short stories to various magazines, anthologies and websites, and with the exception of a few I’m still waiting to hear back about, all of them were rejected. It’s important to take the good with the bad though – and the glory of those couple of acceptances far surpasses the disappointments.

All in all, I’m very happy with my writing in 2020. I’ve gotten a lot of words down and I’ve kept producing things even when my projects were delayed. I’ve also been featured on a couple of podcasts, been interviewed for a few websites, and seen a lot more readers come to join me here on my site. I’m heading into 2021 with some very exciting thing on the horizon, and I can’t wait to share it with you!

Completely unrelated to all of this, is the fact that 2020 was the year I started running. In 2019 I started a weight loss journey, and when lockdown made it difficult to get some regular exercise, I bought a pair of running shoes and just went for it. Since mid-2019 I’ve lost 32 kg / 70 lbs, and I’ve gone from running a 10k in 72 minutes in early 2020 to a 10k in 53 minutes now. I am actual super proud of the fact that I managed to become a person who runs – because believe me! – it can be a bitch sometimes.

But 2020 was supposed to my our year of travel. My wife and I had for years talked about going to Australia to see some friends, and we had finally gotten around to buying the tickets. That was 1 of 6 or 7 trips that went down the drain – on top of one to a wedding and a stag-do, and several to see family. Though I’m happy to sit at home, as mentioned above, it felt like a defeat every time we knew our plans went out the window. And to be honest – the future looks very bleak on that front at the moment as well.

I think I need to stop now – because I realize I have far too much to say about 2020 than I intended when I started this. All things considered, it’s definitely not as bad as it could have been – and I’m proud of what I accomplished despite everything. But I sure as hell – like all the rest of you, presumably – hope for a better 2021.

How was your 2020? Hang on – that’s a stupid question – but did anything nice happen? Or should we rather not talk about it? If you do, you know where to find me!

2021 here we come!

Writing Exercises in December – WREINDEER!

My wife made me my very own Advent-based writing challenge, and it’s been amazing, so I figured I’d share it with all of you!

My wife and I have a long-standing tradition of making Advent calendars for each other, which I detailed here when I first talked about WREINDEER. Usually we make one for the other person every other year, and this year was my year to receive one. It was technically an elaborate 4-part calendar, but the short version of the story is that I was given a writing challenge every day from December 1 to December 24 and if I completed them I got presents!

Anyway – back to the writing challenge. The reason I wanted to share this is because I thought my wife was very good at making up cool exercises, things that revolved around creating an entire story, but wasn’t always just related to actual writing. It was fun, it was simple, and it made me think a lot about how I approach my work. So, I’ve numbered and detailed the individual exercises I got each day, and elaborated a little bit about how I solved them.

Enjoy!

Writing Exercise 1 – “Title”

Make a title, then write a 200 word paragraph.Write a 200 word paragraph, then create a title

This was a fun one. I always make up titles after the fact – I don’t understand how people can even think of titles before they’ve written something, but when I had to do it that way around, I found that my whole story was shaped by the title I chose.

Writing Exercise 2 – “Main Character”

Briefly outline a main character (10-50 words)Write a 300 word paragraph about your main character

Pretty straight forward exercise really, I made up my character “Gordon,” gave him a brief backstory and described his life a bit, before I elaborated on what his goals and motivations in my story was going to be.

Writing Exercise 3 – “Triple Scene”

Write a 200 word sceneWrite the same scene from three different perspectives

This was really fun! I started out with writing the same scene from my main character’s (Gordon’s) point of view, then a secondary character, and then ended with a completely disconnected point of view – that of a bird sitting in the window sill outside the house. I really liked this one.

Writing Exercise 4 – “Meaning”

Write a 300 word scene revolving around a object – the object in question needs to be used/be meaningful in an unexpected way

This one was a bit strange, and the first one that really made me think. The exercises really didn’t have more instructions than what I’ve written out here, so this was it. I’ve talked it over with my wife, and ended up writing about a tiny Goblin hiding from a cat between the pages of the book. So the book became the focal point of this scene, but it hardly served as a book in the conventional sense at all.

Writing Exercise 5 – “Context”

Write a piece of dialoguePut the dialogue in a scenePut the same piece of dialogue in a completely different scene

This one was also a bit strange, and very similar to Exercise No. 3, but I chose to focus on emotion. By changing the way the dialogue was said and how the characters reacted to the words, I took it from feeling sad the first time, to sounding angry in the second scene. This was a really good exercise to show how powerful a few choice words can be.

Writing Exercise 6 – “Villain”

Write a 200 word bio for your villain/antagonistWrite a 100 word paragraph about your villains goal/purposeWrite a 100 word paragraph about your villains motivations for said goals

This one was fun! The first part is straight forward, but the second and third are important to distinguish. The second is all about what the villain wants, and the third is about why he wants it. This is an excellent exercise to use when outlining a story, so that you know why characters are doing what they’re doing and what’s driving them.

Writing Exercise 7 – “Experience”

Write a 300 word sceneWrite the same scene but change how it is experienced (note: different than just changing perspective)Write the same scene again, with yet another change in experience

Here’s another that sounds similar to Exercise No. 3 and Exercise No. 5, but when I talked this through with my wife I realized that this was more about experiencing the same thing but in completely different ways. Exercise No. 3 was about the exact same scene being told from different perspectives, and Exercise No. 5 was about the same piece of dialogue having different meaning depending on the surrounding context, whereas with this exercise, the characters involved had to experience the same thing differently. The way I solved this was to write a battle scene, where one party was winning, one was losing, and one was caught up in the middle of the chaos of all of it.

This was a really good way to exercise how you can expand on a scene in a story, by having more people take part in it and tell different sides of it.

Writing Exercise 8 – “For kids”

Write a 300 word scene. If you write for adults, write it for kids, and vice versa

My story was planned to be for adults, so I had to write a scene for kids. It was hell. I can never, ever, write for kids.

Writing Exercise 9 – “Writing Sprints”

Do 3 x 4 min writing sprints, 1 min break between

Good simple fun, write for 15 minutes total, with 3 minutes break. It surprised me how fast 4 minutes went by and how little I got down on paper in that time.

Writing Exercise 10 – “Music”

Choose 2 different pieces of music and write 200 words for each

I picked one really chilled-out instrumental piece and ‘Raining Blood’ by Slayer. I wrote both scenes as easy as the other (I think), but there was definitely different vibes to them.

Writing Exercise 11 – “Emotion”

Pick an emotion and write a 300-500 word scene where this emotion is key

This was fun – and I want to say easy – for me. Dialogue is where I write my best stuff, so I picked anger as my emotion and wrote an awesome scene where two of my characters yelled at each other for a bit.

Writing Exercise 12 – “Show & Tell”

Describe a thing in 200-400 words, without ever using the actual name of the thing or a synonym

This was more of a challenge for me. I hate describing things. I’m not very visual, so if I’m writing about a character who goes into a room, I want to know what he’s doing there and why, not what the room looks like. For this exercise I described an ancient weapon that was used in that battle scene I mentioned previously, and the reaction my main character Gordon had when he first discovered it.

Writing Exercise 13 – “60 Second Think”

Think about your story for 60 seconds straight – Don’t let your thoughts wander

This sounded super easy to me. Who can’t think of a thing for a minute, right? It’s just 60 seconds, after all. But holy shit, 60 seconds is sooooo long, especially if you’re trying to keep yourself from thinking about anything else. At the end of the minute I basically outlined my whole story from start to finish, in like 5 sentences, and it was incredible to see how much I could get down in that short amount of time.

Writing Exercise 14 – “Involve Others”

Involve someone else in today’s 200 word scene

I feel like I maybe cheated a bit on this, but I outsourced the whole thing to my friend, David. I gave him a few hints about what the story should be – to keep it in line with what I was writing myself, while at the same time not giving him too much – and he just went for it! Thanks, David!

Writing Exercise 15 – “Different Process”

Write 200-500 words, but something about the process must be different

This was simple: write a scene, but do it differently than you usually would. I just wrote it by hand instead of on my laptop. I learned two things: i) I write much slower by hand, but ii) it feels much more relaxing to write on paper with a pencil. I was so chilled out by the end of that scene.

Writing Exercise 16 – “Illustrate”

Drawn an object or character from your storyDescribe the same thing

Okay – I used to think I was a semi-decent drawer, but it turns out I’m not. I drew one of my characters, and it looked like a blind man with Parkinson’s tried to draw the craters of the Moon. It was terrible. Then I described the same character. Lesson learned: even though I’m shit at describing things, I’m better at writing than drawing.

Also, it was interesting to see how I described differently to how I drew. When you use words, you can say that things are in a way that’s difficult to portray through visual mediums. For example, you can describe someone’s eyes as full of hate and then it’s up to the reader to visualize what that means. Interesting thing to think about when you describe things.

Writing Exercise 17 – “Plan”

Make a plan/outline for your project – how long will it be/what will you do with it?

I kind of misunderstood this, I think, but I decided to sit down and plan what to do with all of this December Writing Exercise stuff once it was over. Knowing that I wouldn’t be making it into a novel, but that it felt a bit pointless to throw all of this content away, I decided to compile it all into a long-ish short story. (I haven’t done that yet, but that’s the plan anyway – then we’ll see where we go from there.)

Writing Exercise 18 – “Follow Plan”

Write 200-500 words following your plan from Exercise No. 17

Now this is where it all went wrong from the exercise before, because my “plan” didn’t really offer me anything specific that I needed to work on to realize it. So I just wrote another 200-300 word scene.

Writing Exercise 19 – “Write”

Write

You’ve got to remember that all of this was happening in the days coming up on Christmas, so some of these – like this one – were designed to be a little bit easier and not take all day. Simple exercise: sit down and write a scene.

Writing Exercise 20 – “Active Writing”

Write while doing something active

I feel like maybe I cheated during this one too, because it wasn’t clearly stated anywhere what “active” meant – so I went for playing Diablo 3 while constantly alt+tabbing to my document to write a 200-300 word scene. It was fun though! Love me a bit of Diablo 3.

Writing Exercise 21 – “Pitch”

Write three different pitches for your story and practice selling it

Uuugh, who doesn’t hate pitching? I did my best, wrote three pitches, and presented them all to my wife. What was interesting was that she liked the most the one I absolutely hated, which led to an interesting discussion. Goes to show that it’s important to get a different set of eyes on all things related to writing – not just the story.

Writing Exercise 22 – “Blurb”

Write a 100 word blurbWrite a 50 word blurbWrite a 280 word blurbWrite a 10 word blurbWrite a 1 word blurb

This was fun! Especially those last two; a 10 word blurb is a perfect exercise for a hook line, and though a 1 word blurb is kind of pointless, it forces you to think about what your story is really about.

Writing Exercise 23 – “Write as Someone Else”

Write as someone else

Felt like I failed this one, really. I tried to write as my wife, but it just ended up sounding like me after all – though in hindsight, I think that’s probably a good thing? Means that I’m true to my voice, or whatever? Anyway, a good exercise to force yourself to think about what words you use and how you use them – for example the fact that I don’t describe much in my writing.

Writing Exercise 24 – “Hypothetical Words”

Write 0-1000 words

If you’ve been paying attention, this one landed on Christmas Eve (and being Norwegian, that’s when we celebrate Christmas) so as you can see, I was given a way out of doing anything that day. And yes, I took it.

And that’s it! That’s all the exercises my wife created for me during December in the lead up to Christmas. It was great fun, and there’s definitely some gems in here that I will re-use in the future when I need to wrap my head around a story in a different way.

I want to mention that my wife set this all up with her being my writing partner for this, as many of the exercises naturally led to a discussion or a reading of a part out loud to someone. If you have such a person available, I would highly recommend getting them involved, especially for the pitches, blurbs, and the different perspectives and contexts.

Also – if you’ve managed to stay with me for this long, you might have noticed that I’ve been deliberately vague about what I was writing about during all of this, so here it is:

It was very much formed by the very initial challenge, when I picked the word “SOCKS” as my title. I ended up writing about a man called Gordon who picks up a sock from his bathroom floor and discovers a small Goblin hanging from it. Gordon then inexplicably shrinks and is introduced to the Goblin, Cahlak, and his world that exists inside the walls of Gordon’s house. Gordon, on a quest to return to his former and larger self, is then pulled into a long standing Goblin war, between the frightened wall-Goblins and the evil Goblin overlord, Aggonoz.

And there you have it. A simple little Christmas story. Did you work on anything special during December and Christmas or did you maybe take some time off? Let me know – and please let me know what you think of the exercises!

Book Review: The Red Wolf Conspiracy by Robert V.S. Redick

The most amazing world building I’ve seen in fantasy in years!

The premise of this book is incredibly exciting – and it pulled me in instantly. The story is of the Chathrand – a huge merchant ship, several centuries old, unlike any other in the world, carrying 800 people – and its mysterious disappearance. The book starts with a very exciting Special Notice, detailing that this ship of ships has been reported lost at sea. Bodies of crew and items from the ship has been found along various shores, but the strange thing is that the wreck is yet to be found. Weird, when you consider this is the largest ship in the world.

We follow Pazel Pathkendle, a young tarboy who carries a magical curse and ends up becoming part of the crew onboard the Chathrand and as such, drawn into a strange and long-winded conspiracy. There are spymasters, mages, talking rats, secrets monsters, and crawlies aboard the Chathrand, which when combined with the conspiratorial politics of the captain, the ship owners and the emperor of kingdoms, make for a VERY exciting book.

I’ll say it again – this is some of the most amazing world building I’ve seen in fantasy in ages. It’s so unique. Sure, it has that typical Anglo-Saxon, medieval vibe to it that so much fantasy seems to have, but at the same time, the seafaring and ship sailing focus is absolutely enthralling. It’s also incredibly well put together. The downfall of the fantasy genre is often that the delivery of information and the constructing of a world that’s supposed to seem organic and natural falls flat. That it either becomes too much, or feels rigid and stale. But this is incredible. If I had to guess, I’d say Redick had been some kind of sailor or seafarer all his life, everything in this seems to come so natural.

The writing was more difficult to get a good grasp on for me. Yes, I love the world and is absolutely enthralled by the characters and the plot around them, but I found it difficult to latch on to the actual words, occasionally. The writing is sometimes confusing, with many characters speaking in each other’s mouths, and tangents that try to shoehorn information into the middle of scenes – to the point where I was completely lost about what was actually going on. I found myself often re-reading pages to just make sure I was following. In one sense, it works in the books favor, because I feel like I’m being rewarded for paying extra attention. As if the author made the writing deliberately difficult, to say “You want the story? Well, you’ve got to do your best to keep up, because off we go!” More often than not, however, I wished the writing was maybe a bit more easily accessible. I read for fun, to be entertained, and when I feel like the book isn’t interested in pulling me along, it makes me feel left out.

But the story – as well as the world building – is absolutely amazing. Everything seems so very meticulously planned out. I like to try and guess what’s going on when I read thrillers, mysteries, and conspiratorial things, to see if I can get there before the big reveal. But in this, I found myself not even being sure what I was supposed to be guessing. I wasn’t even keeping up with the conspiracies themselves, least of all able to guess what was what. There were so many layers to everything, and things that kept coming back around when you least expected it. It’s exciting.

If you’re looking for a new fantasy series (4 books in total) which I’ll dare say is probably not like anything you’ve ever read, then I highly recommend this! I can’t wait to crack on with the second book.

Holidays, Habits, and Christmas Updates

Okay, so… What the hell happened to December?

It’s always the same – the holidays come knocking, I have time off work, and I’m looking forward to spending it all writing and reading. Because you’d think that having 8 hours not spent at work every single day would amount to something, right?

Well that’s where you’re wrong.

I don’t understand where they go, but those hours just don’t exist anymore when I’m not at work. I’m a very habitual guy – something I go on about a lot in my blog posts. It’s how I manage to stay on top of writing, training, and reading regularly (amongst other things) – but as soon as I don’t adhere to a strict schedule I end up not having time for anything.

Of course, it’s fine. It’s the holidays, it’s Christmas, and it’s good to take a break. I’ve managed to do a few things this month, like finishing up my NaNoWriMo project, revise a novella, keep up with my December writing challenge that my wife made me, and write a few short stories – but when I look at what that amounts to in hours per day, it’s almost nothing.

Thankfully, I’ve *almost* gotten used to it by now, after God knows how many years of constantly being surprised by this lack-of-time-when-you’re-supposed-to-have-more-time thing that happens during every holiday. I’m going to spend the little time trying to focus on the future, planning what to work on at the start of the next year, and maybe finish reading a couple of books. You know – “relaxing” or whatever they call it.

But it still difficult to not be a little bit frustrated – I have so many things to work on, and so many things I’d like to be doing, and there’s all these hypothetical hours just sitting right there in “December”, slowly slipping through my fingers.

Anyway – how’s your December going? Getting a lot of work done? Planning the next year? Looking forward to Christmas?