Chuck Wendig's Blog, page 146

Marshall Ryan Maresca: Five Things I Learned Writing The Thorn Of Dentonhill

Veranix Calbert leads a double life. By day, he’s a struggling magic student at the University of Maradaine. At night, he spoils the drug trade of Willem Fenmere, crime boss of Dentonhill and murderer of Veranix’s father. He’s determined to shut Fenmere down.

With that goal in mind, Veranix disrupts the delivery of two magical artifacts meant for Fenmere’s clients, the mages of the Blue Hand Circle. Using these power-filled objects in his fight, he quickly becomes a real thorn in Fenmere’s side.

So much so that soon not only Fenmere, but powerful mages, assassins, and street gangs all want a piece of “The Thorn.” And with professors and prefects on the verge of discovering his secrets, Veranix’s double life might just fall apart. Unless, of course, Fenmere puts an end to it first.

***

ONE: I AM NOT A PANTSER; IN WHICH I EMBRACE OUTLINING

I wrote two now-trunked novel-resembling-things before I started working on Thorn of Dentonhill. They were not novels. Novels have a structure, a plot. These were more “a collection of things that happen to people who may or may not be characters”. I’m saying they weren’t good, but in a way I could learn from. One of the things I learned was to abandon my romantic notions of “I’ll just write and see where it takes me.” It took me to a mess that only looked like a novel if you squinted and looked at it sideways. So I realized I needed to outline my next attempt at a novel.

TWO: I HATE THREE-ACT STRUCTURE; IN WHICH I FIGURE OUT HOW TO OUTLINE

I found a lot of guidelines and advice out there of “how to outline a novel” fantastically unhelpful. Because so many boiled down to “Three Act Structure: That’s Your Outline.” What’s three act structure? It’s a beginning, a middle and an end. Frankly, that doesn’t tell me much I didn’t already know. Especially since the “middle” part of three acts tends to be “Rising Action: More Stuff Happens”. What kind of stuff? STUFF. Stuff that RISES.

I also studied the Hero’s Journey, but I also found this less than helpful in coming up with an outline structure— it was a tool for analyzing stories, but not for building them. It was like trying to bake cookies using only the nutritional information as a guide.

So I did my own story-hacking, studying books, movies, comics, television— taking them apart and figuring out what all the moving parts were. I emerged from this with a powerful, flexible outlining tool at my disposal: a twelve-part story structure.

THREE: EMBRACE THE HERO’S FLAWS; IN WHICH I GO WITH THE STUPID CHOICES

There’s a pair of tropes out there called “the idiot ball” and “the idiot plot”. The gist of both involve plots and twists that only work if the character is stupid. However, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing— sometimes your character needs to do the stupid thing. Sometimes it’s the most in-character action they can take.

Veranix is a guy who keeps doing the stupid thing. He can’t help himself.

There are several points in the story where the smartest thing Veranix could is just walk away, let it go. He knows that getting himself involved in stopping drug dealers or street toughs or even a sociopathic circle of mages is incredibly stupid, and on any given night it would be best for him to head back to campus, get a good night’s sleep and study all day. But then he’ll see one more dealer working, one more addict overdosing, one more victim crying for help— and off he runs into the fray.

FOUR: LOVE EVERY CHARACTER; IN WHICH EVERY PLAYER HAS HIS DAY

There’s an adage out there that every villain is the hero of their own story. Way back in the day, I was a stage actor, and more than once I played “2ndSoldier” or “Citizen #4”. Small parts, but I treated them like they mattered. I considered every role to be someone who has a rich life outside of the scope of the play. That was the same mindset I took with every character, regardless of their role. The obnoxious prefect who keeps getting in Veranix’s face; the grizzled street boss who wasn’t expecting a fight, but is ready for one; the three Rose Street Princes who are part of Colin’s crew; even two random constabulary officers who wander onto the scene. All of them could be their own hero. And more to the point, I let myself really enjoy getting into each and every one of them.

FIVE: SIZE MATTERS; IN WHICH I BULK UP

I started the process of querying my finished manuscript, woefully unaware that I had made a glaring mistake, until I got this response from one agent: “I really like the book. I read it all today. Bad News: It’s too short for sale at this point. It’d need to be at least 20k longer for most houses.”

Yeah, I had absorbed bad information about how long a novel needed to be, and Thorn was way too short. So I had to make it longer without losing pacing or tightness. Add muscle and bone. Armed with that knowledge, I dove back in, whipping it into shape and proper size.

When I had that done, you better believe that agent was the first one I sent it to. He’s who represents me now, he’s who sold it, and it’s thanks to him that the book is what it is today.

***

Marshall Ryan Maresca grew up in upstate New York and studied film and video production at Penn State. He now lives in Austin with his wife and son. His work appeared in Norton Anthology of Hint Fiction and Rick Klaw’s anthology Rayguns Over Texas. He also has had several short plays produced and has worked as a stage actor, a theatrical director and an amateur chef.

Marshall Ryan Maresca: Website | Twitter

Thorn of Dentonhill: Amazon | B&N | IndieBound | Goodreads

Fuck Your Pre-Rejection, Penmonkey

Title says it all.

Fuck your pre-rejection.

Don’t know what I’m talking about? See if you’ve ever done this:

You wrote something. Maybe you edited it. Maybe you didn’t. Maybe you didn’t even finish it. Then, you concoct a series of reasons inside your head why nobody will give a hot wet fuck about it. Nobody will wanna read it. Nobody will wanna buy it. You’ve got your reasons — maybe one reason, maybe a whole catalog full of them. And frankly? They all sound good. This isn’t the one, you tell yourself. It’s not yet right. And soon it becomes smart because, hey, you don’t want that thing you wrote out there. This is a sound business decision. This is a practical creative decision. Not everything you write is going to be aces. And so you open a drawer and you chuck this manuscript into it. It lands on top of five, ten, twenty others. A cloud of dust kicks up like an allergenic mushroom cloud — poof. And then you close the drawer.

That is pre-rejection.

You have killed the thing you created because you imagine its inevitable rejection.

It’s the same way you don’t ask that guy out because you already know how he’ll say no, and it’ll be embarrassing, and jeez even if you did date, he’d probably be a jerk, and even if he wasn’t a jerk, the marriage you’d eventually have would suck, and the kids would be shitheads, and it’d end in divorce and misery and death.

Don’t take that job — you’ll only get fired.

Don’t move to a new house — probably be haunted.

Don’t step outside — ha ha ha, you’ll probably just fucking die. (And so many ways to die! Flu ebola measles stabbing shooting planking rabid bears assassin bugs arsenic in the water shanked by a free range Gary Busey, and so on, and so forth.)

The glass isn’t half-empty or half-full — it’s just full of scalding hot cat urine! YUM.

Except, yeah, no.

Pre-rejection is bullshit.

It’s a control thing, a power trip, a grotesquely pessimistic fantasy. I know, you’re saying, uhh, it’s not a fantasy, weirdo — except, au contraire, panda bear, it is a fantasy. It’s much easier to reject ourselves than it is to weather the crotch-kicks delivered by someone else. You could far easier slide a knife across your open palm than let someone else do it — it’s so much better when we control the pain that’s sure to come. It’s comforting, easy, lazy even to just get that rejection out of the way now rather than later.

Fuck that static.

The pain isn’t sure to come.

Maybe it will, maybe it won’t.

But if you’re going to do this thing, you need to get hard to it. You need to be not just ready for rejection — you need to be willing to embrace rejection. Not your own — but proper rejection. Rejection you don’t control. You need those calluses and scars. Rejection is always a part of who we are and what we do, and that’s not just in writing. That’s in life. What, you think you’ll get every job? Every date? Every bit of approval from every corner of your life? Life isn’t just a series of hand-jobs and clit-tickles, folks. You will be rejected. It is part of what we do. It is proof that you are doing what you love. It is evidence of the fight you contain within you.

You must defeat the urge to pre-reject.

I’m not saying everything you write is going to be perfect. Far from it. But rejection is clarifying. And it feels awful at first — until it feels awesome. Awesome because this is what successful people go through. Writers who get published are writers who have collected ten rejections (or more, many more) for every one acceptance. Cherish your rejections. Hell, collect ‘em. Staple-gun them to your chest like merit badges for a particularly psychopathic branch of the Scouts. Certainly this also doesn’t mean you should send out any old piece of laundry you have hanging around in the hopes some drunken editor will buy it accidentally. But the signs of pre-rejection don’t linger at just one story left unsent. It’s when those start to pile up. It’s when you go beyond feeling that this one isn’t right and start crafting a morbid, macabre fantasy about all the terrible things that’ll happen when you send this manuscript and all the others out.

How do you defeat it?

Practice, for one. Stop thinking so much. Stop worrying. Start submitting. Editors need material. Agents need material. Readers need stories to read.

Let other people read the work. Let them send it out, if you must.

Don’t worry about the things you can’t control. Control what you can — and no, that doesn’t mean to pre-reject, it just means, write the best story, and find your feet with writing.

You didn’t get published, you didn’t win the award, you got a bad review.

Repeat after me:

That’s all right. I can try again. I can get better.

But you have to give yourself the chance to try again.

You don’t get better by just chucking manuscripts in a drawer.

You need the agitation.

You need that fear, that uncertainty, that courage.

You need input from other human beings. Which means:

Fuck your pre-rejection.

You want to get rejected? Do it the old-fashioned way.

Let someone else reject you. Take your shot. Worst you can do is fail. And failure fucking rocks.

Sure, maybe you’ll get rejected. But maybe, just maybe, the opposite will happen.

How else do stories reach their audiences, you think?

Leanna Renee Hieber: I Write What I Want! (aka: Ignoring the Haters since 1764)

I met Leanna this past year at Phoenix ComicCon (which you should go to because holy tacos, awesome). She is one of the most wonderful people and without further invitation will join you in a game of making up harsh-sounding German words to delight and amaze. Further, she kicks an infinite cabinet of asses when it comes to writing, and so today — on the release date of her newest, The Eterna Files — it makes sense to have her here to guide you poor little penmonkeys toward the light of writing whatever the sweet hot hell you want. And so, without further shenanigans:

* * *

Every genre of fiction seems to think it is the red-headed step-child of fiction. I know this because I’ve written nearly all of them. I’ve been shelved on different bookstore shelves despite writing consistently Gothic, Gaslamp Fantasy since my 2009 debut, The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker. Every genre has a tendency to snark at other genres. But none so begets the snark as the great GOTHIC NOVEL. *Cue Dramatic musical flourish*

Wikipedia’s definition of Gothic Fiction is fair, if not limited as a historic account. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_fiction)

When I first read Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, it was liberatory. “You mean I can DO all this CRAZY shit in a book? Enormous helmet of prophecy falling from the heavens to flatten a dude?! Who gets away with this?!” Gothic fiction has all the wild, sweeping abandon that remains the perfect fit for me as a writer, actress, Goth, and Edgar Allan Poe fangirl. While I don’t go so far as spear and magic helmet, I’ve got some capital-D-Dramatic stuff in my work. The Gothic posits the horrific and the beautiful as just a hair’s breadth away, entirely coined and mirrored. The shift from gorgeous to grotesque is dizzying and thrilling.

A core problem with the traditional Gothic is that women are, for the most part, mere victims and plot devices with no agency or minds of their own. My mission as a modern woman writing Victorian Gothic is to give my ladies agency; let them be the knight in shining armor and a British Lord can be the damsel in distress (that specifically refers to my DARKER STILL where I pay homage to The Picture of Dorian Gray sans vapid suicidal female). In THE ETERNA FILES, my debut with Tor Books, I add more Mystery and Horror elements into my Gothic Victorian, Gaslamp Fantasy context. I hope my readership will delight in characters from my other series making cameo appearances in ETERNA as I further my ongoing fascination with the Believer and the Skeptic, the precipice of life and death and the possibilities of the human Spirit.

While I might be updating some tropes for our century, bias towards the Gothic is a given. (Even Jane Austen was a hater with Northanger Abbey.) Many of my big-industry reviews go a little like: “it’s a fun, well-written Gothic novel, but, you know, Gothic novel and all”. I won’t defend my own work, but I will defend that the Gothic is a legit genre, love it or hate it, and if you look at what popular fiction we’re still reading from the 18th and 19th Century; Gothic, baby. It’s hot in TV and film right now too, with Penny Dreadful going into season 2, Guillermo del Toro’s new dark Victorian series for Amazon (I can’t wait!), with the films Crimson Peak (Oh, Hiddleston, stop – no don’t stop — with the hotness) and the announcement of Poe Most Die, and Poe’s work has garnered a new musical on Broadway, Nevermore. (I’ve got a musical too. Srsly, I do: http://strangelybeautifulthemusical.com)

I’ve a thick skin about the genre not being taken seriously, because I’m not blind to its overreach. But that’s why I adore it. Trying to toe that very fine line between tension, intensity and melodrama is a delicious task. I’ve not always balanced it perfectly but I love the challenge every time, poking and reveling in the genre simultaneously. Healthy doses of self-deprecation go a long way; a survival skill I learned “coming out” as Goth in rural Ohio. (Note: Being “Goth” doesn’t preclude “Gothic” novels, I just happen to be/do both.) I was approached on the campus green of Ohio’s Miami University in my fishnets, choker and combat boots with: “Hey! You were in our subculture discussion in my English class! Someone was like: ‘hey there’s that one Goth girl on campus.’” In a school of 16k students I was holding down the one-woman subculture. (But, to clarify, I’m one of the old school Perky Goths, ok, so you Emo kids can go take a hike while I burn down the Hot Topic).

All this to say, You Be You. You Write You. It is said in Ye Olde Hallowed Annals of Writerly Bull that Thou Shalt Write The Book of Thy Heart. Truly. Do. Because life as a professional artist is HARD. You have to delight in what you’re writing and slaving away over because there are moments when that’s all you have. Take your craft deadly seriously, but not yourself, and not necessarily your genre. Wink at it, have a total blast, revel and wallow, and be only as indulgent as your editor allows. Try to be objective, and don’t be hurt if people think your cup of tea tastes like poo. With any luck, passion, love and creativity will shine through. For my part, I can only hope the wild expanse of whatever foggy moor I’m frolicking in will bring loyal readers, who don’t mind the eerie abandon, back time and again to my dark and stormy night.

Oh, hey, and please buy a copy of THE ETERNA FILES. It’s pretty important to my career. I have lots of swooning and flailing and running out into rainstorms to do and I can’t do it without your help.

You can get a fancy, signed, personalized copy of ETERNA and ALSO support an amazing local indie bookstore that does a lot for its community, WORD in Brooklyn: http://tinyurl.com/eternawd (Please put any personalization requests in the “comments” section).

Cheers, thanks Chuck and Terrible Minds for the space to Goth out, and Happy Haunting!

* * *

Leanna Renee Hieber: Website | Twitter | Facebook

The Eterna Files: WORD | Amazon | B&N | Indiebound

Story Shapes: Four Ways To Think About Narrative Architecture

Story has shape.

We’re often told it has a two-dimensional shape — a common rise (gentle or swift) of a hill, or a scalene triangle. But I call shenanigans on that. I say utter donkeytrousers. I scream to the heavens: heinous skullfuckery! A story has a three- or even a four-dimensional shape. It has movement. It has architecture. It’s not something flat on a piece of paper, but it’s something you can get your hands around, something that moves through space and time.

Admittedly, sometimes the shape of my story manifests as:

a) “Howling haboob.”

b) “Corpulent humpback whale”

c) “Hefty bag full of liposuction fat.”

And that’s okay, as long as this stays inside the first draft. But given my very tight schedule of never-ending deadlines (seriously — it’s deadlines all the way down for my 2015), I am forever in search of ways to make the first draft sing and to make editing even better, faster, like some upgraded Terminator, like maybe a Terminator that got merged with a Xenomorph and a Predator. So, I’m a little bit obsessed with the idea of shaping the story as you go. Having the instinct enough to see what the story looks like now and should look like going forward. Every story of mine gets an outline, and that’s a vital part of my process — but this ain’t my first goat dance.  The best outline will never survive contact with the enemy that is the day-to-day writing of a book. It’s easy to sketch out what the thing is gonna look like — but you still have to sit there at the potter’s wheel and shape the wet clay of this motherfucker as you pump the pedal.

I thought, hey, this might make an interesting post.

So, below you’ll find some shapes of narrative. Ways to consider the story not just in an outline, but also as you write and further, during the editing process. Use these as you see fit, or fling them into the howling haboob.

The Peaks And Valleys Of Jagged Mountain

Behold this photo:

That is the Yangzi River Gorge.

(Original photo by Peter Morgan.)

I want you to actually focus on the left, upper quadrant of the photo. There you might see:

 

And if you stare at it really hard, you will see Jesus flying a hang-glider into Mecha-Hitler’s mountain fortress, firing a pair of TEC-9 submachine guns. You might need some LSD to see that. That’s usually how I see all the Magic Eye paintings — I just drop acid and stare. “I see the connectedness of all things as represented by a spinning fractal wagon wheel in space,” I say. And the guy next to me says, “I see a dolphin.”

That guy didn’t get the good acid.

But I digress.

Regardless of whether or not you see Gunner Jesus, what I want you to see is a narrative shape. A structure for your story. At the simplest level, this structure might be expressed as: action, inaction, action, inaction, and so on. But at the more complex, more meaningful level, what it means is that you have these peaks and valleys, right? The peaks are moments of tension, conflict, action, pain. The valleys are moments of temporary resolution, release, dialogue, development. The peak is the sharp intake of breath; the valley is the exhalation of that breath. A peak steals the oxygen; the valley returns it. (And a story requires oxygen because oxygen is what fuels the fire that will sometimes be required.)

This gives us rhythm.

We need rhythm in our stories, just as we need them in our sentences. One sentence is short. Another takes its time getting to the point. A third sentence takes even longer, meandering and roaming and taking its sweet fucking time because it has to. Narrative is like that. It needs this… variance. This disruption. Without rhythm, it’s just mad, monotonous ululating. We don’t just want a predictable rise and fall because at that point the shape might as well be a straight line. And here you’ll note, too, that this isn’t just like an EKG pulse beat. Note the overall rise of the line. One peak is higher than the last; the next valley is deeper or wider than the one before it.

Even the most batshit thriller, action movie or horror novel needs the downbeats to counterbalance the sharp upticks. A story that’s just go go go breakneck speed is a horse that cannot sustain its gallop. You’ll break the beast’s back with that kind of pace. The downbeats, too, have a secret function: on a roller coaster ride, the hills are the rush, but the valleys are where we learn to anticipate the next hill.

Because we know the ride isn’t over.

The Vomit Comet Roller Coaster

Speaking of roller coasters, here’s a video:

You really only need to watch the first minute or so to get where I’m going.

First lesson: stories are not straight up and down. They go left. They go right. Stories aren’t just pure rise and fall — like roller coasters, they twist, they juke right, they double back on themselves, you barf at the top of a loop, the barf hits you at the bottom of the loop. They go in ways you don’t expect because subverting expectation is something every great story does at some point or another.

Second lesson: watch the way this one goes up, then back, then builds momentum to overcome its first twist and loop. Now, imagine how that applies to a narrative structure. Imagine the tale launching forth toward its first moment of danger, fear, conflict (“inciting incident,” if you care to label it as such) and then watch how it doubles back. Does that mean the story delves into a flashback to give us context for the conflict? Does it invoke some sense of backpedaling or some kind of serious fallback for the character? No idea. But that flashback, backstory or pitfall is what helps us launch the narrative forward again — this time with greater velocity.

Third lesson: every roller coaster is different, and so is every story.

As you’re writing, imagine the tale as a roller coaster. When is it time to build momentum? When is it time to let the momentum carry the tale? When to take a turn, a twist, a loop? What does a loop mean for the flow of the story? Examine, too, the various roller coasters across the country for a lark. Some are classic — up and down and side to side, a slow clacka-clacka-clacka until the fast rattle-bang fall. But some are fucking monkeyshit thunderpants in that the track disappears entirely or you go upside-down or you have to go back in time to help your parents meet and you have to teach them how to make love to one another lest you were never born. (Additional reading: 7 Most Terrifying Roller Coasters In The World.)

The Clockwork Ouroboros

Let’s think a little about loops.

Story as a line — jagged, rising, roller coaster track, line of cocaine across the abs of a male stripper named Randy, whatever — is interesting, and that relative shape works a lot of the time. But let’s look at the idea of a loop. A snake biting its own tail (tale?), maybe, or a spiraling shape corkscrewing ever inward. Think of the parts in a pocketwatch: lots of loops working together. (Many loops, interestingly, with teeth. Jagged teeth like, say, on the peaks of a mountain…)

Now, let’s talk about Chekhov’s Gun.

Which is, paraphrasingly, if you show a gun in the first act, that gun better go off by the third.

Chekhov’s Gun is not about a gun.

It’s about everything inside your story.

What it’s saying is that all the parts of your story should have a chance to come back into the story again and again. It means you do not introduce an element — plot, character, object, twist — without come back to it later. It is the ultimate in hunting and killing: use all parts of the goddamn animal. A supporting character is made meaningful by reiterative inclusion, and an inclusion that continues to move forward (here again: peaks, valleys, twists, turns). It’s not just that a gun introduced will go off later — it’s that every piece of the story is a trap you spring, every character is one who can threaten the plot or change the story, every object worth mentioning is an object worth revisiting. The wheel turns, the gears spin, the loops double back on loops.

What this means, practically speaking is:

Every new thing you introduce should also be complemented with an old thing that will return. I feel my way along the dark forest of writing a new book like this pretty frequently, now — am constantly seeking those opportunities to use the LEGO pieces I already have rather than seeking out new ones. You’re trying to breed familiarity and continuity — good world building and narrative design is stitched together in a layered thread count rather than in a single straight line forward with no way back. Stories should always look back. Find ways to let the snake bite its own tail. Find ways to reenergize old ideas and consistently reintroduce elements you’ve already put on the table. I find nothing so pleasing as returning to a world for a second book, because every element of the first story is a rabbit hole I can fall down again.

And I can bring the audience with me, every time.

Salt, Sugar, Fat

If you wanna make food that people can’t stop eating, you concoct a ratio of salt, sugar, and fat. The three of those things do a sexy tango on your tongue and you undergo a dopamine braingasm. After which you’re all like, “Just one more,” and you say that after every chip of Doritos Habenero Demon Jizz Fiesta flavor that you shove in your fool mouth. Just one more, crunch. Just one more, crunch. Repeat until you’re left with an empty bag and fingers dusted and discolored with Dorito pollen and then you feel intense shame and weep uncontrollably except your tears are just spicy sweet fat running down your cheeks and then diarrhea and probably also you die? Because of Hemorrhagic Diabetes. So delicious.

(Bonus reading: Salt Sugar Fat, a book on the processed food industry.)

Just as the salt-sugar-fat combo makes for tasty, addictive food –

It can make for tasty, addictive storytelling, too.

Roughly a third of each in your story.

Whoa, wait, stop slathering your book in bacon grease and dusting it with Hawaiian sea salt and dark demerera sugar wait no hold on keep doing it. Put it in the oven first. Roast it up. Caramelize the pages. Mm. Yeah. Do it. Do it now. Do it slow.

*eats your book*

*wipes mouth*

No, no, wait, what I mean is — consider these as metaphors.

Salt: grit, conflict, pain, attitude.

Sugar: sentiment, emotion, sweetness.

Fat: backstory, extraneous character dialogue, description.

(Those who say all fat must be cut are wrong. Many of the best stories have some element of fat — because fat is essential. Fat lubricates. It is umami — it gives depth to the flavor you already possess. Certainly a book should not have too much fat, because too much fat is frequently just gross — a single flavor without complexity.)

Consider the story as season to taste. As you write, think: do I have enough of each to form maximum addiction? Look to the stories you’ve loved — books, films, comics. Think about how the ratio works there. Different genres and stories will express different ratios. (50% salt, 30% sugar, 20% fat? What happens when you increase one and decrease another? What effect does that have on the overall feel of the story?) This is crucial in the edit, too — is there value in adding more sweetness to a character? Or is the character already too sweet and needs a little salt to rub in the open wounds? Is the story too lean, too practiced, too tender? A lean cut of meat dries out, and so can a too-lean story, too — we like little deviations and imperfections in the narrative, and so you may add fat to compensate.

The goal, after all, is to keep the reader reading.

And so: what narrative flavor combinations achieve that best?

* * *

There you have it. A handful of new ways to get your hands around the story. Again, the goal: just to think about new ways to organically feel the shape of your story. How to sculpt it as you go — curating it, pushing it, urging it to take a meaningful shape other than FORMLESS SLURRY OF OLD YOGURT INSIDE A RUSTED VAT.

* * *

The journey to become a successful writer is long, fraught with peril, and filled with difficult questions: How do I write dialogue? How do I build suspense? What should I know about query letters? How do I start? What the hell do I do?

The best way to answer these questions is to ditch your uncertainty and transform yourself into a Kick-Ass Writer. This new book from award-winning author Chuck Wendig combines the best of his eye-opening writing instruction — previously available in e-book form only — with all-new insights into writing and publishing. It’s an explosive broadside of gritty advice that will destroy your fears, clear the path, and help you find your voice, your story, and your audience.

Amazon

B&N

Indiebound

Writer’s Digest

You’re Next, And Other Little Horror Films Off The Radar

I know, I’m about three or four years late, but I just saw You’re Next this weekend. Horror movie. Kind of a slasher film meets Straw Dogs — a wealthy family convenes at their big-ass vacation home in the middle of nowhere, and a group of animal masked weirdos attempt to kill them one by one. It’s not a perfect movie, but it is a damn good one — and one that does some nice things with narrative structure. The film features some twists — not epic jerk-the-wheel twists like you find in Cabin the Woods (a movie I love more for its moxie than for its execution), but twists that pivot the story but never change what the story is.

I recommend the hell out of it and I wish I’d watched it sooner.

(Was it Sunil who recommended it to me most recently? Sunil? Maybe?)

We’re at a point where a lot of the big budget horror stuff is just kinda junky. Maybe it always was. Some of the more popular horror films released to theaters recently start off scary but quickly devolve into a similar pattern — they drift from horror into something approaching fantasy. (Or at least something silly.) And that’s not bad, always, but it’s not usually what I’m looking for. And then there’s the fact they’re remaking Poltergeist. I’m not sure why anybody would want to remake a movie that still holds up. You remake movies: a) that had potential but did not live up to that potential b) were awesome but are really showing their age or c) are movies to which you can really bring something new to the table. (Ghostbusters falls into that last category, I think.)

Anyway.

Point is, a lot of really cool, kick-ass, weird, wonderful, scary horror is being done in the margins — direct-to-video, indie, small film releases.

So: here I am, hanging out a sign.

The sign is dripping with blood.

I’m taking recommendations.

Good, small, even edge-case horror.

Double points if it’s available on Netflix streaming.

Let’s hear your recs, folks. I showed you mine, you show me yours.

Flash Fiction Challenge: The Four-Part Story (Part One)

Last week’s challenge: Sub-Genre Blender!

Together, we’re going to write a shedload of four-part stories.

And by we, I mean you.

Here’s how this works:

I want you to write 1/4 of a story — roughly, the beginning of it.

You have 1000 words.

Do not end this story. It is not a complete tale. Just its beginning.

You will post these 1000 words at your blog and link back here in the comments (next week can pick up where you left off in order to continue the story. And we will do this for the entire month of February. (And technically a little bit into March, too, because that’s how the calendar works.) This story is due by next Friday, 2/13, at noon EST.

Doesn’t matter what genre. You have free rein, here.

Just don’t finish the story.

Kay?

Kay.

Get to writing, and see you next week for PART TWO.

Brian McClellan: Five Things I Learned Writing Autumn Republic

The capital has fallen…

Field Marshal Tamas returns to his beloved country to find that for the first time in history, the capital city of Adro lies in the hands of a foreign invader. His son is missing, his allies are indistinguishable from his foes, and reinforcements are several weeks away.

An army divided…

With the Kez still bearing down upon them and without clear leadership, the Adran army has turned against itself. Inspector Adamat is drawn into the very heart of this new mutiny with promises of finding his kidnapped son.  

All hope rests with one…

And Taniel Two-shot, hunted by men he once thought his friends, must safeguard the only chance Adro has of getting through this war without being destroyed…

THE AUTUMN REPUBLIC is the epic conclusion that began with Promise of Blood and The Crimson Campaign. 

* * *

FOR SOME PEOPLE, BEING AN AUTHOR IS MORE THAN JUST WRITING A BOOK

There are a lot of things I’ve known about for many years—little additional (and sometimes optional) bits to being an author that they don’t tell you about in most creative writing classes (I was lucky in that my creative writing class with Brandon Sanderson did tell me about these). Tips like creating a presence and persona on social media. Knowing when to keep your mouth shut in public. Looking for additional opportunities for yourself as a writer. Diversifying your income.

Now, I say that I’ve known about these things for many years and I have. But knowing and doing are two different things. I took to a few of them early on, like Twitter and Facebook.

But it’s only been since I started writing Autumn Republic that I focused on how I could be an author and a businessman. Autumn Republic was the end of a trilogy and that made it the end of an era for me. Once that book was out I knew I wouldn’t be getting any more advance checks and was unsure if or when I’d get royalties. If I wanted to keep working full time at my art, I had to do all those other things I’d been avoiding.

Being a businessman became part of my artistic passion, and looking for new opportunities, self-publishing my short fiction via ebook, managing a bookstore on my website, or commissioning print runs of my Powder Mage novellas have all become a fun part of what I do every day.

THERE ARE UNIQUE COMPLICATIONS TO PLOTTING EACH BOOK IN A TRILOGY

A trilogy is a funny thing. Every book needs to stand on it’s own merit—a closed novel with a clear beginning and end. But as part of a trilogy each book also needs to take on a distinct role. Treat, if you will, the whole trilogy as not three individual books but one giant, single novel. Book one is the opening chapter, book two the deepening of the plot, and book three the climax.

In this way, Promise of Blood was the easiest to write because it was the framing story, the opening salvo with a definite plot arc. I had vague ideas about where I was going but I could worry about that later. Crimson Campaign was that “later” that I referred to in the previous sentence and was by far the hardest book in the trilogy to write. It was the first time I’d written a sequel and I was terrified it would bomb. I was also keenly aware of that mid-series slump of slogging through the plot that so much epic fantasy seems to suffer from.

The Autumn Republic ended up somewhere in between. It was the most clearly-plotted of all the books (because I had to know where I was going), which made a lot of the writing zip by. But I had to wrap up as many plotlines as I needed without it turning into a grind and writing the climax to a trilogy is a lot of pressure.

SOMETIMES AS AN AUTHOR YOU HAVE TO DOUBLE DOWN FOR A PAYOFF

One of the viewpoints in the Powder Mage Trilogy is a young laundress named Nila. She kind of snuck into the Promise of Blood, with only a handful of scenes compared to the dozens of scenes for each of the other characters. I knew right from the beginning that she was going to be important, and I had an inkling of the direction I wanted to take her, but I wasn’t 100% sure where her road would lead. Most fans seemed fairly ambivalent about her and I was tempted to cut her role in Crimson Campaign.

But I knew she was going to be important. I left her in book two and gave her a couple more scenes. The consequences of her actions had a little more impact, and this had the desired effect: people seemed to become more attached to her journey. But they weren’t too attached to her. I was still tempted to minimize her part and let her plot line peter off.

Then when Autumn Republic came along, Nila managed to surprise even me. She was suddenly one of the most enjoyable characters to write, with cool, powerful scenes and a stronger plot arc than I’d given her in both the previous books combined. By simple word count, she wound up with more viewpoint screen time than any of the other characters in the book.

YOU CAN’T WRAP UP EVERYTHING AT THE END OF A SERIES…

The Powder Mage Trilogy, all told, is about five hundred thousand words long. There are four main viewpoint characters, hundreds of named side characters, and dozens of small dramas that play out over the course of the series. Many of those dramas only last a single chapter, while others span the entire trilogy. As an author, I’ve asked countless questions via the narrative that the reader expects to be answered by the end.

Problem is, you can’t answer all of those questions. First of all because you don’t have enough space—even epic fantasy readers want the story to just finally end already (a memo that some epic fantasy authors haven’t yet gotten). Secondly because the narrative might not let you. There is a cadence to storytelling, a minimum speed at which you can progress the plot and still keep the reader interested, and going off on side tangents to answer every little question a reader has will destroy the cadence of your book.

There was one particular plot thread from the middle of The Crimson Campaign that I had meant to answer by the end of that book. But it just didn’t fit anywhere. So I decided I’d answer it in Autumn Republic but what do you know? It didn’t fit there either.

Funny enough, it will get answered in the next Powder Mage Universe series, but that’s a story for later.

 …NOR SHOULD YOU

It’s a good thing to leave some plot threads unfinished at the end of a series. Not the main ones—you want to clean those up to a large extent, and part of being a writer is developing an instinct for which questions the readers must have answered and which to leave a mystery.

If you wrap everything up too tightly in a nice little box with a bow on it, there’s no mystery left at the end. The reader will just shrug and move on with their life. But if you leave some questions unanswered they will keep returning to your books, pondering, rereading, enjoying, and curious what might have been or what might be.

* * *

In addition to being the author of the Powder Mage Trilogy and a variety of related short stories and novellas, Brian is a beekeeper and avid player of computer games. He lives with his wife in Cleveland, Ohio.

Brian McClellan: Website | Twitter

Autumn Republic: Amazon | B&N | iBooks | Goodreads

Meninism: Fucking Really?

Email: “Hey, Chuck, what do you think about meninists?”

Chuck: “They seem nice enough.”

Email: “What?!”

Chuck: “They’re always polite. Never say a nasty word to anybody. They’re not as hardcore as the Amish? Like, I think they can drive cars and use technology. But like the Amish, they build great sheds –“

Email: “Do you mean Mennonites?”

Chuck “…”

Email: “You mean Mennonites.”

Chuck: *clears throat* “I probably mean Mennonites. Yes. Yeah. Wait. So What are you talking about?”

Email: “Well, there’s this group out there of men –“

Chuck: “Oh, that’s never good.”

Email: “– and mostly it seems like a grab-bag of your MRA types who want to make fun of feminism and just generally be dicks to women –“

Chuck: “Somebody out there is already going to bring up that ‘dick’ is a gendered insult and it is hurtful to men.”

Email: “Probably.”

Chuck: “Then again, maybe men should just toughen the fuck up about it and if they didn’t want dick to be an insult, maybe they should stop trying to thrust themselves — literally and figuratively — into subjects and situations that have nothing to do with them and want no part of them. Anyway. Continue.”

Email: “That’s pretty much it. They kinda did exactly that — the ‘thrusting themselves into’ thing — with this #LikeAGirl meme campaign based on an Always ad that ran during the Super Bowl. The goal of the ad being to change the connotation around that phrase — Like a girl — and spin it into something positive.”

Chuck: “That sounds nice. I’m assuming these meninists shit-shellacked it all up. Like a pair of toddler underoos spackled with mess.”

Email: “Yeah, no, pretty much. They had their own hashtag — #LikeABoy — and also a lot of jerky lackwits trolled the #LikeAGirl hashtag and, as they are wont to do, were poopy butts about it to women.”

Chuck: “So, you want to know my thoughts.”

Email: “I guess? Like, there’s a subset of meninists who claim to be feminist, and that’s just ‘their word’ for being a male feminist, but for the most part, it seems to have been co-opted by a loud and noisy group that hates feminism or thinks it has somehow been victimized by feminism.”

Chuck: “Men who think they’ve been victimized by feminism are like burglars who sue the homeowners they were burgling because they stubbed their toe on a fucking coffee table. Listen, you probably already know my thoughts on this. Meninism is not a thing. It’s just some shitty meme by troll dudes who feel somehow spurned, or who smell the shift in power coming and like fish dying on a beach after the water has receded, are flopping about and gasping for air. As I’ve noted before, any disparities or issues that primarily affect men are real and need to be dealt with, but these aren’t the groups dealing with them. These are the groups responsible for their own misery. A lot of men’s rights are actually also women’s rights, and the toxic dudebro testosterone culture harms itself more than any woman or group of women ever could. Men who are feminists are just feminists. They’re not ‘equalists‘ or ‘egalitarians.’ They’re certainly not meninists, which is, again, not a thing. It’s just gulls squawking. Mammals shrieking because they don’t have thumbs and can’t pick up that stick to scratch their itchy backs. It’s all very silly. If you’re going to do anything with meninists: ignore them, or openly mock them. Do not give them the podium, though, because anybody who identifies as that is not interested in having a proper goddamn discussion. Taser them and keep walking.”

Email: “Fair enough.”

Chuck: “If anybody’s going to be upset about any commercials from the Super Bowl, try being mad at Nationwide for that dead kid commercial. HEY, YOU SURE GOT A NICE KID THERE, Nationwide said. I SURE HOPE NOTHING HAPPENS TO IT. As they slide an insurance policy across the table.

The Emotional Milestones of Writing A Novel: A Handy Guide!

I have written –

*checks notes*

– too many novels by this point. Like, I should stop. I’ve done enough damage to the literary world. Okay, no, I’m not going to stop (ha ha ha suckers), but regardless of that, I have written a metric diaper-load of books in my relatively short time as a novelist.

And in this magical journey where I headbutt my monitor again and again until the bloodstreaks form words and become novels, I notice that I  hit the same emotional milestones during every book, in roughly the same order, at roughly the same points-of-completion.

I said as much on Twitter the other day, and at first it was just a joke. Oh ho ho, look at these funny peaks and valleys — joy and misery, ever intertwined! — when writing a book. But as I chewed on it a little bit, softening the thought jerky, I started to believe that there might be something here worth really looking at. Because the first time you write a book, this is new. And it feels new for a couple-few books after, and each time the emotion hits you, you’re unprepared for it. They’re like birth contractions that, were you to not realize they were coming, would scare the ghost right out of you. But once you start to codify them, once you begin to expect them, you find a new kind of comfort level: your little authorboat is prepared to more take on the churning waves.

The other thing is, I’ve found a lot of authors share similar milestones — maybe not in the same order or at the same points, but they seem to hit them with some regularity just the same. Plus, oh so many of us penmonkeys share that almost perfect (or perfectly disturbed) combination of 50% Extreme Narcissist and 50% Self-Hating Weirdo. We’re like a red balloon — blown up big and floating high, but ultimately devoid of anything but hot air!

Ha ha ha *loud weeping*

Ahem.

With all that said, here are my emotional milestones:

0% — Sphincter-Clenching Panic

I imagine that this is what every divine creator thinks before He or She barfs up the world in a projectile vomit of light, sound and life — it’s just raw, unmitigated panic. It’s like standing on the edge of a cliff and staring down at Who Knows What. Clouds, snow, pure white chaos, total emptiness. Tabula rasa. The canvas here is perfect. Untainted with my meager, caveman scrawl. I know as soon as I write the first word it’ll be like whizzing in the snow — just ruining a perfectly nice thing. And there’s so much pressure at the beginning. YOU NEED THE BEST FIRST SENTENCE BECAUSE READERS WILL PUT DOWN A BOOK IF THEY DON’T LIKE THE FIRST THREE WORDS, says some advice probably somewhere. At the end of the day, it’s easier to not create than it is to create, and that’s this moment. Fuck this moment. You push on. You piss in the snow, you jump on the cliff, you shit up the canvas. Because it’s what you do.

5% — Slow And Steady

Writing a book is an act of wandering through a new house in the dark, and at this stage I move hesitantly through. I always feel like I should be writing faster, and I seem to forget that it’s totally normal to have to push harder at this stage to meet word count. I don’t have momentum. I haven’t yet memorized the lay out of the house — if I move too quickly, I’ll stub a toe or knock over a vase or wake the owners. I can’t move quickly yet. I don’t have patterns, don’t have a sense of the space. Here I struggle to meet my 2,000 words per day. That’ll change. I always forget that it’ll change, though. Because dumb.

10% — I Am The God Of This Place

Ten percent in — usually meaning the first 10,000 words or so — I feel like a boss. I’ve taken the jump and here I’m falling, but the falling is exhilarating. You deploy the parachute. The fall becomes controlled. I’ve laid out the opening of the book, introduced the characters, kicked shit into gear with some kind of problem or incident. My heart is a power ballad. My brain is a mastermind. I command everything. When the reader asks you if you’re a God? YOU SAY YES.

11% — Oh, Shit

And the crash after the high. It’s amazing how quickly the worm turns. I think this narrative hangover arises because for those first 10,000 words, everything is roughly lining up with your expectations. Outline or no, you still probably have a pretty good idea what’s going on — but here’s where the train bucks, swaying back and forth as it goes faster and faster. For me, it jumps the track here. Already little things have conspired to change your own expectations of the story, and at 11%, I start to realize that no matter how good my map is, it’s still pure theory. It’s a crayon sketch by an ADHD preschooler. So, at 11%, I have to reckon with the fact that my book is not going to match what I have in my head or what I have clumsily scrawled on a cocktail napkin.

20% — Septic Dread / The Internet Is So Shiny

Somewhere around this point I’m just… man, I’m easily distracted. I’m a raccoon hypnotized by a scattering of shiny nickels. It’s not because I’m failing to feel the book. It’s not the same kind of panic. It’s because writing a book is… scary? Revealing? Like you’re sometimes sticking a tap in the dead center of your chest and letting pure heart syrup come gurgling out. It’s fear, mostly. Fear of finishing. Fear of again ruining something that you started. A book is so much better when it exists in a perfect, impossible, uncreated space. It’s like a child. The idea of a child is perfect before the kid is ever born, but once it is, suddenly it’s poop and tantrums. It’s awesome, too — but boy howdy, do you get those poop and tantrums. So at this point? I’m feeling the fear again. This time, less panic and more incalculable dread, and it manifests as distraction, usually with social media or some other aspect of the Internet. The solution: fire up Freedom, turn off the Internet for 45-minute intervals, and push like you’re giving birth.

25% — Restless Leg Syndrome

I’m back in it, and the way I get back in it is right here — I get antsy so I start to fuck shit up. I pivot the plot, I give it a twist, I escalate conflict or struggle. Something that makes it feel like its progression is not preordained, something that surprises me a little bit and surprises the reader.

33% — Old Man Lost At The Mall

This is my first real I SHOULD QUIT WRITING THIS DUMB BOOK moment. Everything is dumb. I hate what I’m writing. It doesn’t live up. I possess the urge to HIGHLIGHT ALL and elbow the delete key and then laugh as it all goes away in the blink of a suicidal cursor. (This actually explains why so many of my earlier efforts at writing a book sputtered out at the 1/3rd mark.) The most toxic version of this replaces the hate and manifests as an almost demonic seduction where the succubus behind my intellectual shed hisses a come hither invitation and beseeches me to drop this hot turd that I’m presently writing and instead write this much better, much cooler book. “This new book will be the corker,” she whispers, and I say back, “Corker is not a sexy word,” and she says, “Shut up, you’re overthinking it,” and I say, “That’s usually my problem,” and she says, “Seriously, just be quiet and start a new book instead because it’ll make you feel good,” and I say, “I LEARNED IT BY WATCHING YOU,” and then I shake a skillet full of a fried egg at her and then I tell her that this is my brain on drugs and — you know, I feel like I’m losing the thread here a little. Point being: at this juncture I often want to quit what I’m writing and go pork a new manuscript behind the old one’s back. The way I fix this? I jot down notes for AWESOME NEW BOOK and then I hide them from myself and get back to fucking work.

50% — Destroy Boredom With Hammer

If you’ve never written a book, trust me when I say: it’s boring. It’s not universally boring, but it takes a long time and it’s more a marathon than a sprint, and eventually you start to feel like, uggh, god, what am I watching golf? It’s like watching two narcoleptic koala bears making love — you’re just checking your watch asking if anyone is going to pop their cookies or what. So, I find it necessary to resist that boredom and whenever I start to feel bored, I worry the audience is going to feel it, too. I willfully counter boredom here by again just kicking a big fucking hole in the story. I shake the baby until it cries. (Pro-tip: do not actually shake babies.) I blow something up. It’s barbaric yawp time. This is doubly important at the 50% mark because here’s where I start to get that mushy middle problem. The story sags like an elderly scrotum if you haven’t been doing the appropriate nether-clenching exercises. Or something.

66% — You Know What, Just Fuck It

Once again, I hate what I’m writing. Happens roughly at 1/3rd, happens roughly at 2/3rds. Now it’s less about what’s to come and more about what’s already happened. Here’s where I start to really doubt what I’ve already put down. I start imagining ways I’ve screwed everything up. Sometimes it’s not imagined — here is also where I start to realize plot problems or mistakes I’ve genuinely made. It seems like I’m building a house on a shaky, shitass foundation. It’s a house of cards and, psychologically, it’s already falling down. Impostor Syndrome is the new king on the throne: suddenly it feels like I’m just a kid wearing Daddy’s overalls, like I stowed away on the boat and finally, finally this is the book where the rest of the crew (other authors, publishers, the audience) will figure out what an apple-cheeked poser rube asshole I really am. It’s bullshit, of course. The errors that have been made can be fixed later. And it’s probably nowhere near as bad as I think it is. Further, writers write, and that’s that — doubt does not make me an impostor, but doubt is a pesky monkey who hides so well on your back you can barely see him. Best way forward is to just write past it. Onward, upward, the only way out is through.

75% — I Got This, And Besides, It’s Too Late Now

For better or worse, I’m in. Committed. I know how cuckoo that sounds — it takes me 75% to get emotionally committed to the story?! But it syncs up right about at 3/4 through. I feel like, hey, even if this whole thing is a smoldering trash-pile of old Chinese food and melted mannequins, it’s my pile, damnit, so I might as well build it as high as I can and finish what I started.

90% — Dominoes Tumble

This has been true of every novel I have written — but I tend to write the last ten percent of the book in one day. I sit down and I think, “Maybe I could finish this,” and then next thing I know I’m soaked in sweat, the air tastes of coffee and hot metal, and my fingers throb. Before me: a story lays complete. It’s got that toe-curling orgasm vibe to it — like, you know it’s gonna happen, and you couldn’t stop the choo-choo now even if you wanted to. (And no, I do not regularly refer to my orgasms as “choo-choos.” Man, that would upset my wife. CHOO-CHOO IS COMING INTO THE STATION, BABY. CHUGGA CHUGGA WOO WOO. I am so sorry for even putting that image in your mind. I feel enough shame for all of us, it’s okay.) I think in part it’s because when writing a novel, you’re carefully lining up dominoes — straight lines, up hills, through PVC tubes, around a sleeping monkey — and then the last ten percent is me knocking them down. It’s a clamor and a clatter as they fall. Gravity and momentum have the tale, now. Writing the end of a story, I feel like a man possessed — like I’ve been huffing God Vapors out of a crack in the ground and I am now just an instrument for divine execution.

100% — Clean Up / Cheez-Its / Whiskey / Ice Cream / Nap

Guh, buh, wuzza, wooza, fuzzy, flooza. I’m wiped at the 100% mark. Buzzing and tired all at the same time. My brain is full of bees at this stage, but none of them make much sense. It’s just the humming of wings. So, I save everything in a thousand places, I power down, and I towel off. Then: snacks, whiskey, more snacks, aaaaaand pass out.

110% — *Loud Breathing, Blank Stare*

The next day is just like — *wind whistling through a bottle, a vulture endlessly wheeling in the sky, a piece of trash blowing across a desolate beach* It’s oblivion. It’s why I need a day to gather my bearings. Or, ideally, a week. And then, once the elastic in my brain has snapped back –

0% — Sphincter-Clenching Panic

*fires up blank document, bites lip*

Here we go again, motherfuckers.

* * *

500 Ways To Write Harder aims to deliver a volley of micro-burst idea bombs and advisory missiles straight to your frontal penmonkey cortex. Want to learn more about writing, storytelling, publishing, and living the creative life? This book contains a high-voltage dose of information about outlining, plot twists, writer’s block, antagonists, writing conferences, self-publishing, and more.

All this, straight from the sticky blog pages of terribleminds.com, one of the 101 Best Websites for Writers (as named by Writer’s Digest).

Buy ($2.99) at:

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Or: Part of a $20 e-book bundle!

On The Subject Of: Trigger Warnings

[Trigger warning: this post talks about trigger warnings.]

So, let’s just get this out right at the open: this is a topic about which, it seems, some people feel very strongly. I ask that you remain polite in the comments, or you will find a bootmark on your ass as you tumble helplessly into the spam oubliette.

[Trigger warning: spam oubliette.]

Let’s talk about trigger warnings.

I wrote a book: Atlanta Burns.

Here I note that it is $3.99 for your Kindlemachine, and under $10 for print.

[Trigger warning: total shamelessness.]

It is a young adult book, ostensibly crime fiction, about a young girl who straddles the line between detective and vigilante. It is a book about bullies. About people who abuse other people and also about people who abuse animals — in this case, dogs, through a dog-fighting ring. I had to do some pretty gnarly (as in challenging, not as in radical, dude) research for this book. The book also features teenage drug use, bullying, references to sexual assault, lots of naughty language, teenage suicide, and a teenager who uses a gun to mitigate her problems (though that is not without its complications in the story). It’s a hella rough book. “Mature YA.” (A lot of reviews in fact seem to gravitate toward: I hated it before I loved it. Which is probably right on.)

Should the book have trigger warnings? Should any book?

If so, who’s responsible for them? The author? Publisher? The bookstore?

The audience, through reviews?

Is a trigger warning an extra set of warnings similar to what you see with movie ratings or drug side effects? [WARNING: this book may cause sphincter-clenching psychological trauma and also restless leg syndrome.] Or should it be artfully folded into the description of the book?

I’m not opposed to trigger warnings — I understand that some argument against them is that fiction should be uncomfortable at times and blah blah blah if you don’t want to risk discomfort don’t pick up a book. And then, something-something, life should have a trigger warning.

Except, for me, I don’t want people to just blindly stumble onto things that traumatize them — the point of fiction can be discomfort, but often a kind of controlled discomfort. A book is a controlled environment. Safe, even when unsafe. But when that book runs the risk of clipping a tripwire and setting off trauma-bombs inside your own head, that safety factor is hell-and-gone. And trigger warnings are ultimately granular in that they help people understand what’s in the book. It’s not a vaguely ominous warning, but rather, something more specific.

(And actually, it would be quite helpful if life did have trigger warnings.)

The question becomes, what counts? What’s a suitable trigger warning? Obviously, some seem obvious: child abuse, animal abuse, sexual assault. Trauma, though, comes in a lot of ways: the violence of war, for instance. But some folks are also traumatized by clowns, so should Stephen King’s It have a trigger warning: “WARNING: CONTAINS CLOWN” –?

(Actually, maybe that’s not a bad idea. *shudder*)

I think the fear becomes that trigger warnings are a slippery slope toward a rating system — the rating system that governs film is basically inconsistent and downright nuttypants. It’s a fucking mess, that system. It’s governed and shepherded by a secret cabal of out-of-touch Hollywoodians who are prejudiced against sex and toward violence. And the ratings system over time has almost perfectly guaranteed that going to the theater means almost never seeing a film for proper adults. It’s superhero reboots all the way down — comfortable PG-13 line drives right down the middle. Not too many R-rated bonanzas at the theater anymore.

(Another comment about trigger warnings is that they’re spoilery. I dunno if that would be a problem, really, if they were handled somewhat generically — though something to watch for?)

I’d never be comfortable with mandated trigger warnings — because mandating them means someone, some moral body, some council, is in charge of it, and councils are very often how you subvert the goodness of the thing you wanted and turn it into a hot crap sandwich. But I’m eager to get your thoughts. (Again, be polite.) What about trigger warnings? What say you, commenters?

[Trigger warning: there’s a comment section.]