Chuck Wendig's Blog, page 249

Flash Fiction Challenge: Choose Your Own Setting

This past week I said some nonsense about how writers can and maybe should deal with setting.

Which means, the topic of today's challenge shall be: you guessed it, setting.

Behold last week's challenge: "FIRE OF THE GODS."

I'm going to give you five whacked-out settings.

You may choose one, and set your story within that space.

What five settings?

Here goes:

Lunar Brothel

Abandoned Amusement Park

The Bottom of the Ocean

Penthouse Apartment during the Apocalypse

Fairy Tale Forest

There you go.

Interpret as you see fit.

The key is, when writing, to never abandon the setting — do not go outside of it. Further, make sure that the setting helps to drive the story. The setting should almost be a character in its own right.

Bring it to life.

You have — drum roll please — 1000 words.

Story due in by Friday, noon (EST), March 30th.

Do not put your story in the comments below — place it online (somewhere, don't care, long as we can read it) and provide us with the link so that we can go and ogle your pulsating brilliance.

Now get to penmonkeying, penmonkeys.

Ari Marmell: The Terribleminds Interview

Ari and I go way back. We once fought dinosaurs in the Caveman War of the Ninth Glacial Epoch. We once surfed the rings of Saturn. And once upon a time, we worked freelance in the roleplaying game industry. Since then, Ari's star has gone supernova and now he's a Big Time Fantasy Writer, but thankfully, I was able to dose his drink with questionable veterinary drugs and convince him to submit to an interview here. His newest is Thief's Covenant. Seek out his website — mouseferatu.com — or stalk him on Twitter (@mouseferatu).

EDIT: I'm told that it's Ari's birthday. GO BUY HIS BOOKS. He rules. Do so now.

This is a blog about writing and storytelling. So, tell us a story. As short or long as you care to make it. As true or false as you see it.

Once upon a time, in a distant land, there lived a young prince named Bernard. Now, Bernard had no real renown of his own, but he did run in some fairly famous circles. For Bernard, as it happened, was one of several suitors to that most illustrious, tower-dwelling princess: Rapunzel, she of the lengthy locks.

One day, worried that Rapunzel might choose one of the other princes vying for her attention, Bernard set out to pay her a surprise visit. To prove his love and devotion, he brought with him a gold and ivory comb, an heirloom that had been in his family for seven generations. The prince dropped from his noble steed, approached the base of the stone, weather-worn tower, and called up.

"Rapunzel! It is I, Prince Bernard! Let down your hair!"

After several long and uncomfortable moments, the princess's melodious voice came drifting back down. "You ought to let a girl know when you're planning to show up! I've only just gotten out of the bath!"

"Oh." Bernard scowled, kicking at a clump of soil. "If you'd rather I come back later…"

"No, no, come on up."

As in his many previous visits, a long coil of hair rolled from the upper window to dangle before him, providing a means of climbing the wall. Unlike those past times, however, this particular braid was loose and haphazard, scarcely braided at all. Worse, it was barely half the width of her normal rope of hair.

"Ah, Rapunzel? This seems… a bit flimsy, doesn't it?"

"Nothing for it!" she called down. "I'm still busy brushing my other braids. Could be hours before I'm done. Surely," she added, her voice teasing, "a young man as athletic as you should be able to climb what's available safely enough! Or have all your claims just been empty boasts?"

Well, Bernard certainly wasn't about to appear weak or cowardly! Straightening his back, he stepped forward and took an experimental tug on the princess's lone and lonely braid.

It really didn't feel all that secure.

When Rapunzel shouted again, her pout was obvious in her voice. "Don't you love me enough to even try?"

Bernard began climbing immediately, of course. His grip was a bit precarious at first, but he swiftly got the hang of climbing the smaller rope.

Thinks I don't love her enough, does she? I'll show her!

Even as he climbed, Bernard removed the comb he'd brought to offer his beloved, and began to work out the knots and tangles of the haphazard braid. Not only would he climb up to visit, but he'd save her a bit of effort and show her just how good his gift actually was!

All of which might have seemed like a great idea, until–mere feet from the top–Prince Bernard lost his grip.

Had the braid been thicker, he might never have slipped. Had he not been so careful to comb out Rapunzel's hair on his way, he might have had a knot on which to grab. Alas, the slender and smooth locks flowed through his fingers, providing no purchase at all, and Bernard perished in a heap of broken bones at the base of Rapunzel's tower.

And so, as we come to the end of our tragic story, we can take consolation only in the wisdom imparted by our tale's twin morals:

"A braid in the hand is worth two in the brush," and "A man's comb is his hassle."

Why do you tell stories?

In part, I don't really have a choice. The story ideas and characters come to me, and I really want to do something with them. As a kid, I was able to get that out of my system by running D&D games, but it's just not enough anymore.

And also, I pretty much suck at everything else.

Give the audience one piece of writing or storytelling advice:

Don't let worries over what's currently popular keep you from writing whatever sort of story you love (or are driven) to tell.

What's great about being a writer, and conversely, what sucks about it?

Well, being able to set my own hours is pretty cool. But really, the best thing is talking to people who have gotten real enjoyment (or even found deeper meaning, on occasion) from something I've created. The creation itself is wonderful, but seeing how that creation affects others is amazing.

As for what sucks? The fact that income varies so dramatically and that the job has no benefits causes some problems, certainly. And since so much of my enjoyment is based on others' reactions, it also means–much as I try not to let it bug me–that negative reactions to my work sometimes bum me out.

Also, when you work from home and have turned your hobby into your job? You never really get a lot of time off. Even when you take a day away from writing, your brain's still noodling away at whatever project you've got going, or forthcoming, or developing. (And yes, writers have all of that going at once. If your average writer was twice as prolific as Stephen King, he still wouldn't be able to actually use more than a fraction of his ideas.)

Oh, the fact that people sometimes assume that what I do isn't real work, and that if I'm home during the day it must mean I have time to run errands for them, is an occasional pain.

Okay, so I have to ask: how do you deal with negative fan/reader reaction?

Hard liqueur and thugs with baseball bats.

Honestly, it depends on the kind of negative reaction. If it's screaming vitriol, I briefly bitch about it (to myself, my wife, or a friend), and then ignore it. Nothing you can do with that. But if it's a reasonably or politely written critique, I find that my best bet is to consider whether I feel like they may be on to something. I've made a few improvements by listening to concerns that came in from more than one source. Obviously, in many cases, I won't agree, and won't change accordingly, but it's worth looking at.

And then there are the ones you just laugh at, such as when somebody claimed The Conqueror's Shadow was so bad it "literally kills babies." It's always nice when people make it easy for you to figure out that they deserve to land soundly in the "ignore" pile.

What did gaming (tabletop in particular) teach you about storytelling?

Well, a lot of the very basics — how to build a plot, for instance — came, in part, from my early gaming days. It certainly taught me about telling stories in someone else's setting, which has served me well in my tie-in work.

But I think my gaming experience has also helped me when it comes to having my characters solve problems creatively. When I'm outlining, I very often describe the peril the characters have gotten into, but not how they get out of it. I wait until I'm actually writing that scene, and then try to get them out with only the resources I've already described/given them, rather than planning in advance to give them Tool X to solve Situation Y. It doesn't always work, and I don't deal with every challenge that way, but it's fun when it's appropriate.

What's the upside and the downside to writing tie-in fiction?

Well, in every case thus far, I've really enjoyed the setting in which I was working. The opportunity to add to the experience of a property that I really like is a fantastic one, and quite possibly one of the single greatest highlights of tie-in. On a more mercenary level, the fact that there's usually a built-in audience don't hurt none, neither.

(Every one of my editors just had a coronary.)

Downside… Well, the fact that it is someone else's world means that your options are limited. I can't necessarily kill of Character X, or make a change to Setting Detail Y, or even assume that Trope Z holds true. It narrows the scope of what's possible. Also, there's the fact that a lot more people have a lot more control over the final product. I've been lucky enough to work with more reasonable people than not, but even reasonable people disagree on ideas here and there. It's frustrating to have not just an editor, but 2d6 other people have a say over every last detail of the book–especially when any one of them can overrule the author.

You write fantasy for the most part — what's the trick to writing good fantasy? What do you think is missing from most fantasy these days?

Well, leaving aside all of that "interesting characters and plot" nonsense that goes into writing a good anything…

Internal consistency. What, on gaming forums, is often called "verisimilitude." The fact that a book is a fantasy is not license to throw common sense or rational cultural development out the window. "A wizard did it" is not a one-stop solution.

There's a saying that "It's easier to believe the impossible than the improbable." (I'd attribute it, but I don't actually know who said it first.) I can, for instance, accept a world where dragons and sorcerers are real. I cannot accept a plotline that's driven too much by sheer coincidence or character stupidity. I cannot accept a culture that makes no sense. It doesn't have to resemble a real historical culture, but it has to feel like it actually hangs together, not like it was slapped together for no purpose other than to be convenient to the plot.

As to what's missing in most fantasy? Hmm… This is beginning to change, but secondary worlds based on cultures other than Europe. Where's the fantasy world that resembles Southern Africa? India? (One of my favorite recent fantasy series is Aliette de Bodard's Obsidian and Blood trilogy, which is set in the Aztec empire. So next, I'd like to see someone create a secondary world somewhat resembling the Aztecs, without actually being historical fantasy.)

Also? I'd really, really, really, really like to see an increase in standalone books (or at least series where each book can stand alone). Not every fantasy tale requires nine books of 800 pages each to tell, people.

Why'd you write Thief's Covenant? How is it a novel only Ari Marmell could write?

It's a novel only I could write because I got to it first and it's copyrighted, damn it.

Okay, more seriously… Most of my fantasy protagonists to date have been antiheroes (or, in the case of The Goblin Corps, outright villains). Widdershins may be a thief, but she's basically a good person; I wanted to write a hero who was, at least in some respects, actually a hero. I also wanted to play with certain cultural aspects–the combination of the very French Renaissance with a very un-Renaissance belief system, in particular.

But mostly? I wrote it for the same reason I write most of my non-tie-in books: Because the idea came to me, and I liked it enough to haul it out of the stream, rather than let it drift by to the Lake of Unused Concepts. No more real meaning to it than that.

What makes it a "me" book? Partly the combination of humor and horror. Not that I'm the only person to do that–and there's less of the "near horror" level of violence here than in my other books, though it's still present–but I like to think this precise style of combining them is mine.

I also feel that–so far as is possible, given that I am not and never have been a teenage girl–that Widdershins is a very Ari character. I'm not sure I can articulate why, to be honest. She just really seems to have sprung Athena-like from my head.

Favorite word? And then, the follow up: Favorite curse word?

"Diphthong." It just looks like it shouldn't be a word at all, it's fun to say, and in a pinch you can use it to sound like you're insulting someone.

Favorite curse word? Hmm… I've long felt that if you're only using one word, you're not doing it right. But if I have to pick one, I really think the sheer versatility of "fuck"–you can make entire sentences out of nothing but variations–is the reason it remains a beloved classic.

Favorite alcoholic beverage? (If cocktail: provide recipe. If you don't drink alcohol, fine, fine, a non-alcoholic beverage will do.)

I don't drink. Yeah, I know, one of those. It's not any sort of moral objection; I just don't like the taste of alcohol, and it aggravates certain health conditions I have.

So, favorite non-alcoholic? One of various sorts of mocha frappacino, preferably in either a mint or chocolate-and-cherry variation.

Recommend a book, comic book, film, or game: something with great story. Go!

I'm gonna go old-school on this. Back in, oh, the early 90s or so, Sierra released a PC game called "Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father." (There were two more games in the series that were both pretty good, but the first was best.) It's obviously a remarkably primitive game by today's standards, but if you can get hold of it (and your computer will run it), I still recommend it as one of the coolest games–yes, including story–I've ever played.

What skills do you bring to help the humans win the inevitable zombie war?

I encourage teamwork among the survivors.

Specifically, I'm so slow and out of shape that I won't be too hard to catch. Meaning that nobody has to resort to tripping anyone else in order to survive, thus building a level of trust they would otherwise lack.

You've committed crimes against humanity. They caught you. You get one last meal.

Probably something fajita-related. With nachos beforehand, and ice cream after.

Not just because I like such things, but because I'm lactose intolerant. If they're gonna execute me, they get to deal with the results.

What's next for you as a storyteller? What does the future hold?

Well, multi-million dollar movie deals, one hopes.

More likely? I have a few things I'm looking forward to diving into, including a near-future YA novel with a premise I actually haven't seen used before; some additional tie-in work; hopefully some additional installments in the "Widdershins Adventures" YA fantasy series, and (also hopefully) writing sequels to my first urban fantasy, which my agent is shopping around as we speak.

Well, except that we're not speaking. And she's not doing it "as I type," because it's late.

But you know what I mean.

Ten Things You Should Know About Writing Screenplays

This week, terribleminds is moving hosts. We got too big for our britches and we're fleeing the warm embrace of Laughing Squid and diving deeper into the trenches of a LiquidWeb VPS server. I'm not anticipating any downtime, but one never knows in such an instance what will happen. So, I figured this wasn't a good week for an entirely brand new "25 Things" list.

What I am doing, however, is giving you a tasty chocolate Whitman sampler of "25 Things" — these have never before been on terribleminds but can instead be found in their entirety in my writing books.

You'll find this works on the following schedule:

Monday:

10 (of 25) things you should know about setting! (from 500 More Ways To Be A Better Writer)

Tuesday:

1o (of 25) things you should know about endings! (from 500 Ways To Be A Better Writer)

Wednesday:

10 (of 25) things you should know about screenplays! (from 250 Things You Should Know About Writing)

Let us begin.

10 Things You Should Know About Writing Screenplays
1. Just A Blueprint

A novel is a finished product. A film is a finished product. A screenplay is just a blueprint. It's just a template. You're creating the possibility of a film, not the final product. Let that free you.

2. Writing To Be Read Before Writing To Be Seen

A script has to read well before it ever makes it onto a screen. Nobody reads a shitty script and says, "This sucks out loud on the page, but boy, it's going to look awesome on the screen." Well, okay, Michael Bay might say that. But then he rides his cyborg tiger into the heart of an atomic cloud to the tune of some Aerosmith song. You can't hold that guy's attention for long.

3. Story Is King, And The Characters Serve At His Pleasure

A screenplay fails first because of its crapgasmic story. Not just plot: but story. Story is all of it: plot, characters, theme, mood. You're trying to say something, trying to tell a cracking good tale. Characters are the vehicle for that story. We're going to spend two hours with, what? Boring characters? Dull story? Unlikable and unbelievable plot?

4. The Three-Act Structure Matters

I know. You want to fight against the three-act structure. You want to kick and spit and break the bonds of this straitjacket The Man has slapped you into. Don't. The three-act structure is here to stay. Trust me when I say, producers and directors look for it. They seek those act breaks. Here's the trick, though: the three acts are nowhere near as limiting as people believe. They're very easy and translate roughly to Beginning, Middle, and End. And out of each act is a turn, a pivot point of change and escalation. Hit those acts at 25%, 50%, and 25% of your script's total length (Act I, II, and III, respectively) and you're golden.

5. The Secret Act Break Smack In The Middle Of The Script

Don't tell anybody else. I'm sharing this just with you. Take off your pants and I'll tell you. Are they off? Sweet. HA HA HA HA JUST KIDDING NOW YOU'RE PARTLY NAKED AND VULNERABLE AND NOW I WILL ATTACK YOUR PRIVATE PARTS WITH BEES. … okay, that was weird. I'm so sorry. Anyway. Here's the secret: the second act can really be two acts with the act turn smack dab at the midpoint of the whole script. Treat these like any act: escalation leads to an act turn which means some kind of pivot or change, both external and internal. Ta-da! That'll help you fight the sagging mushy gushy lardy middle of your screenplay.

6. 90-110

Your script should be between 90-110 pages. Especially if it's a spec script. Going to 120 pages is… regrettable, but doable. Going above 120 or below 90 can be death for your script.

7. Search Your Heart For Truth, Sacred Cricket

You're committing time and energy to writing this thing, so figure out why. Figure out what you're trying to say and what kind of story you want to tell. Know the reason your script must exist. "I want to write a tragic love story set in space." "I want to highlight the horrific industry of dolphin-killing." "I HATE MY DAD AND I WANT THE WORLD TO KNOW IT." Whatever, man. Just find your reason. Let it live at the throbbing heart of the script.

8. Too Many Characters Foul The Orgy

A script with too many characters feels hazy and crazy. It's like making a soup with too many spices or having an orgy with too many participants. Then it just becomes a greasy, smelly game of Twister. "Left leg, some guys pubic tangle. Right leg, shellacked with a heady broth of somebody's man-seed. AHHH DICK IN MY EYE." Keep major characters to about five. With maybe another 10 to 15 lesser characters if need be. But remember: they all need to be fully realized, at least in your own head.

9. Babar, Meet Rebar, And His Brothers, Robar, Zadar, And Radar

If your two lead characters are Gary and Mary, or Bob and Rob, the reader is going to get confused. I know, you're saying, "What kind of asshole can't figure out the difference between Bob and Rob?" The kind that reads hundreds of scripts per day and has suffered irreparable eye and soul damage from reading the unmerciful shit-fuckery submitted to them by subpar screenwriters, that's who.

10. Narrative Rejiggering

Some screenplays suffer from a necessary slow build, but a slow build threatens to derail the reader's attention. So go mess with the narrative flow — change the time-line. Start at the ending. Or in the middle. Somewhere dramatic. Break the narrative up into a switchback flow, ala 21 Grams or Reservoir Dogs. You can play with the timeline in order to adjust the revelation of plot. What happens then is revealed now. What happens now is revealed later.

Want the whole 25? Then I point you toward 250 Things You Should Know About Writing, merely $0.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, and also available here at terribleminds.

Ten Things You Should Know About Endings

This week, terribleminds is moving hosts. We got too big for our britches and we're fleeing the warm embrace of Laughing Squid and diving deeper into the trenches of a LiquidWeb VPS server. I'm not anticipating any downtime, but one never knows in such an instance what will happen. So, I figured this wasn't a good week for an entirely brand new "25 Things" list.

What I am doing, however, is giving you a tasty chocolate Whitman sampler of "25 Things" — these have never before been on terribleminds but can instead be found in their entirety in my writing books.

You'll find this works on the following schedule:

Monday:

10 (of 25) things you should know about setting! (from 500 More Ways To Be A Better Writer)

Tuesday:

1o (of 25) things you should know about endings! (from 500 Ways To Be A Better Writer)

Wednesday:

10 (of 25) things you should know about screenplays! (from 250 Things You Should Know About Writing)

Let us begin.

10 Things You Should Know About Endings
1. Behold My Clumsy And Confusing Definition

Let's pretend for a moment that the end is a hazy thing — it doesn't begin at any precise point and counts the nebulous territory between "the beginning of the end and the last moment of the story that reaches the reader's mind." The ending is when there's no turning back, when the story can't be stopped, when everything's in motion and moving forward like a racehorse on angel dust.

2. Okay, Fine, You Won't Stop Staring At Me So Here's Your Goddamn Definition

If you want the technical definition, then the ending begins at the start of the final act — in screenwriting, it begins at the end of the third act. It encompasses the climax of the piece and then tumbles forth through the falling action and into the denouement. It is triggered by the turning point (or pivot) into the final act, which sets up the final conflict and resolution of that conflict. There. Are you happy now? *sob*

3. Boom Goes The Dynamite

The climax and falling action are the flashier components of the ending — this is the big-ass fireworks finale where everyone goes ooooh and ahhh and stares into the pretty lights and receives commands from their alien masters on when precisely to assassinate the Archduke. Or whatever. Know that the climax is when, metaphorically or literally, everything explodes. The falling action is the picking up of those pieces and the rearrangement of those pieces. The zeppelin blows up — CHOOM! (the climax) — and then as it sinks toward earth the hero's mission to save the lovely lass is in question as the antagonist's plan appears to be successful. But the hero has his mad hero skills and turns the tide and saves the girl and slays the antagonist and has a litter of puppies, blah blah blah. Note that some stories conflate climax and falling action into one moment: I'd argue that STAR WARS does this, tying everything up with the Big Boom of the Death Star going kaflooey. (Yes, "kaflooey" is a technical term.) DIE HARD doesn't — the big explosion on the roof is your climax, and McClane versus Hans is the falling action (er, quite literally!).

4. All The Little Strings Tied Around Fingers

The denouement is not a critical component and some stories just say, "Fuck it," and kick it into the mouth of a hungry alligator to be eaten and forgotten. The denouement (it's French, and pronounced Day-NOO-MAAAAWWHHHH, with that last syllable comprising about 42 seconds of actual vocal time) and offers what you might consider "narrative clean-up." It takes all the niggling details and ties them into little bows. Sometimes a denouement is just a handful of moments — again, in DIE HARD, it's that short scene as they leave Nakitomi Plaza. In RETURN OF THE KING, it's the last 6,000 minutes as the audience bears witness to a endless procession of hobbit-flavored not-quite-happy endings! Mmm. Hobbit happy endings. Tiny hands. But so soft.

5. A Good Ending Answers Questions

A story raises questions both within the story and outside it — "Will Steve woo Betty? Will Orange Julius save Cabana Boy from the jaws of The Cramposaur? Can love survive in the face of war? Is bacon overrated?" A good ending takes these questions and answers them. Most mysteries are solved. Most concerns are answered.

6. A Great Ending Asks New Questions

An author should never be afraid to let an ending ask new questions heaped upon the answers of the old. Yes, these questions, the ones you introduced, are addressed — but things, then, needn't be so simple. Exposing the truth might force the reader to ask new questions, and those questions are likely to never be answered (unless there's another story in the sequence). That's okay. Hell, that's not only okay: that's awesome. That leaves people thinking about the story. It doesn't just close the door and kick them out of the house — it Manchurian Candidates those motherfuckers (yes, I turned that movie title into a verb, shut up) and leaves the story top-of-mind.

7. Time To Confirm Or Deny Your Theme

Your story is an argument — a thesis positing a thematic notion, an idea, a conceit. The ending is where you (purposefully or inadvertently) prove or disprove that thesis. It's when you say, "Man will embrace nature over nurture." Or, "True love won't save the day." Or, "Yes, indeed, Fruit Roll-Ups are secretly the leathered skin of popular cartoon character such as Smurfs and/or Snorks."

8. Endings Don't Need To Be Pat

I dunno who "Pat" actually is, but my assumption is that he's a nice guy and everything works out for him. When an ending is pat, it's the same way: it's a nice ending, and hey, lookie-loo, everything works out just dandy. You are not required to create nice, neat, tidy little endings — an ending shouldn't look like a Christmas ornament designed by Martha Stewart.

9. Sometimes, A Nice Neat Happy Ending Is Appropriate

Sometimes, sure, okay, you want a happy ending. Here's the difference, though, between a happy ending and a pat ending. A "pat" ending ties things up artificially — it uses coincidence and narrative hand-waving to bring disparate elements together and make sure everything is all toothy smiles and unicorn hats and rainbow poop.

10. Dominoes Tumbling Ineluctably Forward

An ending should feel natural. Like it's the only ending you could write. That's nonsense, of course — you have a theoretically infinite number of endings you could write — but as you write, all the elements will start to feel like they're moving toward one thing, one way that they all sum up. Once you write it and once the audience reads or sees it, they should all feel like it's the only ending the story deserved — an unswerving and inarguable narrative conclusion.

Want the rest of this list? Check out 500 Ways To Be A Better Writer, available for $2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, and also available direct from terribleminds.

Ten Things You Should Know About Setting

This week, terribleminds is moving hosts. We got too big for our britches and we're fleeing the warm embrace of Laughing Squid and diving deeper into the trenches of a LiquidWeb VPS server. I'm not anticipating any downtime, but one never knows in such an instance what will happen. So, I figured this wasn't a good week for an entirely brand new "25 Things" list.

What I am doing, however, is giving you a tasty chocolate Whitman sampler of "25 Things" — these have never before been on terribleminds but can instead be found in their entirety in my writing books.

You'll find this works on the following schedule:

Monday:

10 (of 25) things you should know about setting! (from 500 More Ways To Be A Better Writer)

Tuesday:

1o (of 25) things you should know about endings! (from 500 Ways To Be A Better Writer)

Wednesday:

10 (of 25) things you should know about screenplays! (from 250 Things You Should Know About Writing)

Let us begin.

10 Things You Should Know About Setting
1. What Is It?

Setting anchors your story in a place and a time. A short story or film may hover over a single setting; a longer-form film or novel may bounce across dozens of setting. You often have a larger setting ("The town of Shartlesburg!") and many micro-settings within ("Pappy's Hardware! The Egg-Timer Diner! The Shartlesburg Geriatric Sex Dungeon!").

2. What Does It Do For You?

It props everything else up. It's like the desk on which you write — it has function (it holds up all your writing tools, your liquor bottles, your Ukranian pornography), it has detail (the wood is nicked from where you got into that knife fight with that Bhutan assassin), it has an overall feel (the desk dominates the room, making everything else feel big — or perhaps the opposite is true, where the desk is crammed into the corner like you're some third-rate citizen). Setting props up plot, character, theme, and atmosphere. And it gives the audience that critical sense of place and time so it doesn't feel like she's floating around in a big ol' sensory-deprivation tank of recycled amniotic fluid. Which does not, despite its appearance, smell like bubble-gum.

3. Establish That Shit Early, Then Reveal Gradually

You don't want to keep the reader in the dark as to the setting, because it's disorienting and disconcerting. Even if the character on the page doesn't know, you the author sure do, and it's up to you to provide those hints ("She hears a church bell ringing and smells the heady stink of hobo musk"). You don't need to spend two paragraphs outlining setting right from the get-go, though — we just need that filmic establishing shot to say, "Ohh, okay, we're in a convenience store next door to an insane asylum. Boom, got it." Then, as you write, you over time reveal more details about setting as they become important the story. Revealing setting should be a sexy striptease act. A little flash of skin that gradually uncovers the midriff, then the thighs, then the curve of the blouse baboons, then the OH MY GOD SHE HAS A TENTACLE IT'S GOT MY MMGPPHABRABglurk

4. Setting As Character

It may help to think of setting as just another character. It looks and acts a certain way. It may change over the course of the story. Other characters interact with it and have feelings about it that may not be entirely rational. Think about how, on those awful (and totally fake!) house hunting shows on HGTV someone's always looking for a house "with character." That means they want a house that is uniquely their own, that has, in a sense, a personality. And probably a poltergeist. Houses with character always have poltergeists. That's a fact. I saw it on the BBC and British people cannot lie. It's in their regal charter or something.

5. Paint In As Few Strokes As Possible

Play a game — go somewhere and describe it in as few details as possible. Keep whittling it down. See how you do. This is key for setting description (and, in fact, all description). Description must not overwhelm.

6. Exercise: Three Details And No More

Find any place at any time and use three details to describe it. You get to paint your image with three strokes and no more.

7. What Details? The Ones The Audience Needs To See

The details you choose are the ones that add to the overall story. Maybe they're tied to the plot. Maybe they enhance the mood. Maybe they signal some aspect of the theme. Maybe offers a dash of humor at a time when the story really needs it. Each detail has text and subtext — the text is what it is ("a toilet"). The subtext is what it adds to the deeper story ("the toilet's clogged and broken like everything else in this building, spilling water over the bowl rim" — saying this adds to the overall atmosphere and theme offered by the setting).

8. Abnormalities Are Your Friend

Another tip for finding out which details matter most: they're the ones that break the status quo. It's like this: I know what a Starbucks looks like. Or a pine forest. Or a men's restroom. You don't need to tell me that the restroom has a sink, a floor, a lightbulb, a toilet. You need to tell me there's a mouse crawling around in the sink. That the fluorescent light above is flickering and buzzing like a bug zapper. You need to show me the weird guy sitting in stall three playing with himself while reading an issue of Field and Stream magazine. ("Oh. Yeah. I'm gonna stick it deeeeeep in your basshole.") Show me the details that break my expectations. Those are the details that matter.

9. The Reader Will Do Work For You

No, I don't mean the reader will come to your house and grout your kitchen. Or maybe they will? I should look into that. Anyway. What I'm saying is, the reader will fill in many of the details that you do not. In a variant of what I just said above, it's your job to give the reader the details that she cannot supply for herself.

10. Description Should Be Active And Action-Based

Describe the setting as a character moves and operates through it — which means that it features action and takes into account that character's point-of-view. You don't introduce the Shartlesburg Geriatric Dungeon by giving a paragraph of setting description before the character even steps into the room. As the character sees it, the reader sees it. As the character picks up that riding crop that smells like Vicks Vaporub and horehound lozenges, the reader picks up the same.

(Check out the full "25 Things You Should Know About Setting" in the complete 500 More Ways To Be A Better Writer, available at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, and direct from this site.)

Bait Dog: Second Book Unlocked!

And we did it!

We unlocked not just one but two new Atlanta Burns novels.

Which geeks me out to no end.

Now I will pause to do a happy dance. And fire my shotgun up in the air.

But — but! — we've still got six whole hours left.

If we get to $9000 by the close of the Kickstarter, that will unlock a third Atlanta Burns novel.

Holy crap.

Can we do it? I don't know. The power of the Internet is glorious and weird.

I will add here that anybody who pledged at the $25 rate and higher gets an e-book copy of each unlocked novel (in the e-book format of your choice). So, if we unlock three novels, at the $25 and up level you get three novels. The more novels unlocked, the greater value the pledge brings.

Thanks all who supported it and spread the word.

Let's see where we land with this thing, yeah? Eeee!

Flash Fiction Challenge: "The Fire Of The Gods"

Last week's "I've Chosen Your Words" challenge was a tricky one, but some admirable tales came out of that one. You will go and check it out, won't you? Good.

This week, I talked a bit about creativity and said that it was the fire we stole from the gods.

And I thought, "Hmm. Fire."

Fire.

FIRE.

Excellent.

Last week I gave you words, this week, I give you a title:

Your story will be titled: "The Fire of the Gods."

And that's it. That's all I demand of you.

Well, besides the standard parameters, of course. The story must be under 1000 words. Post it at your blog (not in the comments here, or I may delete it), then link back so we can all see it.

You've got the traditional week. Get the stories in by Friday, March 23rd, noon EST.

Now write, won't you?

Nathan Long: The Terribleminds Interview

When Stephen Blackmoore says, "Pay attention to this author," I pay attention. In part because Blackmoore is wise. In part because I figure maybe Blackmoore's warning me about some author who's trying to stab me with a shattered absinthe bottle because said author is jacked up on two dozen five-hour-energy-drinks. In this instance, Blackmoore pointed me to Nathan Long because he's a smart guy with a new delicious pulpy book out — Jane Carver of Waar. Further, Nathan's a guy with a lot of game-related tie-in fiction under his belt which I think appeals to you crazy cats and kittens. So, here he is. Meanwhile, find him at his website — sabrepunk.com.

This is a blog about writing and storytelling. So, tell us a story. As short or long as you care to make it. As true or false as you see it.

A few years back, I was head writer on a Saturday morning adventure show called Kamen Rider Dragon Knight, which was of the same genre as Power Rangers and Beetle Borgs, etc, only slightly more adult and ambitious. It was funded by an independent Japanese production company, basically two guys who had made some movies, but who had never done TV before, nor done any business with TV people. This meant they ended up putting a lot of their own money into it up front and praying really hard that someone would buy it somewhere on down the line.

Now, at the beginning, these producers told us they wanted Kamen Rider Season One to be 40 episodes long, which struck us as an odd number, but whatever. If that's what they wanted, that's what we'd give 'em. I wrote out a big 40 episode arc, which took our hero Dragon Knight on an epic journey of self discovery and self sacrifice, while at the same time allowing him to kick serious ass on a lot of monsters – and of course save the world. It was a rich and complicated a plot, probably too rich and complicated for Saturday morning, thinking back on it, but like I said, we had ambitions.

Anyhow, on the Monday of the week when we were shooting episode 23, and I was busy cleaning up the scripts for the next three, I got a call from the producers saying they were short on money, and that, instead of 40 episodes, we were only going to do 36, and could I replot the story so it would end four episodes earlier than previously planned.

Well, that sucked, but whatever. These things happen in Hollywood. So I dropped everything and got to work replotting, and had the new plot all worked by Tuesday afternoon, just in time for the producers to call and tell me that, actually, they only had money to do 30 episodes, and could I shorten it again. This time it was a lot tougher. I had a whole shitload of interweaving story lines running, and now I only had seven episodes to tie them up, instead of thirteen. But I did my best and had a new outline sorted out by Wednesday afternoon, at which point the producers called again and said the money situation was really, really bleak, and we were only going to be able to shoot one more episode, so could I wrap the whole series up in one final twenty two page script.

By this time I was tearing my hair out, but I sat down once more, pulled an all nighter, and came up with an outline for a script that, while not great, would at least pay off the main plotline and give the lead character's arc some kind of resolution. Then, just as I was printing it out on Thursday morning and getting ready to bring it into the office, I got a further call from the producers. They had resolved their money issues. We were back on for 40 episodes. Could I put it back the way it was before.

That I stand before you a free man, and am not currently doing time for first degree murder is entirely because I work from home, and my homicidal rage was spent upon an entirely innocent office chair and an Ultra Man action figure that just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Had I been at the production office, things might have gone very differently.

So, what is the moral of this tale of woe? I think it is this. A professional writer must be able to adapt to whatever changes are asked of him. He must also be ready to change his mind, and to remember that there are a thousand ways to tell every story – and that sometimes he'll be asked to use every one of them.

Why do you tell stories?

Because I can't stop. Because stories are secular church. They tell people how to be and how to live. Because real life has no satisfying endings, so we gotta make 'em up. Because I always loved reading stories, but there were some that weren't being told, so I had to tell them. Because nothing else has ever held my interest for more than five minutes.

Just because.

"Stories are secular church." What's a good writer's prayer? Or storyteller's mantra?

Dear God of the Beginning, the Middle and the End, may my tale feel natural and unforced. May my meanings be clear and my intentions understood. May my endings elicit the emotion I intended them to. May I reach the reader that needs to be reached, and inspire (or at least amuse) the downhearted. Forever and ever, Amen.

Give the audience one piece of writing or storytelling advice:

Know the ending before you begin. I'm not saying you have to know it in detail, but you should know where you want to go. A good story makes a point. It isn't just some events and characters strung together on a timeline. It works toward a conclusion, and if all you've got when you start writing is a hero, a setting and a conflict, you don't have a story, you have a box of ingredients. You may find a story along the way, but it's a hell of an inefficient way to go.

I don't start until I know that "She's going to chose honor over family," or "He's going to realize he's an spoiled jerk and finally do the right thing," or "He's going to save his people and ruin his personal life." You notice that, even though those are the actual payoffs for some of my actual sword and sorcery stories, they don't mention swords, sorcery or monsters. That is because, stripped of the frosting of genre, all good stories are about a guy, or a gal, and how they choose to deal with the shit life hands them. The rest is candy.

Endings. What, then, goes into a good ending?

A novel is an extended joke, and the ending is its punch line. You have spent many many pages setting up and complicating a central conflict, whether internal, external, or hopefully both. The ending must pay off those conflicts in emotionally satisfying ways. That doesn't mean that all books have to have happy endings, or even that they all have to completely resolve. But you have to satisfy the reader's expectations in some way. That is part of the contract you made with them at the beginning of the book. You cannot promise them chocolate cake for desert all through a long dinner, and then give them bean sprouts, or tell them that the cake is actually at the end of the next book. I am also not a fan of the oblique ending, where the reader is not sure what happened or why. When someone finishes one of my books I hope that the ending will trigger some kind of emotion, whether they laugh, cry, cheer, or curse my name.

A good ending with find strong and surprising ways to pay off both the book's external conflict (the action story) and the internal conflict (the emotional story) as well as any side conflicts that have not been tied up, and it should do it without appearing mechanical or forced.

What's great about being a writer, and conversely, what sucks about it?

The greatest thing about being a writer is hearing that somebody read your story and it affected them in the way you intended it to, whether they laughed, cried, cheered or cursed your name.

The thing that sucks about writing is that I have 11 novels out and I'm writing this on the sly at my day job.

Favorite word? And then, the follow up: Favorite curse word?

Favorite word: This changes on a daily basis. Today it's "batshit."

Favorite curse word: Cunt. Nothing else sums up a man in so satisfyingly angry a syllable.

Favorite alcoholic beverage? (If cocktail: provide recipe. If you don't drink alcohol, fine, fine, a non-alcoholic beverage will do.)

I'm a teetotaler and a tea snob. I like high-end oolong, the richer the better. Whenever I get money I go down to Chinatown to score.

Recommend a book, comic book, film, or game: something with great story. Go!

Book: Fingersmith by Sarah Waters – Fantastic characters, delicious setting, perfect construction, heartbreak, romance, and an lovely, satisfying ending. I read it in a single night.

Comic book: The original Tin-Tin comics. Fuck that movie.

Film: Diggstown – hands down my pick for the best constructed screenplay ever.

Game: Planescape Torment – Creaky old-school graphics but the first game I ever played that made me feel like I was living a novel.

What skills do you bring to help the humans win the inevitable zombie war?

I always know where the exit is.

You've committed crimes against humanity. They caught you. You get one last meal.

That's a tough choice. Sushi at Nozawa. No wait, barbeque pork at Hong Kong BBQ. No no, I changed my mind. Ramen from Jinya. Okay, no. I got it. I'd like a meal on the first commercial space station, and I'm willing to wait. That oughta give me 50 more years to live, right?

What's next for you as a storyteller? What does the future hold?

This is a big year for me. Night Shade Books has just published my first original novel, Jane Carver of Waar, which is about a kick-ass biker chick who goes to another world that is not at all like Mars, and I am currently in the middle of a mini signing tour for it here in southern California.

It's funny to feel like a first time novelist when I have published ten Warhammer novels in the last six years, but I do. I truly enjoy the fun and challenge of tie-in work, but I can't tell you how exciting and gratifying to be able to put that word "original" in front of that other word "novel" for the first time. Of course it's terrifying too. My personal writing is finally out there, unfiltered by having to stay true to the IP or write to the target age demographic of a game. I'm bare-ass naked now, and a little nervous about what people will think.

Still, despite Jane, I haven't abandoned Warhammer, and I have two books coming out from that world as well. The first is the Gotrek and Felix Anthology, in which I have two short stories, also out in March. The second is my third Ulrika the Vampire novel, Bloodsworn, which is coming out in June.

Beyond that, Night Shade Books have already contracted me for a second Jane Carver novel, this one entitled Swords of Waar, which I am cleaning up as we speak, and I have a bunch of other cool side projects that I've been putting off in order to finish Jane that I'm itching to get back to.

And on top of all that, I'm looking for a job writing computer games. I hear it pays better than novels, and it's a medium in which I have always wanted to try telling stories. Any takers?

You've worked predominantly with tie-in novels — what's the trick to writing a satisfying tie-in? Feels like a tightrope walk to me.

There are many different kinds of tie-in writing – novelizations of movies, continued adventures of TV characters, children's books about Saturday morning cartoon characters, but the only one I have any experience with is game tie-ins, and to me, that kind of tie in writing can give a writer more freedom than any other. It is much more like TV or comic book writing, where you are asked to write new stories for existing characters in an existing world. When I was asked to take over Warhammer's Gotrek and Felix series, that was the equivalent of taking over Batman for a five year run, or writing a few episodes of 24. You know you're not the first guy to do it, and you won't be the last, but you try to bring some spark to the franchise and make it your own.

And if you're really lucky – like I have been once or twice – they'll let you come up with your own heroes and create your own series. That is even better than taking over an existing series, as you don't have to worry about matching the style or storyline of previous authors, and can write pretty much what you want – as long as your editor approves, of course.

As to the trick of writing a good one? Easy. Treat it like a regular novel where someone else has done all the world building. That's all there is to it.

Why Jane Carver? Why is it a book by Nathan Long and not by anybody else?

Good question. I think it stems from my love/hate relationship with adventure fiction. I have always loved high adventure stuff. I love the look of it, the dash of it, the swashbuckling action, but at the same time I am often frustrated by its limits. The writing can be pedestrian, the characters can be shallow, and the heroes often seem to all be cut from the same cloth – male, unflawed, impossibly noble or unrelentingly dark, and generally not actual humans. Changing that has always been my goal. From the beginning, I have wanted to make adventure fiction with more depth, character, emotion, and a more inclusive cast. I hope Jane Carver of Waar shows that it can be done.

Also, I fell in love with Vasquez from Aliens, and thought she should have her own movie.

Jane Carver is pulp-sodden. Recommend some other good pulp for us to read.

Hmmm. I don't know if all of these will qualify as pulp, but a lot of them are the ancestors of Jane in one way or another, so here you go:

-Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series – for language and wit

-George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman series – for sex and skullduggery

-Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat series – for alien cultures and action

-Rafael Sabatini's Captain Blood, The Sea Hawk, Scaramouche, etc – for swashbuckling and romance

-Michael Shea's Nifft the Lean series – for horrific invention

-John D MacDonald's Travis McGee series – for southern style

-Robert E. Howard's Conan – for rough-hewn heroics

-Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter series… for starting it all.

Shot Through The Heart: Your Story's Throughline

Take a little of this over here –

*grabs for a theme*

– and a buncha that over there –

*reaches across your lap for a character and her goals*

– ooh ooh and then this stuff –

*fishes in the cookie jar for motif and mood and a handful of plot events*

– and now we forge them into a single blade which we promptly plunge through your manuscript. The blade pierces all the pages. It cuts down through the still-beating heart of your story.

This, then, is the throughline.

Wait, What The Fuck Is It, Again?

The throughline is an invisible thread that binds your story together. It comprises those elements that are critical to the very heart of your tale — these elements needn't be the same for every story you tell but should remain the same throughout a given story. You don't switch horses in midstream, after all. Because that's just silly. You have a horse. You're in the middle of a stream. That horse over there, you can't trust him. He might be a total dick. Plus, if you leave your current horse, you'll hurt his horsey feelings. Do you want that on your conscience? Can you handle seeing your ex-horse try to drown himself in the very stream you just crossed on another mount? You bastard.

What were we talking again?

Ah. The throughline. The throughline tangles up those handful of most critical elements and, if you'll permit me another meandering metaphor, is like the rope that the audience will use to pull itself through the story. If you do not provide an adequate throughline, offering only a weak pubic braid at best, then the audience will lose its grip and plummet into a pit of treacly ennui. Translation: they will quit your story. They'll put down the book. They'll turn off the movie. They'll go play Bejeweled and/or masturbate.

You lose.

Why Do I Need It?

Didn't I already say the thing about the rope? And the "binding everything together?" Blah blah blah, glue? Duct tape? The Force? Midichlorians? Bondage? Is any of this resonating?

A story needs to feel like it holds water. Like it has been given over to unity and that it's not just a series of separate parts dry-humping each other with their clothes on. A throughline permeates. Maybe the audience realizes it — "Oh my god, the color burnt umber has been important this whole time!" — or maybe it's something that the audience unconsciously processes. Either way, it makes the story feel whole, so that it all ties together in a way that is both external and internal — we see the plot and characters have been driven by it and that the subtext and theme and other sub-rosa elements have fed into it, too.

Types Of Throughlines

A throughline can be built of anything. It can be:

Thematic: in which it reflects your theme.

Character: in which it reflects a character trait, arc, relationship, goal, or fear.

Plot: in which it references a certain type of plot event or mystery.

Motif: in which it reflects recurring imagery and/or metaphor.

Mood: in which it reflects… uhh, do I need to spell it out? M O O N spells "mood."

Language: in which it reflects a recurring word or idea or harnesses a specific style.

And there's probably others. Any element you can draw out of your story and carry across the whole thing would count as a throughline. Throughlines can be external or internal (and in a perfect world cover both).

How You Use It: The Easy Version

The simple version is choose three core elements ("core elements" is probably redundant, shut up) that will carry through your story. Describe these elements in no more than a single phrase or sentence.

So, for instance, you might have:

"John will do anything to prove his love for Esmerelda."

"An aura of hopelessness."

"Insect imagery."

Then, you want to ensure that every chapter touches on at least one of these throughlines.

If you're writing a screenplay, assume (arbitrarily, I know) that every five pages constitutes a new chapter.

That's it. That's the easy version.

You can go nap now.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MOAR MORE.

How You Use It: The Slightly More Complicated Version

Choose a dominant throughline.

This is the end-all be-all without-it-the-story-feels-like-cats-scurrying-in-different-directions throughline. The story needs it or the story fucking dies. This throughline should pop up every chapter. Sometimes it'll be subtle, almost throwaway. Other times you'll hit on it more strongly — more sledgehammer than scalpel. But it's in every scene like a scent the audience catches when the wind turns.

Then, choose at least two minor or sub-throughlines.

These do not pop up quite as often. They need to pop up bare minimum three times total apiece — ideally, they'll appear once every three to five chapters.

NSFAQ

Not-so-frequently asked questions? You got it.

Can You Overdo It?

Yep. You can totally overdo it. You can create too robust of a throughline and hit hard on it every chapter, shoving it into the audience's eye like a lit cigar. (Tsssss.) Your throughline isn't just physical or external elements. It has subtle, secret stuff in there, too. Like theme. You go wielding theme like it's a Scottish claymore and you're Braveheart and everyone's going to think you're a goon. Internal components — mental, emotional, sub-textual — only work when they lie beneath the skin. They should poke out only sometimes. Like Morgellons disease. *shudder*

Can I Change It As I Go?

I'm not saying a throughline cannot evolve — it can, and sometimes should, build on itself. A theme can be challenged. Character goals can evolve. But if they change drastically, then it kind of ruins the point of a throughline, doesn't it? It's like asking, "If my friend is using a rope to climb up the mountain, is it okay if I use voodoo to transform that rope into an electric eel?"

What's The Advantage?

For you, the writer, this helps you provide clarity and focus to the story you're hoping to tell. For the audience, it provides a sense of overall togetherness — and a clue you know what the fuck you're doing. Oh! And it's also a way of applying simple, light, but ideally elegant structure to your work without building an entire blueprint of story architecture out of nowhere. And, if you are a robust "story architect," this guides you there, too. Overall, it provides an objective for you as you plot, plan, write, and edit.

25 Things You Should Know About Creativity

1. Let's Just Get This Out Of The Way Now

As is my way, I'm going to use this list to say lots of hard-nosed stompy-footed scowly-faced things about creativity — blah blah blah pragmatism! Bippity-boppity-boo work work work! So, let me just say this upfront: creativity is fantastic. It's a necessity not just for us wifty creative types but for all people everywhere — parents, astronauts, custodians, detectives, cowboys, Navy SEALs, harbor seals, custodial astro-cowboy detectives, and so on. Creativity is how new things are created. How old problems are solved. Creativity is fire, yes, but fire you use, fire you harness — it must not burn uncontrollably but be the match-flame that lights the fuse. Creativity is the fire we stole from the gods.

2. Key Word: Create

The key component of the word "creativity" is "create." Meaning, to make something. It's why I like the word creativity better than imagination — the former suggests the impetus for action while the latter suggests that everything is sealed away in the Sid and Marty Krofft hallucinogenic dream-house that is your mind ("OMG TALKING BUTTPLUG"). Imagination demands unreality; creativity demands reality.

3. "Oh. How Creative."

The word "creative" inspires hasty judgment. A child who learns to fish around his diaper for fecal material which he then promptly paints on the wall gets labeled as "creative," but it's said with the faintest sneer and an imagined eye-roll. "Oh. Look. A poopy giraffe. How creative." The way people say it, it sounds like a word reserved for mental patients and serial killers. "Oh. Look. A refrigerator full of eyeless human skulls. How creative." Anybody in a creative industry is used to this. You tell someone what you do — writer, artist, musician — and they get that same poopy-giraffe head-collection look in their eyes, "Oh. Look. A writer. How creative." Hey, fuck those people. Fuck 'em because they don't grok the fact that creativity is what makes this whole human race not just function, but evolve.

4. Creativity Is Worthless Without Action

You can be as creative as you want, but unless you light a fire under your ass and shock-prod your brain-squirrels into powering the endeavor at hand, what's the fucking point? Creativity demands action, direction, ambition. You tell me, "I want to write a novel about the persecution of magical ponies," and then you sit there staring all slack-jawed, then the best you've done is committed an act of mental masturbation. Piss on inertia. Jump in. Get your hands dirty. Make something or shut up about it.

5. Creativity Is Dead Without Skill

Sucks, but there it is. "I want to write a novel about the persecution of magical ponies" is only going to be a functional expression of creativity if you have some measure of skill to go along with it — and yet, the irony is, you only gain a measure of skill by trying to do the thing you probably can't do. Creativity is an eager beast, snorting and growling and ready to bust out of the stable, even if the beast is unready. You can't walk until you can walk, but you still have to try to walk — even if that means falling on your face and shitting your britches in public. Mistakes must be made. Skill must be built. Creativity always runs ahead of your ability to perform the desired tasks, but hey, fuck it, that's how we learn.

6. Early Frustration Indicative Of Imbalance

High creativity! Low skill. Sad trombone. Weepy panda. Creative-types often find themselves woefully frustrated by the process at hand. We feel like we're beating our head against the wall, the ceiling, the floor. We experience that thing some might call "writer's block," or "painter's obstacle," or, uhhh, "flutist's colonic obstruction." Such frustration often grows out of that gulf between your rampant creativity and your nascent ability. You just have to push through the pain. Birth ain't easy, people. It's work. You're going to turn your netherparts into microwaved bologna. It's all part of the process. (See Ira Glass' take on this problem here. Er, the problem of frustration, not of exploded birth canals.)

7. I Want To Rabbit-Punch The Term "Creative Writing" In The Kidneys

All writing is creative. Not just novels. Not just screenplays or games or the poetry you compose in your attic for all the little rats and roaches to read. All writing is creative. *bangs the gavel*

8. The Monkey With The Stick

The connotation of creativity is some goggle-eyed artist creating worlds with the tickling tips of his fingers — "Unicorns! Happy trees! Doodlebugs and space freighters!" — but that's not what creativity is about at its core. Creativity is about problem solving. The monkey wants the ants in the hill and doesn't know how to get them, so he breaks off a nearby stick and jams it in the anthill. Ten seconds later: delicious insect popsicle. Problems are an excellent motivator. Creativity needn't trigger out of nowhere; it often activates when one is presented with a problem that needs an unexpected solution. Fiction requires this in spades: the author must solve problems he has created within the storyworld. Mmm. Delicious metanarrative conflictsicle.

9. The Frankenstein Monster Effect

The true power of creativity is gathering unlike things and glomming them together so that they function as one. For a storyteller, individual components needn't be particularly original. The art is in the arrangement.

10. NF Over F, MFers

My bookshelves — comprising two full walls of my office — feature about 75% non-fiction, 25% fiction. Fiction does not generally inspire functional creativity. Reading fiction helps you to write fiction, yes, but over time you may find more creative value in gently shuffling your reading habits toward absorbing more non-fiction. Read broadly, widely, weirdly. Reading lots of non-fiction will expose you to a wide variety of those aforementioned "unlike things" and you'll find this inspires more compelling arrangements than reading only fiction. A diet of fiction is regurgitory: it's a Two Girls, One Cup version of the creative process. "I'll poop in your mouth. Now you poop in my mouth." Read a book about insects. Then read an article about the Hadron Collider. Then read about Shanghai in the 1930s. Your mind will find weird, glorious ways to cram these gears together in order to form a new machine.

11. Motes Of Dust To Mammoth Star Clusters

Creativity lives on the page at all levels, micro to macro. From word choice to worldbuilding, from sentence construction to story arcs. But the creative process must still be subject to organization. Creativity is not raw, unrefined whimsy. You don't just fountain golden streams of infinite possibility from all your gurgling orifices. It has to work together. Shit has to make sense. But even then creativity lives in the margins and gaps: when something doesn't make sense, creative problem solving will help Make It So.

12. Tickling Your Temporal Lobes

You can stimulate creativity. No, I don't know how you do it. It's as personal as What Makes You Laugh or What Gets You Off. Is it listening to music? Reading poetry? Going to a bar and drinking with your buddies and talking about whatever barmy goofy fucking shit comes into your fool heads? Do you draw mind-maps or outlines or write dream journals or light up your perineum with a quick blast from a stun-gun (BZZT)? Only way to know is to try anything and everything. Now take off your pants. (BZZT.)

13. The Zero Mind

Some rare flowers bloom at night, and sometimes creativity blooms in a vacuum of stimulation rather than as a result of it. If we assume that creativity is a muscle (it's not, shut up, just pretend), then tensing it all the time is not productive. Sometimes it must relax. Sometimes it must be allowed to rest. Mow the lawn. Take a shower. Go for a walk. Get a massage. You can even set your brain like a slow-cooker before you go to sleep. In the morning? HARVEST ALL THE DELICIOUS IDEA CHILI. *nom nom nom*

14. You Catch More Bunnies With Tractor Beams Than With Giant Comical Wooden Mallets That Pound Them Into Bunny Fritters

You can coax creativity — but trust me when I say, you can't force it. You can't just grit your teeth and bug your eyes out and eject a litter of squalling idea-babies. NGGH POP. Doesn't happen. You ever try to remember a name or word you can't quite conjure? Or have sex when you're totally not in the mood? Thinking extra hard about it and forcing it just doesn't work. It usually just leads to frustration. It might mean your project is not yet ready. It may need time or (as above) stimulation. …and yes, "Bunny Fritters" is the pseudonym under which I write all my sexy romance novels.

15. Johnny Five Is Alive, And Also, Needs Input

Sometimes you need to jack new shit into your brain. You need to accept new Experience Modules as part of your human motherfucking program. Creativity may occur when you go out and try new things. Have new experiences. Eat foods you've never tried. Take a trip. Fuck somebody new (er, not if you're in a committed loving relationship). Fly down a zip-line. HUNT AND KILL YOUR FELLOW MAN WHILE TRIPPING ON ACID. I mean, whut? Nothing. Point is, sometimes you need new input. You'd be amazed at how fresh experiences provide a defibrillator jolt to your creativity muscle. Which no, is not a euphemism for your wangle rod. And yes, "wangle rod" is a euphemism for penis. Shut up. I hate you so bad right now.

16. Prison Break From Your Comfort Zone

To build on that following point, you sometimes need to Hulk out, tear your purple shorts asunder, and bust free of the prison you've built out of your own routine and habits. It's not just about new experiences but about new ways to work. Take risks. Experiment with a new style of writing. Sometimes creativity gets blocked behind an ice cube dam in your drinking glass and you need to rattle the cup and fill your mouth with the sweet milky fluid of… I'm suddenly uncomfortable. IN THE PANTS. Pow! Zing! Elbow nudge, elbow nudge! Ahem. Point is: sometimes you need to shake that shit up. Write in a different POV. Or tense. Or write shorter. Or longer. Or in a different genre. Fuck what people expect of you. The only thing they should expect is your best. Otherwise? Flail those Kermit arms and go crazy.

17. Explore Your Inner Art Teacher

Let your mind don the colorful frock! Drape a necklace made of whole conch shells around your neck! Bespectacle yourself in tortoise-shell spectacles! Okay, I mock the art teachers of the world, but seriously, to build again on the following points, sometimes it's not just about finding new ways to write — it's about finding new ways to create. I'm a sucker for photography and cooking. You might be into oil paints and the mandolin. That guy over there might be over macrame and the art of undetectable poisons. You'd be amazed at how a new artistic pursuit will widen your view and allow new creative synapses to fire.

18. The Muse: Substantial As A Ghost

The Muse is not real. Relying on the Muse is like leaning on a crutch made of playing cards. You are your own Muse. Inspiration comes from within, not from without. Dig deep into that pile of squirming viscera. Reach high into your gray matter. Find the pearl tucked inside your swiftly-beating heart. Stop looking elsewhere for that creative spark. You command it. It doesn't command you.

19. You Cannot Damage Your Creativity

Some folks treat their creativity like it's a baby mouse with a low fetal heart rate; someone sneezes in the next room and so dies the tiny beast. You cannot damage your creativity. It is not an expendable resource. Sometimes you hear people say that outlining diminishes their creativity. Or that if they write every day it somehow pees in the mouth of their peacock magic. If your creativity is so frail a thing, or if it demands highly specific circumstances to emerge like it's some kind of precious lycanthrope, then you're fucked. The professional life of a creative-type must stand up to buffeting winds and scorching temperatures.

20. I Smell Ozone And Can't Feel My Legs

Your creativity isn't broken and it isn't "gone" — but push too hard and too fast and you'll find that your interior intellectual space feels like it's been rubbed raw with a rusted rasp. Ease off the stick, meth-monkey. Give yourself permission to suck. Take a break — but not too long of one.

21. The Left-Brain / Right-Brain MMA Cage Fight

"I'm right-brained," said the wispy top-hat wearing Willy Wonka wannabe as he smeared paint on his own pallid buttocks. "That means I'm creative." Pfft. Pssh. Piffle! The right-brain is not the keeper of creativity. Right-brain and left-brain work in tandem. Language is left-brained. Craft is left-brained. Plot logic is left-brained. The right-brain is the galloping stallion; the left-brain reins in the horse.

22. These Aren't One-Handed Push-Ups

Creativity can be cultivated with the help of others. We aren't alone. Bounce ideas. Share a meal. The act of creation need not begin, continue, or culminate in isolation. Fair warning: you may need to wear pants.

23. No One Tool, Method, Or Strategy

There exists no one shining path to access and grow your creativity. We're not robots. I mean, I'm not. You might be, and I suppose your titanium chest-plate and telescoping eye-stalks should've given that away. But whatever. Most of us can't just program our creativity to power on and off like a fucking lamp. It is what it is. We're all different. We all have different tricks to allow us to pop our intellectual cookies.

24. Transformation Through Destruction

Shiva, god of destruction, is also a god of creation — that's because transformation happens through annihilation. You may need to destroy your current manuscript. Or your excuses. Or your bad habits. Or your ego. Or the wretched soul-shackles we call "pants." Sometimes creation is first about obliteration.

25. Sometimes, It Just Won't Be There

Once in a while you'll reach for your creativity and all you'll find are empty shelves — but creative types do not always have the luxury of sitting on our hands until creativity decides to show its face. Doubly true when deadlines (and by proxy, money) is on the line. What do you do? You do. Meaning, you create anyway. You say fuck it and make shit anyway. If the pantry is empty you create food from whatever is near to hand: linoleum, chairs, guinea pigs, your children. You'd be amazed at how often you think you've got nothing left in the tanks and it turns out you hadn't yet shined light in all the darkest corners. Confront the blank page. Being generative creates creativity. DID I BLOW YOUR MIND? *asplode*