Arthur Gibson's Blog: A Journey In Mind, page 4

Kindle

Just used Amazon's system to publish a short story (a romance of sorts) called The Lamp $0.99. I also just published the electronic version of Gothic Prophet 2nd Edition (some new material to make it worth it, and the fixed editing that I had to fight so long for) $3.99. They should be up and running in a few days. This is my first foray into Kindle publishing. I used a build program and then sent it out to be checked over, but considering what happened last time I admit to being a little nervous. We will see. Waiting with baited breath.

Recharging

It is way too easy to get overworked. This is what makes recharging so vital. We need to read other works than our own. We need to see friends and family. We need to match movies or tv or listen to music or take walks outside. We need to sleep and rest and make ourselves whole. Without being all we are, our work suffers.

Recharging is one of the most important things anyone can do. But it is also the most dangerous. It is too easy to let that recharging momentum build into a stall. It is easy to feel lazy. It is easy to decide to leave your work for just one more day. This is a deathtrap.

What good is it to have ideas, but never use them? What good is it to have great plots and characters but never meet them& None. No good at all.

We all have creative avenues that bog us down. We all have a need to take a step back and breathe. But we have a responsibility to be disciplined in our work. We all have a responsibility to get up, breathe deep, and plunge into the pool of creativity again.

Don`t let downtime grow into a habit that will deprive you of good work. Let it do what it is supposed to do and recharge us so we can provide our best work.

Appologies

I have been utterly swamped recently. Attempting to earn money in order to pay rent and eat are always a challenge. More so when you have a family to take care of. Things will (hopefully) be evening out soon and I will be returning to a more regular schedule of blogging. Thank you for your patience.

Check It Out

This is not a post about me. This is a post about www.busterdrake.com It is a sci-fi web comic. It just got a new facelift. The colors are awesome. The story just keeps getting better and better. A lot of laughs. A lot of plot spread in a few panels every week. The art improves every time I visit. Definitely worth checking out. Please visit and keep on visiting to get the most out of this story. Worth the time.

Who Are They?

How well do you know your characters before you write them? Do you know anything other than a/s/l? Do you have more than just an idea of what they are going to do in the story? Do you see them as people, or just as cogs in your plot? The more you know your characters as people, the better you will be able to write them as people.

There are a lot of people in the world. Shallow, vain, rich, moral, interesting, dull, giving, caring, wooden, selfish, ignorant, bundles of emotion, and those that can't empathize. These are just a fraction of the categories that we can put ourselves. Who are your characters? Which type of person are they? Everyone reacts differently with the world around them. How they react greatly influences what they will do in a given situation. No two people react exactly the same way. Knowing your characters helps to know what they will do as they encounter the plot you have set for them. They might not do what you expect. They might do something totally foreign to you. That is the excitement of writing. We get to experience new people and new reactions to the situations that we have devised.

Ask yourself a series of questions about your characters. Write down the answers. Use it as a reference sheet as you write. Keep yourself coming back to who they are as people. Some stories will create development and growth. Other stories will expose the characters for who they are. We will either see people that adapt and change and rise to the challenges around them or we will see people who tuck their heads and ignore reality and selfishly look out for only their own interests. Which type of character are you writing?

Where were they born?
Did they have two parents or one?
Were their grandparents part of their lives?
Did they have a loving home?
What was their financial situation growing up?
What region or area did they live in?
What were their childhood dreams?
Did they have a best friend?
Did they have a pet?
Were they loners?
Did they play outside or were they homebodies?

Where did they go to school?
Did they have a favorite teacher?
Did they have a good time in school?
Were they bullied?
Were they bullies?
What studies did they enjoy?
Did they struggle with a subject?
Did they plan for further education or did they drop out?

What was their first job?
What was their original career goal?
Do they have a hard time in interviews?
Do they enjoy working with the public?
Are they graveyard workers or morning people?
Did they learn to drive right away or wait?
Did they fail the first time out?
Were they teased by their friends for how they dressed?
Did they set the standards of fashion of their friends?

When did they first fall in love?
Did they have a high school sweetheart?
Were they wallflowers?
Did they go to dances?
Were they scared of the opposite sex?
Were they confused as to what they wanted?
Did they know exactly what they wanted, but it was frowned on?
Did they find it easy to attract others?
Were they a one-person lover?
Did they date anyone that came along?
Did they have their heart broken?
Is sex just a part of a relationship or a driving force in their lives?
Do they fear committment?

What do they want to do right now?
What do they want to do five years from now?
Do they have a dream job?
Do they have a dream home?
Do they think about what they want to do when they retire?
Do they want to travel?
What is their secret desire?
What is their number one unfulfilled hope/dream/want?
What is the next big purchase they want to make?
Are friends and friendship important to them?
Do they prefer a solitary life?

These questions are just examples. They are not really categorized in a strict way. Our lives are not categories. Our decisions and desires and personality traits cross lines and mesh and become messy. That is who we are as people. That is also who our characters are. It is always interesting in hindsight to see what it was about you that made you decide something. We have regrets. We have dreams. We have an ideal of who we are. We struggle with what we actually do and accomplish.

Explore your characters. Get to know them and how they function and think. It only helps you in the end to write them in an honest way. Be true to who they are and they will be real to who reads them. That is the goal of all storytelling. To present real people. With all their foibles and triumphs.

A Rose By Any Other Name

Would a rose smell as sweet if - as Homer once suggested - it was called a stinkblossom? A name can be a powerful thing. It can summarize a person or thing. It can become a description for that object in and of itself. It can also seem way off. Names are important.

When you are creating a character, do you start with the name? Or do you name it after you have met the character more fully? Many parents have names in mind for their children, but once they are born switch to another. Usually because the child didn't seem to be what they had picked: "She didn't really look like a Charlotte". Others think that it doesn't matter. Yet later in life many people shorten their names to nicknames and suddenly the name fits.

I can be arbitrary with characters names. Sometimes I pick them for that they mean. If I have a mousy character in mind, I will try and find a name that means mousy. It doesn't always work. But sometimes it does. Once or twice I have picked a name because I liked it and discovered later that it meant the exact qualities I had been writing into that character.

What do you do? Do you pick them by covering your eyes and pointing at the phonebook? Or do you put research and thought into them?

Transformation

I am in the process of turning a short story into a comic. It will probably be a one-shot. I don't think the story is suited for continuing. It is harder to do than I thought it would be. I have scripted smaller things, but this one is hard because I want to capture the spirit of the story. It is poignant. A tale of loss and longing. Ultimately it is a story of love that lasts beyond life's little bumps - like death. In some ways it is a lot easier to portray it in picture. Easier to show than describe.

But in other ways it is the opposite. Prose is a great way to get into the inner mind of a character. To describe in many ways the various sides of a person or a situation. To use different viewpoints. With a comic, you are dealing with snapshots. A single picture with some words that needs to capture the imagination the way text can. The best comics let you forget you are reading the same way the best storytellers do.

Of course, since I have the drawing talent of the three year old who can't master stick figures I have to rely upon the artistic talents of others to create the vision. Each artist will also bring his or her experience and take on the story. No matter what script I write, there will be other changes and layers brought to it. The trick is to create a script that will make them stick to the story while giving them room to add their own touch.

Collaboration can be the best thing in the world or the most restrictive. Finding the right partner is very important. Creating the right script. Working through the drafts. Being open to change, to another person's interpretation, and to generally be willing to play well with others are also key.

In the end, I hope that it will be a success. Only time will tell though.

Break

Sorry, but I have to take a break from daily posts for a couple of days. I will be back on Monday. I have too many things on the go in my personal life and I just can`t seem to focus. No point posting something that is crap.

Updates

Life can get hectic. Still fighting over editing on past project (but looking good. If successful they will have to spring for new edition). Have to do a re-write on YA story. Have a script to finish for a graphic novel. Have multiple scripts to start (still in planning stages) for a web project that might launch next year. Running through the final edit check (after last issue I have learned to check their work - hard lesson) for Sacred Shadows. About halfway through plotting next Den of 13 novel. And now I have a new project.

This one is an amateur sleuth novel mixed with a little bit of a thriller. There is tons of research to do for this one. I have enlisted a writing partner for it so that I am not doing all the legwork. Am debating whether or not to blog/facebook post the process of the novel from start to finish. The research (and why it is needed), the characters (how they are created), plotting (just basics and as few spoilers as possible), proofreading, editing, final checks, and publishing. It would be separate from my ususal near-daily posts. And it might be an interesting exercise. Thinking out loud is always a good way to figure out what you are doing.

Not sure what all I will decide, but if I do it you'll see it here, lol. If you have any thoughts on the idea feel free to share them. I always value the opinions of others. Like them or hate them, they help you to see your blind spots.

Playtesting

So you have a plot. You're not sure if it is good or not. What do you do? Maybe you talk to people you know and trust. Maybe you talk to fellow authors on a website. Maybe you just post a blog or two and work out your doubts with your fans. Maybe you just sit and stare at the blank page until something comes up. I have done all of those. I have also playtested.

Roleplaying games are quite popular. They are simply stories like the old Choose Your Own Adventure books but with dice. At their best they are stories that are determined by the players. The person controlling the game creates a large box and sets up all the information, clues, treasures, friends, and enemies. Then they let the players loose in that box and see how far they get or how well they do. It is a fun way to spend a day.

I decided on one project to let some players run around in the box of my plot. I got everything ready and invited five people to play a group of friends. I set the stage with the first several chapters of the book and then let them loose. It was an interesting exercise in human thought. They went very few places I expected them too. They did not act like I would have had the characters act. And there were a few situations where I had to steer them away from all out death and/or dismemberment by the bad guys. In the end we all had fun, which was the point of the day.

I sat down later to process what I had learned. I kept most of the plot as I had intended. I did change a few things. If people are that stupid, then I felt I should portray them as that stupid. In tense and stressful situations people panic. Instead of picking up that fire extinguisher and putting out the small oven fire they run around shouting "fire, fire, fire" and let it become a blaze. They ignore the briefcase with the thousand dollar bills and focus on the slashed tire of their car. They are an incomprehensible bunch. As it has been said: a person can be smart, but people are stupid. I found that to be true. But the changes it wrought made it a very organic mix of people. They were a group that worked together and against each other. They were a group that went route B when most would go route A. They acted like ... well ... people.

I would not recommend playtesting for every story. I would also not recommend using the changes that might come up in playtesting for every story. There are those out there who hate the idiocy of herd mentality - and let's not blame them because a group of people can be responsible for the stupidest behavior. In some ways injecting "real" people into your story may not work the best for it in the end. It is a decision everyone needs to make on their own and then deal with the consequences: not everyone will like your story. But you can console yourself that you know for a fact your characters acted like real people. The idiots.