Eric Witchey's Blog: Shared ShadowSpinners Blog , page 30

The Scope of Editing

by Matthew Lowes

The basic idea of editing is simple: delete, add, or change in such a way to improve a piece of writing. However, the scope of editing is vast, touching upon every aspect of writing and rewriting, and every level of a manuscript, from the lowly word to the grand structures of plot, characterization, setting, and theme. Up to and including throwing everything out and starting over, nothing is off limits; everything is subject to potential scrutiny.

Editing is often broken up into content editing and line editing, to separate the contents of the story from the mechanics of the writing. This is a practical division for first and final passes, but ultimately mechanics and content are inextricably linked. So between those first and final passes, I think of editing as a more holistic process, which happens at various levels of the text, always keeping in mind my ultimate ends for the story. Here are the levels broken down and my thoughts regarding them.

Words: Use active verbs and specific nouns. Destroy adverbs whenever possible! Look for other personal problem words. Check spelling and/or meaning of questionable words. The sound and meaning of choice words creates the mood, the setting, the characters and themes, and many of the things considered content at a higher level.

Sentences: Identify overwriting and redundancy in content or meaning, and correct it with deletes and rewriting. Check grammar, punctuation, and clarity. Use sentence structures to convey meaning. For example, short simple sentences can suggest rapid action or clarity of thought, while longer sentences can suggest ponderous action or complexity of thought at the sentence level or a higher level.

Paragraphs: Check for clarity and purpose. Tend to paragraph breaks and formatting for dialogue. Again, correct any overwriting and redundancies. Refine words and sentences, until each paragraph flows with poetic quality. Paragraphs should lead the reader ever onward, beginning, developing and culminating movements on the scene and story level.

Scenes: Make sure each scene has a purpose within the story, rooted in conflicts that burrow down to level of sentences and words. Ideally every scene should advance the plot and develop the characters. The point of view and setting should be clear, with reference to key sensory details. For extra credit, sow the seeds of overarching themes and foreshadow future events happening at the story level.

Story: Does the structure of the story create the desired effect? Is there a clear protagonist and antagonist? A beginning, a middle, and an end? What is the conflict at the heart of the story and how is it resolved? How do the characters change as a result of the story’s events? Does the pacing and order of scenes serve the story? And finally, does it all add up? Seek out and correct inconsistencies, errors, contradictions, and omissions at every level, all the way down to the level of the words used for everything, for times, colors, textures, smells, and the names of people, places and things … down to the very atoms that make up the fictitious reality.

Tagged: creative process, editing, Matthew Lowes, writing habits

Realerism: Why Does This Story Feel More Real Than That One? By Eric M. Witchey

Source: pboehringer. Purchased under license @ istockphoto.com for use in this blog.

Realerism: Why Does This Story Feel More Real Than That One?

By Eric M. Witchey

Text that evokes the heart, history, and physical experience of character while managing dramatic timing and avoiding reminders that the story in the mind of the reader is actually coming from text on the page tends to “feel more real.”

I’m writing this the weekend after Thanksgiving, and I am thankful for my many writing friends, and I’m especially thankful for people who ask me questions that help me think about what I do and how I do it.

This week, Chris Pence, one of my online writing buddies, asked me a question that got me thinking. A while back, Chris read my original ED ACE article from Writer’s Digest, and he’s been working with that tool for a while. As most writers know, if you work with any specific technique for a while, you find its edges and new questions to ask. This week, Chris asked me about the illusion of realism. Specifically, he said, “I’ve been re-reading Stephen King lately, mostly early stuff, and I’m struck with how realistic he was able to make those stories feel. Too many stories I read never quite shed the “fiction” feel. What advice do you have on increasing the realism in a story?”

Before answering, focusing on two things in this question is important. First, Chris is asking about “feel.” Second, he is asking about the reader’s experience rather than the concept of realism as it is used in literary criticism.

The question is simple enough, but the answers are complex.

Note the plural of answer.

The factors that mix in order to create or detract from a sense of realism are myriad.

First, consider that each reader brings their genetics, early life imprinting, personal history, family culture, community culture, regional culture, national culture, religious background, gender experience, sexual experience, travel experience, etc. to their reading. Therefore, realism for one reader is different than realism for another. In Jungian terms, while there are culturally recognizable archetypal images and symbols, each specific image and symbol has its own much more particular meaning for any one individual. In fact, Jung believed that it was not possible to decode an individual’s relationship to their own symbolism until extensive personal history and background had been fully understood. As writers, we don’t get to sit down with each reader and explore their background. We get to write from our experience and with a general sense of our audience’s experience in mind. If we all wrote the same way, from the same experience, and with the same sense of the symbolic, we would all have the same audience. Luckily, we don’t.

The written word, in fiction, is a guided meditation–a sort of hypnosis–in which the writer is the guide and the text is the voice the guide uses.

The reader begins with trust that allows them to slip into the illusion. In fact, the opening of a book is a ritual of trust. If the writer does nothing to violate that trust, readers allows themselves to be immersed in the experience. Once the writer violates the trust, the reader breaks free from the illusion.

Realism, in the case of Chris’s question, is a term that describes the reader’s ability to completely believe in the experience of the reading.

If the above is all true, which is debatable, then the mix of techniques employed by the writer interacts with the set of experiences and expectations of the reader to create a completeness of belief—a feeling of realism.

So far, none of what I have said is particularly helpful to a writer attempting to place little black squiggles on a white background and call it a story. Execution is very different from theory. However, the above is important to understand in terms of background for what follows.

Here’s a piece of the execution side of realerism.

For me, and I stress that this is a description of my experience, the sense of the piece being “a piece of fiction” lingering in the background results from slight violations to my sense of immersion as a result of character depth, timing, and attributions. This is a fairly simplistic description, but those three things can be used as categories for larger and more complex subjects. However, it is important to keep in mind that many more factors can influence the reader’s belief in the fictive dream. For example, I won’t be talking about objective correlative, clinching details, telling details, concrete imagery, and many other things.

Traditionally, narrative immersed in character experience is called “close subjective narrative.” Personally, I prefer the more descriptive phrase, “reader experiencing through the character filter.” What I mean by that is that every moment and everything in the story within the perception of character is selected and interpreted based on character psychology, physiology, social history, emotion, and agenda. That experience and observation is grounded in the sensory and reactionary experience of the character.

You can say:

He felt the warmth of the sun on his cheek and wondered why she had left so abruptly. No matter. He would find her that evening at her mother’s house and prove his love.

Note that the character in question has a sensory experience. He has emotion, curiosity followed by determination. He considers and decides. The lines can be mapped to the ED part of ED ACE. The character has an Emotion that drives a Decision.

Aside: For people not familiar with ED ACE, it is an acronym for an emotional logic cycle that often functions in the mind of the reader as they experience story: Emotion drives Decision, which results in Action, which initiates Conflict, which results in a new Emotion. The new Emotion initiates the next cycle. I’m sorry, but I don’t have space here to provide a more detailed exposition of the concept and how it can be used and abused.

However, the sun on the character’s face may not have anything to do with his deeper psychology and emotion. Consequently, the reader will feel that he is false–not real—because he is paying attention to something that violates the reader’s internal sense of who that character is and how they “would” behave in this moment. Additionally, he is “feeling” the sun, which means that the reader is not in his skin experiencing the world through him. This creates another level of distance that is “unreal.”

Here’s a revision of the lines. This time, I’m making the world something that is experienced through the selection caused by his truer emotion and interpreted from the perspective of his specific psychology and emotional state.

He had loved the summer sun warming his cheeks when they had played on Aunt Sophie’s beach as a children, but this sun, the sun of the midland forests, was an insult to life and love. This heat in his cheeks raised his hackles and made unwelcome goose flesh crawl up his arms.

He abandoned their driftwood bench, rejecting any place where she had turned her cold cheek to him. Heading through the forest toward the parking lot, he kicked through the fern-choked undergrowth, imagining himself a god striding through delicate ice castles in her heart. The crack and slap of each frond was another wall falling, another defense against him dying.

She could not hide her heart from a god. Tonight. Tonight at her mother’s house he would make her understand his love.

Okay, what has happened is that every object in the experience of the character has taken on significance to him in the context of the emotional experience he is living through. A small amount of back story created contrast between an earlier life innocent state and a current obsessive, tainted state.

This is what I mean by depth of character. Every detail that is selected, recognized, interpreted, and experienced by character is a result of the character’s psychology and their emotional state and agenda in that moment of the story.

Strained Example: Given the above character in setting, consider how the reader would respond to the following.

He had loved the summer sun warming his cheeks when they had played on Aunt Sophie’s beach as a children, but this sun, the sun of the midland forests, was an insult to life and love. The white sand back then had been a mystery, and he had more than once set out to count all the grains on the beach. Once, he had even tried to take a bucket of sand in to the kitchen table so he could count grains while it was raining outside. Of course, nobody had helped him at the time, and his mother had gotten angry. Luckily, his sister had been willing to help him clean up the mess. Now, the heat in his cheeks raised his hackles and made unwelcome goose flesh crawl up his arms.

He abandoned their driftwood bench, rejecting any place where she had turned her cold cheek to him. Kicking through the fern-choked undergrowth, he imagined himself a god striding through the ice castles in her heart. The crack and slap of each frond was another wall falling, another defense against him dying. Each fern matched his sense of order in the way that fiddleheads and fronds confirmed nature’s use of the Fibonacci sequence. It would have been good to sit down and unwind a few fiddleheads just to count the curls and see the numbers and symmetry. He supposed that he wouldn’t be able to explain that to a poet or a songwriter, but what did he care about people like that?

She could not hide her heart from a god. Tonight. Tonight at her mother’s house he would make her understand his love.

In this example, the reader’s sense of character is either strained or broken because the interpretation of the images contradict one another in terms of their support for his emotional state and psychology. Because they are not quite resonant, they also create a violation in the reader’s sense of timing. Even though a case could be made that the passage on Fibonacci reinforces his obsessive nature, such a passage strains the reader’s sense of belief in how he “should” think and behave if he is experiencing the suggested emotions.

Now, a few words about timing.

Each genre has expectations. Story is story, but the mix of techniques for rendering story changes from genre to genre. On a more subtle level, the mix of technique also changes from writer to writer. Timing is a function of the way in which the writer provides narrative content, character experience, conflict, and detail. When the timing is right, the reader never considers the components of story in any way. When the timing is off, the reader becomes aware of the words and how they are organized on the page. While the writer can manipulate timing, they cannot control the reader’s sense of how the timing should be managed.

Have you ever heard someone say, “Once I got used to the language, I was able to read (insert classical author name here).” For me, that’s an apt description of how I feel when I read Tolstoy, Jane Austin, or Henry James. I have to get used to the rhythm of the narrative and the movement of narrative distance in and out of character experience. I have to get used to the flow of the syntax that was used at the time the tale was written. Only after I choose to spend some time reading such stories do I relax into the experience of the worlds they render for me.

Consider if in the passages above the character had, in addition to considering fiddleheads and Fibonaci, waxed poetic on the carpet of fall leaves beneath the ferns and the way in which some were already damp and rotted while others were caught in fern fronds as if immune to the natural mortality of the earth and the cycle of life. Imagine if he had moved from that little internal essay into an assessment of his own relationship to the woman in question and how she wanted him to be a damp, moldering leaf while she remained green, and full of life on the tree as if the coming winter were a mere inconvenience. . ..

This type of introspection might function well for one type of reader. They might consider it quite wonderful and part of the realism of the psychology of the character. Another reader (me, for instance) might consider it overwritten crap that gets in the way of the truer, more terse interior truth of character. For me, the timing would suck, and I would stop reading after one or two passages like that.

Interestingly, however, I would not stop listening if the book were in audio form and the reader were accomplished. Different input experiences create different tolerances.

In the timing category, issues of presented detail during the Decision in the ED ACE cycle and narrative overburdening of the E tend to be where problems demonstrate themselves. In fact, in terms of ED ACE, the decision is often implied by emotion and context in order to manage timing and not violate the reader’s sense of realism.

Timing problems also often result from inconsistency in how the E and D moments are handled. If the character is prone to the poetics described above, the writer has to be careful to make sure that the poetics occur when action, conflict, and emotion are equal in tension and speed. When, for instance, action is frantic, the poetics will disappear to an extent. In a moment of peace prior to a reversal, the poetics might go on for a while in order to create the idyllic lull that will be violated by the coming plot turn.

So, what about attributions? Most writers develop a sense of when to, and when not to, use dialog attributions (he said, she said). If at all possible, I like to allow scene business, character action, diction, and dialog implications to provide attribution. These techniques help keep the reader in the experience of the dialog. Of course, it is not likely that a writer will get rid of all dialog attribution.

In the same way, sensory attributions are occasionally necessary. Example of sensory attribution:

He felt the heat of the sun on his cheek.

He felt, saw, heard, tasted, wondered, etc….

All of these are sensory attributions.

A common error in developing writers is constantly, and without reason, narrating at a level outside character. One of the markers for that type of narration is sensory attribution. If “he felt the heat,” then the narrator is watching him feel it, which means the reader is experiencing it second hand through someone telling them about it. Refer back to the second passage above in order to see how the “felt” got replaced with direct experience and interpretation that was more true to character psychology, desire, and immediate experience.

These sensory attributions are, at times, necessary. However, text that relies entirely on them always “feels like fiction.” In addition, scenes that only allow the reader to “see” the scene and not to smell it, hear it, feel it, taste it, and have an emotional sense of the ambiance also cause the reader to feel outside the reality of the story.

So, text that evokes the heart, history, and physical experience of character while managing timing and avoiding reminders that the story in the mind of the reader is actually coming from text on the page tends to “feel more real.” Of course, how real depends on the skill of the writer and the mix of personal characteristics and expectations that the reader brings to the text.

-End-

Tagged: fantasy, fiction, horror, how to, Novel Writing, Short Story Writing, writer, writing, Writing Dark Fiction, writing habits

A Writer Gives Thanks

By Cheryl Owen-Wilson

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving a time when in homes throughout the USA we sit around tables laden and overflowing with an abundance of food; surrounded by those we love. Please take a moment to give to or to remember those in this country who are not so fortunate. In our home as in many, we go around the table and recite the litany of things in our lives we give thanks for; in that vein I’ve written you a writers’ Thanksgiving poem.

T is for the Tingling, which travels up and down my spine;

whenever a new story begins whispering, through the corridors of my mind.

H is for the Humor; I must pull from deep within;

whenever opening rejection letters, again and again.

A is for Artists, of every shape and every sort,

for within their creativity, lays the Universe’s, beating heart.

N is for NanoWriMo, a time when writers everywhere,

turn off their internal editor, without a single worry or a care.

K is for the Kindred spirit I feel, when surrounded by my peers,

for through their shared experience, they calm my many fears.

S is for Shadowspinners, “When Nice People Write Bad Things”,

where each and every Wednesday, you are treated to our entertaining, musings.

G is for Growing, as we inevitably must do.

Yes, practice and more practice, is a writers’ must have, virtue.

I is for the Inklings, my ever supportive writing group.

Do you have one, for when your story begins to droop?

V is for Victorious, which is how I will feel,

when a publisher says, “Yes, let’s make a deal”.

I is for Imagination, something every writer must possess;

for without it, this becomes quite a laborious, process.

N is for Nature, where I escape to meditate and rejuvenate;

when my muse is being a reprobate, and refuses to cooperate.

And the final G is an abundant Gratitude,

for this profession which allows us to laugh, to cry and to play,

with our imaginary characters, each, and every single day.

 

What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving?

Tagged: gratitude, writers, writing

There’s more to the story….

By  Cynthia Coate Ray

Last week Liz Cratty gave us the recipe for a story: an interesting setting, an interesting conflict, and an interesting protagonist. Of course, being in possession of an excellent recipe doesn’t necessarily make us excellent cooks.

Sure, there are techniques, rules and form. We can talk about grammar, diagramming sentences and character arcs, but those are not the story. Even when we add them all together with setting, conflict and protagonists and antagonists, those are no more the story than a woman is only muscles, bones and hair.

So what is the special something that goes beyond the parts and pieces to make beautiful and compelling stories? What makes it whole? What is it that breathes life into the story? It can only be the writer. Each of us has a powerful magic that resides deep inside of us, alive and waiting to be released in words. The magic is your own way of looking at the world.

The particular story can only come through you-you and no one else. Sometimes we are afraid of that power, of owning our truth. It can’t be validated by anyone else. No one can tell you what it feels like, what it looks like or how it should be.

We are told to embrace what makes us unique, strange, weird, and special. Our very brokenness-that is where the power is. That is where the magic is. That is where the story comes from. Light reflects through the facet of a jewel. Your story reflects through the facet of your soul.

So to be a good writer, learn the recipe, and then forget it. Dig deep into your magic core and let it flow through your fingers onto the page.

Tagged: creative process, Short Story Writing, writer, writing

Now that’s a story!

By Elizabeth Engstrom

Last weekend we took the train to Seattle to see a Seahawks game. We do this every year, and hilarity rules. It’s always a good time.

On the way home, the train hit a deer. We, in the second car from the engine, thought we had hit a rockslide. The noise was astonishing. Turns out the deer took out the entire air system under the train, which included brakes and toilets and air conditioning. We were dead in the water, stuck in a little alcove with no cell service.

Four hours later, another train pulled up alongside, and we carefully stepped directly from our train to the next, and soon we were on our way home.

It took us twelve hours for a six hour trip. Annoying. Inconvenient. But is it a story? No.

Yet many friends suggested this was the start of a new book, or a new story. But it’s not, really.

So what makes a story? An interesting setting. An interesting conflict. An interesting protagonist.

There was nothing really interesting about our predicament. The crew was kind and helpful, the passengers patient and understanding. And we all knew that Amtrak has its issues with under-funding, sharing the track with freight trains and common delays. I take the train frequently. I know about the delays, as do most people who take the train on a regular basis. It’s part of the deal.

An Interesting Setting: Stories set on trains are always fun for people who love trains. But Amtrak? Not nearly interesting enough a setting. The Orient Express? Now you’re talking.

An Interesting Conflict: There are only three plots: Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Man, and Man vs. Himself.

There was only one real conflict on this trip, and it had to do with the poor deer. We were ten minutes from Portland. Maybe if we were in the middle of the Serengeti, or hundreds of miles from any kind of civilization, we could conjure up a nice conflict.

An Interesting Protagonist: Not that I saw. But then, just as a good president is made by the conflict he faces, a good conflict is what makes an interesting protagonist. What normal person aboard that train would rise to the occasion to battle the conflict and become everyone’s hero? Hmmm…

I collect interesting settings in my Compost File. I also collect interesting protagonist names and character flaws, and I am always on the lookout for interesting conflicts. But they don’t always fit together. It takes a certain amount of magic for the three to click together, and when that happens, the story begins to tell itself.

Re-read The Flight of the Phoenix for the best possible example of an interesting conflict, played out by an interesting protagonist in an interesting setting.

And I, for one, will continue to ride the rails, happily so, searching out story ideas, even when it is inconvenient.

Tagged: creative process, story, writing

Murder in the Third Act

By K. Ferrin

This week I killed six people. I’d been thinking about it for weeks. Who to kill, how to do it, how to hide the bodies so no one would know. I schemed, I plotted, I chose my weapon, then I made the blood flow.

It’s a little late in the game to make such dramatic changes in a manuscript. I was thirty-two chapters into this novel and had just started final approach toward that last climactic scene. I was only a couple of weeks away from finishing the book, but it just didn’t feel right. That magical flash you get when you know you’ve nailed a story wasn’t there. My characters were not cooperating. I suddenly had so much to do I didn’t have time to write. Rather than flowing like warm caramel the words were coming in violent thrusts that made me feel more like a rodeo cowboy than a writer.

When the story, the characters, and your muse start fighting you, you know you’ve got a problem.

After struggling through the incoming tsunami for weeks I finally admitted to myself I’d taken a wrong turn somewhere along the line and the story had to be redrafted. Letting go of a completion date that’s right around the corner was tough. Even tougher, the redrafting was bloodier than the Red Wedding, more violent than Sin City, and more terrifying than clowns under the bed. I’ve never seen so much blood in one place. The imaginative lives of so many oozing off my keyboard and pooling on the floor beneath my desk left me feeling faint. The poor dears… they never saw it coming.

Every act of creation is first an act of destruction Pablo Picasso said, and he was right. While the life of my last victim was still draining off the page the remaining characters surged back to life, jumping into action with such animus even I was shocked. My muse settled lightly onto the corner of my desk and began whispering into my ear, the caramel creaminess of her voice unspooling words as fast as I could type them. All that ‘stuff’ that had been keeping me so busy vanished faster than the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups from a mixed bag of Halloween candy.

As authors we have to trust ourselves, trust our link to the gypsy-voodoo-black-magic underbelly of the creative process, but perhaps most importantly, we have to trust our own intuition. If you begin to suspect you’ve chosen the wrong path in your story don’t be afraid to arm yourself and go all vampire slayer on your story. Whether you prefer stakes, swords, or guns for your bloodletting matters not, only that you let your story bleed. In the end it will be much stronger for it.

****

About K. Ferrin ~

During the daylight hours I live in a world filled with high technology – satellites, windowless buildings filled with humming machinery and robust HVAC systems, and networks spanning half the globe.  I also run a business consulting company (www.pixie9.com).

When the working-day ends the world around me shifts from one filled with engineers and machines to one filled with magic, myth and adventure.  My heart lives here, along with this blog and my writing.  I write fantasy of all kinds, some epic and some urban or dark, some young adult and some for more mature readers.

You can find my young adult novel Magicless at all major online retailers, and the ebook on Amazon.

**I write for various audiences.  If you are looking for young adult ‘clean’ reads please look for the YA label on the spine and the back of the book.**

To find out more about  K. and her work, check out her website, K.Ferrin/Creator of Worlds

Tagged: creative process, creativity, writing, Writing Dark Fiction

13 Fun Monster Resources and Websites for Business and Pleasure

By Sarina Dorie

I write about monsters in my speculative fiction and I love to read about monsters. One of my favorite fairytales has always been Beauty and the Beast and it has had a profound influence on my fantasy and romance writing. Of course, I could say the same thing about Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice, but those also are their own kind of Beauty and the Beast stories.

When a friend and I were discussing my beauty and the beast influence, most recently seen in A Monster and a Gentleman which came out in this year with my pseudonym, I wondered what that meant about my mindset and mentality toward men and women and gender roles. Did my repetition of the beauty and beast trope mean I was casting myself as a helpless maiden needing to be saved by a man who was a monster? What did this say about my dating history and my relationships? My friend, Corinna, said that actually she thought I thought I was the monster, not the beauty. That gave me a different perspective. I think this really came out in Cassia in Silent Moon. I identified with the struggle for acceptance and self-acceptance of being a monster/flawed/an outcast. Silent Moon, a Gothic romance with werewolves, ghosts and fairies is currently available as an ebook but should be out in print in November and available on Amazon.

There are resources I turn to when I write fantasy beasts and monsters. Below is list of places I go when I want to learn more.

1.

Therianthropes United

Shifter mythology, stories and theories. I write stories about shape shifters, not just werewolves, though they do make an appearance in Silent Moon.

http://www.therianthropes.com/

2.

Monstrous.com

The home page looks like a barren sitemap, but rest assured, there is a wealth of information on any kind of monster imaginable, with links to external sites as well as internal.

http://www.monstrous.com/

Here is a longer list of better known monsters and useful info about them from the Monstrous.com website.

http://monsters.monstrous.com/

3.

Paranormal Haze

This is a good starting point for goblin information. It gives brief descriptions of the various kinds. Since I write about the bogyman in Wrath of the Tooth Fairy, it gave me a good way to see the relationships between him and other goblins.

http://www.paranormalhaze.com/ten-types-of-goblins/

4.

Grendel and Beowulf

I am especially interested in all the mistranslations and the potential changes from the original text that may depict Grendel’s mother as a monster rather than a warrior.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grendel%27s_mother

5.

Ten Monsters from Mythology You Do Not Want to Meet

Many of these I have never heard of which made it a fun read.

http://listverse.com/2013/06/28/ten-monsters-from-mythology-you-do-not-want-to-meet/

6.

Multicultural Monsters

Sometimes I need a quick reference to multicultural monsters and this is succinctly stated and easily organized, probably because it is for kids. My story, the Osiris Paradox used the Egyptian gods and mythology as a basis for an ancient Egyptian science fiction story in Sword and Laser.

http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0197624.html

http://swordandlaser.com/sl-anthology/

7.

Celtic Monsters

Maybe because I am part Irish and Scottish I enjoy the folklore of my ancestors. I am always wanting to learn more.

http://www.irishcentral.com/culture/craic/the-scariest-monsters-and-demons-from-celtic-myth-67305337-237784881.html

8.

Japanese Monsters

During my time of living in Japan, going to museums, looking at the art, and talking to my Japanese coworkers I became more aware of and inspired by the rich culture, traditions and history that influences modern Japanese horror and pop culture. My Dear Jezzy series of love advice for monsters in Daily Science Fiction was in part inspired by Japanese oni in the column, “Oni You.”

http://io9.com/14-terrifying-japanese-monsters-myths-and-spirits-1498740680

9.

Monster Myths

This is a funny take on monster myths with some great history thrown in.

http://www.cracked.com/article/177_6-popular-monsters-myths-that-prove-humanity-doomed/

10.

Monster Classification

Obviously if you are going to write a scientific report about monsters you have to know what genus and kingdom it comes from.

http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0193009.html

11.

Modern Monster Mythology

I have a feeling more modern monsters are going to make it into my Wrath of the Tooth Fairy series and other stories as a result of this website.

http://www.theactivetimes.com/12-monsters-around-world?utm_source=huffington%2Bpost&utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=monster

12.

Rare World Monsters

Sometimes I am looking for something unusual and I don’t even know what I am looking for. This is one place to start if you want to feature something exotic.

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/10/rare-mythical-monsters-around-world/

13.

North American Monsters

This is the stuff urban legends are made of.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/12903/10-legendary-monsters-north-america-part-one

What Monster resource do you use?

Tagged: Beauty and the Beast, Characters, creative process, fantasy, inspiration, monsters, writing, Writing Dark Fiction, writing resources

Revision Hell and Story Amputations

By Lisa Alber

The biggest not-so-secret secret about how to write a first draft is to finish writing the first draft. That’s it. It can suck the biggest suck in the universe. Just. move. on. You can fix everything during revision.

But what happens if you get stuck in revisions? I’m revising GREY MAN, the second County Clare mystery. I keep bumping up against a point about 2/3rds the way through the manuscript where the story flies apart and snarls up at the same time.

When it comes to revision hell, I’ve tried various things with various degrees of success:

1. Brainstorming sticky plot points with friends who are better at plotting than I am.

2. Begging a friend I trust as a reader to give me feedback.

3. Going all analytical with an Excel spreadsheet. Curious? Check out this blog post over on my personal blog.

4. Shuffling colored index cards around (one color per point-of-view character) in hopes that doing so will get my inner lightbulb flashing.

5. Journaling how much I hate my story and what a suckitudinous writer I am until I’m calm enough to think straight again.

6. Reading the printed manuscript fast and taking notes on everything that comes to me as I read.

7. Returning once again to my notes about the basic three-act structure and reminding myself about the basics.

8. Throwing the baby out with the bath water. That’s right, acknowledging the project as the lost cause it is and moving on to the next story.

Sometimes, alas, the creative process just takes time, and no matter how hard I try — pummeling myself all the while — answers to my plot problems refuse to appear. I got so tired of GREY MAN that I gave it up for awhile. I couldn’t deal. Seriously. I considered throwing it away.

Then, a few weeks ago I was in the bathroom minding my own beeswax with not a coherent thought in sight. I was probably shaving my legs or something equally mundane. My little dog Fawn was probably nosing around licking up the footprint puddles I’d left as I’d stepped out of the shower. You know, just another morning. Out of nowhere a thought rose up …

Liiiisa …

Do you …

Have the wrong …

Villain?

Pfft, give me a break. But then I asked myself,

OK, you, voice from nowhere, you think you’re so smart, who the heck should the villain be then?

The answer was a  kick to the solar plexus. Whoa! I got shivers, shivers I tell you, and we all know that when your body reacts, you’re on the right track. Can we all say, Hal-le-lu-jaaaaah?

My next question was,

But why would so-and-so do such a thing?

More angels singing as the perfect motive rose up on glittering story wings. And best yet, the motive is already on the page — just needs tweaking. Other aspects of the novel need overhauling, but at least I’m excited again, which is key.

So have I learned a new revision technique that I can use in the future? Possibly. It had never occurred to me to question the basics about my story — like the villain. I thought the problem stemmed from something more complex and subtle. Character motivation or lackluster tension or something. So what I’ve learned is that before throwing out the baby, I should try cutting off its arm or leg instead.

The nice thing about amputee’d story limbs is that they grow back even better than before.

Tagged: creative process, Kilmoon, Novel Writing, revision, writing

In The Mood For Monsters

By Christina Lay

If I don’t update my Netflix queue regularly, strange things appear in my mailbox. Movies I picked out long ago, shows another person in another time thought sounded like a good idea, arrive and sit on my coffee table for weeks before being returned unwatched. Last week I was surprised to receive a collection of Classic Looney Tunes. Don’t get me wrong, I still love Bugs and Daffy, but I have a hard time imagining myself taking time out to sit and watch cartoons.

I selected the Looney Tunes disc, along with a lot of Disney movies and the entire bazillion episodes of Hercule Poirot about four years ago. This was during a time in my life when I was subsisting on cuddly comfort entertainment, when The Number One Ladies Detective Agency was the most violent show I could stand to watch. This tempering of my habits was a result of the unexpected, violent death of my partner. I couldn’t handle even a whiff of violence in videos or books and frankly, never thought I would again. Not terribly surprising, the well of conflict that feeds my writing dried up too.

Thanks to the change of seasons I’d already been thinking about our possibly demented cultural shift toward the enjoyment of fake blood, fangs, zombie masks and hallways dripping with cobwebs, when along came Bugs, inspiring me to turn a bit more inward while investigating this mood for monsters.

Enter October, the arrival of longer nights, brighter moons, slantier sunlight and paper skeletons hung with malicious glee. Yes, it’s the time of withdrawal, nesting, isolating, frightening impressionable children and hunkering in the cave of our imaginations. I can’t help but wonder what happens within myself when I set aside Agatha Christie and instead reach for an apocalyptic monster mash- for instance, The Passage by Justin Cronin.

I’m not normally a huge fan of throat-ripping undead monsters, but for whatever reason that book rocked my world. It came to me in the depths of my Disney Addiction, in a winter when I was doing chemical battle with my old friend depression and working hard to repress a new friend, PTSD. For whatever reason I picked up this brutal apocalyptic vampire tome and was absolutely mesmerized. I literally couldn’t put the damn thing down and worried so much about the fate of the characters that nightly I wrote threatening letters to the author (in my mind), anticipating severe mental anguish if he let me down.

Best. Apocalyptic. Monster. Vampire. Book. Ever! I raved to bemused friends. I poured over the structure to analyze how he manipulated my emotions so effectively. I began to write again. I don’t entirely credit The Passage. There were other books, dangerous, compelling books that filled me with anxiety and woke up the part of me that wanted to worry, intensely and deeply.

Recently I picked up The Twelve, the sequel to the Passage, and eagerly settled in for another rollercoaster ride of monster mayhem.

And settled. And . . . queued up all three seasons of Veronica Mars. I didn’t finish the damn book.

Why?

I still think Justin Cronin is an awesome writer. His world building and story crafting are impressive. Nevertheless, I wasn’t engaged enough to spend any more time or pages embedded in the dark and twisted minds of serial killers turned über vampire overlords. I know, weird.

Nothing generates reviews quite like a failure of expectations. A review is what this blog started out to be – I had a long mental list of everything Cronin did wrong this time around. Then it occurred to me that perhaps the second book was every bit as good as the first, and it was I, the reader, who’d changed. Bugs Bunny arrived to stare at me accusingly. I decided looking at my reaction to the book might be more interesting than picking the book apart.

Fact is, my mood as a consumer of entertainment has changed dramatically since I read The Passage. That particular end-of-the-world world just doesn’t appeal to me. Whatever I needed three years ago is no longer in affect.

Horror served its purpose. It allowed me to process real horror within the safe pages of a fierce fantasy. A fantasy that tore aside all pretense of civilization and laid bare the worst nightmares. It reawakened the part of my mind fascinated with conflict, people under pressure and what evil lurks in realm beyond reason. How is this a good thing, I wonder? I really don’t know. I certainly wasn’t having erudite thoughts about the value of super-vampires unleashed in the mind of a depressive PTSD writer while I read The Passage, and I’m still not sure why our society goes monster crazy in October. All I know is, thank goodness they are there for us, waiting in the shadows when we’re ready to join them.

Tagged: creative process, entertainment, fear, horror, inspiration, Justin Cronin, monsters, The Passage, writing, Writing Dark Fiction

On Finishing …

by Matthew Lowes

For twelve years I have been working on a trilogy of fantasy books. In that time I have lived in two different countries, three states, and six different homes. I’ve had eight jobs, gotten a Master’s degree, and gone through one marriage, one divorce, and two deaths in my family. Through it all I have been writing, among other things, this single epic tale. During the process, moments of boundless enthusiasm and despair mixed with long periods of just moving forward, doing the work, writing the next scene, the next chapter, the next book.

Last week I wrote THE END. I finished the last chapter of the last book and sat back, stunned by the moment and the magnitude of what I’d done. I had before me a single complete story spanning 300,000 words, roughly 1200 pages, and the occasion has gotten me thinking about finishing things, and endings in general.

I’ve talked with a lot of new and young writers who say they enjoy writing, but have trouble finishing anything. The reasons vary. Sometimes writers get stuck on a problem they never solve, or lose interest in what seems like an idea that didn’t pan out. Sometimes their story isn’t really a story, but rather a series of events with no central conflict demanding an ending. Sometimes writers just lose faith, or have a moment of doubt that brings their work to a halt and they never go back to it.

If the problem is technical, there is probably a solution if you work to find it, but sometimes the problem is psychological, a reluctance, for whatever reason, to finish. Either way, if you’re passionate about writing, you must persevere to an ending. At the very least so you get practice writing them. We all know a story must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. That’s why writing short stories is such good practice for the craft as a whole. They provide an opportunity to practice endings nearly as much as beginnings and middles.

Elizabeth Engstrom says to “find your ending in your beginning.” I always think about this when I’m coming to the end of a story. It’s important to end the story you started writing, and not some other story you picked up along the way. A strong central conflict really helps make this clear. The end must match the beginning in a way, and I found this to be just as true in a 300,000 word story as in a 1500 word story. The end must deal with the same protagonist, issues, and conflicts introduced in the beginning. So if you’re searching for an ending, that’s a good place to start.

When you get there at last, there’s nothing quite like the feeling of finishing a work of fiction. There’s a bit of magic in fiction, a sense of creating something tangible from the nebulous dreamscape of your mind. And when the last sentence is written, especially if it’s a good one, there’s a sense of triumph and relief like no other. If your project happened to take twelve years like mine did, there’s also a bittersweet sense of loss. All the unwritten scenes and plot puzzles and character arcs I carried around with me day after day … they’re all resolved now. The story is finished.

The work is far from over, of course. I already have a number of other projects I’m working on, and in a week or two I’ll dive back in for more editing and rewrites. Eventually, I’ll start thinking about the next big project, and what I want to accomplish in the next twelve years!

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*Simultaneously published on matthewlowes.com.

Tagged: creative process, Endings, Matthew Lowes, novels, short stories, writing, writing habits