Daniel M. Bensen's Blog, page 43

Small, medium, large stories

I’m trying a new technique with planning Fellow Tetrapod: asking myself: “what are the small, medium, and large stories of this novel?” Here are the answers:

A biologist tries to open a restaurant, get a girlfriend, and find meaning in life.

A struggling entrepreneur forms a group therapy club that turns into a dangerous gang.

A diplomatic staffer tries to make sure humanity does not screw up its chance to participate in the larger universe.

Funnily enough, these stories also turned out to be from different characters’ perspectives (protagonist, antagonist, and relationship character). That’s pretty cool. I’m gonna keep it that way.

Also, it seems as if a third of my book will be Fight Club. The other two thirds will be Zootopia and Mission London, though, so that’s okay.

Advice for starting writers

 

Hey Tommy! Nice! Writing fiction is a lot of fun, although sometimes it’s hard to keep it that way. I hesitate to give you specific advice since different techniques work for different people, and you won’t know how to tell what will be applicable to you until you’ve actually started writing. But I can say what worked for me: (1) making a routine (x time spent trying to write every y) (2) keeping a notebook with ideas (or a phone app or whatever) (3) making friends who are also writers (4) cultivating a group of people to bet-read and give me feedback (I’d be happy to read your stuff, by the way) (5) researching writing craft so I know what techniques are out there — the Writing Excuses podcast has been helpful (they mostly do scifi and fantasy though) and the book Story Genius by Lisa Cron.

Personally, I like to write outlines detailed enough that I won’t paint myself into a corner, but vague enough that writing feels like a process of discovery. Other people prefer to just start writing and then do revision after revision to iron out the problems later — still others make their outlines more and more detailed until the outline becomes a novel. You can produce a good book from anywhere on the outline/nooutline spectrum, but the question is how to have the fun possible during the process of writing.

So anyway, I start by collecting all my notes about a story and finding connections between them. In parallel, I have a basic story structure (e.g. The Hollywood Three Act Structure, but there are many, and I try to use different ones for each story) and I plug in my ideas where they fit into the structure. Then I look at the beginning of the story and the denouement and try to figure out what needs to happen between them.

I ask myself: what do I promise at the beginning of the story? What’s the most interesting way to deliver it? What’s my central message or theme? How does the theme get developed? What do I have to teach the reader in order for the denouement to make sense to them? Most importantly: how does the protagonist change from the beginning to the end? I need to make sure that each thing that happens to the protagonist (the plot of the book) makes that person change in some way.

I’m still working out the kinks in the process. But that’s where I am right now

Anyway I hope this was helpful and good luck!

I Grasp the Teacup

I grasp the teacup

And a shiver goes through me

Pressed palm and hot clay

Fellow Tetrapod: Character Philosophies

There once was a man who said “Damn!

“It is borne upon me that I am

“An engine that moves

“In predestinate grooves;

“I’m not even a bus, I’m a tram!”

-Maurice Evan Hare

So I’ve been asking around about philosophy, trying to get deeper into the transformation of Koen Ruis. Turns out I knew a lot less about philosophy than I thought I did. Here’s where I’m going now:

At the beginning of the Koen believes that since human behavior is caused by electrochemical processes shaped by evolution; we are just meat robots. Free will is meaningless and none of what we do matters. In other words, he’s a nihilist, but the antagonist and relationship character are existentialists.*

The Relationship character believes that meaning comes from the community (we agree on what words mean etc.). If everyone but her agrees on something, she must be wrong.

The Antagonist believes that his subjective experience of events (his qualia) give those events meaning. If he’s angry, that anger must be justified.

At the end, after much excitement and alien schenanigans, Koen believes that finding himself with these instincts, having learned these lessons, in this world, he wants to improve things. Why not try?

We can always strike out farther along the path toward meaning, explaining more and more of the causes for our behaviors, but we’ll never explain everything. We won’t “run out of ignorance.”

Thanks to Steve Bein, Jeremy A. TeGrotenhuis, Stephen Cox, and many others for their help with nailing down these philosophies and their consequences.

*none of the characters is a philosopher, and none of them has thought about any of this stuff very explicitly. The labeling of philosophical schools is just so that I can do better research and character development

That Warm Autumn Smell

That warm autumn smell

Run or we’ll be late for school

I’ll buy the pumpkins

Fellow Tetrapod interviews 1

Koenraad “Koen” Robbert Ruis (b. Rotterdam 1988) is an evolutionary biologist who enjoys taxidermy and cooking, sometimes at the same time. PhD Evolutionary Biology from University of Groningen, MA in International Affairs, Conflict Resolution, and Civil Society Development.

What do you care about?

Well, I care about people. Maybe this is a not so normal thing for an evolutionary biologist to say. Why didn’t I become a doctor or a psychologist? Because people – humans – need around them an environment of non-humans. I mean trees, grass, dogs, earthworms, even leeches. You can’t really be a person in a concrete box, can you? No, to make a good life, a cozy life, one needs an entire complex edifice of species that have co-evolved with us. That’s just the kind of animal we are.

How are you an outcast?

I do not think I am an outcast. I am always surrounded by people. I love to invite guests to my flat and show them my taxidermy and feed them my cooking. “Sometimes both are from the same animal!” I joke. Alright, I am a bit grotesque. Maybe some people don’t accept the second invitation. That’s not so easy when those people are one’s colleagues. Yes, things were hard when I lived in Paris. Politicians do not seem to have the same sense of humor as biologists. If this is an issue for my new colleagues in Convention City, I shall make fewer jokes and more delicious meals.

What are you good at?

Of course I am well-qualified in evolutionary biology and international conflict resolution. This is not boasting – this is the reason why I was accepted into the staff of the United Nations mission to the Convention of Sapient Species. But that you may read from my CV, and about cooking and taxidermy I have already told you. I suppose at base I am good at keeping an open mind and remaining affable. These and studying hard, of course!

What flaw do you have that makes the above skill difficult to put into practice?

This is another question very like a job interview. I’ll do my best to answer. I am friendly, and most people return the favor, but I bore easily. Most of my conversations are with politicians who do not care about non-humans, or biologists who do not care about humans. Does this mean my sin is pride? Alienation? Well, this is why my hopes are high for the CSS, a polity of non-humans, after all. Maybe in Convention City, I will no longer be a host with no guests.

Fellow Tetrapod begins

Hello everyone! I’ve been silent for a while, but now real life is backing off a bit and I’m starting a new story. It’s called Fellow Tetrapod and I’m very excited about it.

Fellow Tetrapod is a hard scifi talking animal story. Assume a government of united representatives of sapient species from alternate Earths. On one, baboons took over, on another rotifers. Fun!

But how would you really build a multi-species society? How would you deal with all the different instinctive reactions of the citizenry? What about their different physical needs for food, space, and basic climate? What benefits would make all these compromises worth it?

I don’t exactly know the answers to those questions yet, which is why I’m excited about it. I’m also eager to really dig into the meat of speculative evolution. What would an intelligent baboon look like? A raven? A rotifer? How would their cultures develop? What would they be like as dinner guests? What would you serve them? Bread is fine for the baboon (they evolved from a galada-like ancestor and domesticated grains while we were still figuring out napped flint), but will gum up the raven’s guts. Better stick with popcorn. And what the hell is a rotifer?

Yeah, that’s the real reason I’m excited about Fellow Tetrapod. It’s an excuse to geek out about phylogenetics. So join me, won’t you? I’ll be sharing stuff from my writing process over the next year or so. Come back often and tell me I’m a madman.

Clouds on Vitosha

Clouds on Vitosha

A white blanket inside out

Under warm tops, snow.

Virginia Creepers

Virginia creepers

Give cranberry-colored leaves

To her collection

Yellow leaves at last

Yellow leaves at last

My children might be crying

Their teachers’ll deal