Michael Coorlim's Blog, page 43

Coorlim’s Guide to NaNoWriMo 9: Show, Don’t Tell

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Coorlim’s Guide to NaNoWriMo is a multi-part series on writing, creativity, and the work-life balance throughout the month of November. Today we’re talking about showing vs telling.

Show, don’t tell

It’s one of the most maligned pieces of writing advice, second perhaps only to “write what you know.” It’s often one of those old chestnuts that writers think is optional and simple to disregard, but in many cases this is simply because it’s poorly understood.

None of the “rules” of writing are unbreakable, but as with everything else in art, you should violate this principle only with great intent and awareness of what you’re doing. Exposition can be used to great effect, but in most cases, it’s more powerful to show.

Show me

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” – Anton Chekov

First, let’s start with “why” we want to show. Most obviously is that ‘showing’ writing is more entertaining. It’s a tool to establish atmosphere and mood.

A more subtle purpose here is that it provides characterization. How? Every scene, unless you’re writing in an objective perspective, has a viewpoint character. Everything worth describing is shown from this viewpoint character’s perspective. There’s no better way to get into a character’s head than showing us what he feels about the world through the words you choose to use in your description.

This is important. When you show, you’re not just writing as you-the-writer. The phrases you use, the words you choose, they need to reflect the nature of the character doing the observing.

This is why we write descriptively. Not to show off. But to provide viewpoint character characterization.

Now tell me

There are a few reasons to choose expository paragraphs, telling, over the action of showing. The two most common reasons:

Pacing. Expository telling ‘reads’ faster than narrative showing. You can use telling to skip over boring sections that nobody is going to care to read.
Economy of words. If you’re writing a short to a specified wordcount, you can shave off a page or two just by switching to a less descriptive style.

I hope this gives you a new perspective on the question of Showing vs Telling, but ultimately it’s your own style that has to make the determination of when to switch between them.

Next time, we’re going to talk about naming your characters.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

The post Coorlim’s Guide to NaNoWriMo 9: Show, Don’t Tell appeared first on Michael Coorlim.

Coorlim’s Guide to NaNoWriMo 8: Scene Structure

Image courtesy of National Novel Writing Month

Coorlim’s Guide to NaNoWriMo is a multi-part series on writing, creativity, and the work-life balance throughout the month of November. Today we’re talking about the structure of a scene.

Obviously you’re free to write however you like, but literature has certain conventions that people have been trained to expect, mostly without realizing it. You can deviate and subvert these expectations for dramatic effect, but you should do so with open eyes, on purpose, and for a reason.

The structure of a scene

The following isn’t a universally accepted truth or anything, just one of those conventions of modern fiction that tends to reinforce itself over time. You don’t have to write this way, but at least understanding the structure can help you organize your writing.

A scene is a basic unit of storytelling, and in that scene you have a character who wants to accomplish something (the protagonist and his goal), and obstacles that stand in his or her way. The character’s scene goal is usually a step along the way to accomplishing the protagonist’s story goal, though sometimes the scene goal is to act as an obstacle to another character’s wishes.

So, identify the character who wants something and make them your viewpoint character. Identify what they want. Identify what stands in their way. And figure out how it ends.

The opening defines our context

The opening of the scene grounds our readers into the ‘where’ and ‘when’ of the scene. It establishes our setting, and the viewpoint identifies who the scene’s protagonist is. It’s good practice to make it clear to the audience what the protagonist is after in this scene unless it’s super super obvious.

If you dig on fractals like I do, then think of this as your scene’s first act.

The middle presents our conflict

Our character tries to get what he or she wants, but someone or something is in his way. He’s going to try and overcome these obstacles, and that’s where conflict comes from. Maybe they fight, they have an argument, a race, whatever, depends on what’s entertaining and what reveals the most characterization.

The end is a disaster

Your character, most of the time, should not get what they want. They are thwarted. Or they get what they want, but there are string’s attached. Why? Rising action. Tension. Every scene should lead to a worse and more tense situation for our protagonist as options are cut off and the situation reveals itself to be worse than before.

In thrillers especially, don’t give your reader time to breathe. Keep ramping up the tension with a swift pace.

Your character should, despite whatever victories he achieved, fail in his scene goal… or at least, realize that his scene goal did not resolve the story goal he’s after. Not until he’s reached the end of his story arc.

On to the next scene

After this, we need to transition to the character’s next scene, the next attempt to right whatever’s wrong in their life. Let him reflect and reassess to give the reader a glimpse into his inner world, have him decide on a new course of action, and send him to go do it.

Next time we’ll be talking about showing vs telling, and why you sometimes actually need exposition.

 

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Coorlim’s Guide to NaNoWriMo 7: Improvement

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Coorlim’s Guide to NaNoWriMo is a multi-part series on writing, creativity, and the work-life balance throughout the month of November. Today we’re talking about improving as a writer.

You are not yet the writer you are to become

That’s sort of a given, isn’t it? Beyond even platitudes like “nobody’s perfect” and “everyone could stand to improve”, the writer’s journey is very much one of finding your voice, finding the habits and practices and attitudes that work for you.

Critics of NaNoWriMo sometimes overlook the fact that simply writing 50,000 words is hours and hours of practice towards a skill. Approach it as a learning opportunity, and you can vastly improve your writing skills by the end of it. This is why it’s important to develop strong work habits and overcome whatever it is that holds you back.

You are going to write a lot of awful words

Someone, I forget who, wrote that a writer must “write a million words of shit before they can write a single word of gold.” And it’s true. We all have bad writing habits we need to shake off, and the only way to improve is to actually write.

Yes, there are books and classes and workshops you can take, but those are auxiliaries. Your primary means of improvement is pen on paper, butt in chair, hands on keyboard.

But writing bad fiction is just part of the process. Write it and throw it in a desk. Start working on the next one. Don’t spend years polishing the same piece, because it’s a less effective learning process than writing something new. First draft, second draft, drawer.

What does this mean for your grand opus idea that you’re dying to write?

It means it’s probably shit. No offense, but one of the writer’s skills is coming up with good ideas, knowing what works, and knowing how to leverage them. The ideas you’ll have after a year, two years of writing are light-years ahead of whatever you can come up with now, simply because future-you is a better writer.

But even the best idea is limited by its execution.

A good writer can spin gold out of the worse idea

Conversely, once you’re awesome, you’ll be able to salvage a decent story even out of terrible ideas. Does this mean you should go back and rewrite stories in the future?

Well, maybe.

Thing is, you’re not going to stop having ideas. You’re going to have more ideas than you can conceivably write throughout your entire life. The more you improve, the faster and stronger these ideas can be. You’ll have to decide what you have time for.

My advice?

Write whatever your strongest idea is at any given moment. Don’t stop and start, finish what you’re working on, then start your next strongest project. Remember, quality is a function of writer skill x idea strength. Don’t write below your belt level out of a misplaced loyalty to the dumb ideas you had when you weren’t as good a writer.

Your career as a writer, professionally or as an amateur, is not about this book or that book. It’s about your whole damn library of work, so make that library as powerful as you can.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Coorlim’s Guide to NaNoWriMo 6: Pomodoro

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Coorlim’s Guide to NaNoWriMo is a multi-part series on writing, creativity, and the work-life balance throughout the month of November. Today we’re talking about Pomodoro.

Continuing our productivity discussion from last time’s discussion on word-count, today we’re going to be covering a productivity technique named after a tomato.

What is a Pomodoro?

Pomodoro, Italian for “tomato”, is a productivity technique that focuses on timing. It works well for writing, but you can apply it to any aspect of your life where there are multiple tasks involved. It’s a system of working and breaks that keeps your brain fresh and your focus on-task.

Core to the technique is the idea that frequent breaks keeps your concentration and attention fresh.

How does Pomodoro work?

Throughout the day you work in 25-minute intervals called “pomodori”. Each interval is separated by a 5-minute break, and every 4 pomodori forms a two-hour block. Each block is separate from the others by 20 minutes.

So a single block might look like this:

8:00 am start working
8:25 am stop, take a break
8:30 am start working again
8:55 am stop, take a break
9:00 am start working again
9:25 am stop, take a break
9:30 am start working again
9:55 am stop, take a break

Then you take a twenty-minute break, and start again at 10:15.

How I use Pomodoro for writing

Typically I write better in the mornings (something I discovered by tracking my work habits) so I’ll start off with a two-hour writing block on whatever my current project is. After that, I’ll work on one of my side-projects for a two-hour block… blogging, writing Hero Historia, a Book Nouveau video, catching up on social media, whatever.

Then I have lunch.

After lunch I hit another two-hour writing block, and the last two-hour block of my workday is whatever it needs to be.

Pomodoro alone has boosted my hourly wordcount from 1000 to 1500 words. It works for me, what can I say? Maybe it’ll work for you.

Pomodoro Tools

Pomodoro works best with a timer. I have a Pomodoro app for my phone, but I end up using the freeware Adobe Air Pomodairo program more often than not, when working on my laptop. Which is basically always.

Got any other productivity tips? Let us know in the comments below.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Coorlim’s Guide to NaNoWriMo 5: Wordcount

Image courtesy of National Novel Writing Month

Coorlim’s Guide to NaNoWriMo is a multi-part series on writing, creativity, and the work-life balance throughout the month of November. This part we cover wordcount.

50,000 words. Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? That’s about 200 manuscript pages, and you’ve only got a single month to do it.

Welcome to my world

The key to meeting your productivity goal is consistency. Habit. Now, I’m a full time writer, so I don’t need to write around a day job or school or anything like that, just the standard day-to-day things like groceries, laundry, trying to have a social life. I can usually manage six hours a day devoted to writing.

You may have less, and that’s okay. Work with what you have. Here’s how you can make the most out of it.

Attitude

Decide, right now, how important writing is to you. Then cut everything else out of your life.

No, I’m not kidding. Maybe exaggerating a little. But you need to prioritize. It’s like I tell prospective potential authors: if you want writing to pay you like a job, you have to treat it like a job. Full time. 40+ hours a week, including edits and platform.

But, lucky for you, NaNoWriMo doesn’t require you to treat it like a full time job.

The Math

50,000 words in 30 days is around 1700 words a day, if you write every day. And you should. Why? Because making it a habit will make it easier. It’s harder to get started again if you stop. So instead of binging on weekends, try to get at least a little writing done every day, just to keep the flow going.

Yeah, life happens, things come up, but remember what I said before. Cut out whatever it is going on that’s less important to you than writing, and see what you have left. Then work around it.

How fast do you write? Time yourself. See how long it takes you to write 1700 words. For me, it’s 1-2 hours, so I would have to allocate that much time a day to writing instead of watching television or messing around online or doing whatever it is people with lives do.

And yes, you can catch up on your day off from work or school or whatever, but you should avoid making a habit of it. It’s way too easy to let that get away from you, and the longer your streak is, the easier it is to keep it going.

Next time: Consistency

 

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Coorlim’s Guide to NaNoWriMo 4: Keeping Track

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Coorlim’s Guide to NaNoWriMo is a multi-part series on writing, creativity, and the work-life balance throughout the month of November. This week we cover the pre-writing topic of keeping good records.

It is imperative to take good notes while you write. It will save you so much grief and heart-ache later on.

Record your invention

“But Michael,” I hear you ask. “Didn’t you plan everything out ahead of time?”

Yeah, sure, but there’s no way to totally cover everything. Some you’ll leave out, some you’ll forget about. Even planners end up making up some details as they go. Minor characters’ names. What exactly you decided to call a given street. Whatever.

Write it down. You don’t want to waste time scrolling back a dozen pages trying to remember what you named some tertiary character. That’s writing time.

I have a spreadsheet where I record not only character names, but who invented what, what year different events occurred in (birthdays, etc), and which books which characters were introduced in. It’s been a tremendous help.

Track your habits

Even more vital is tracking your work habits. This may seem like it’ll just slow you down, but if you can figure out when and how you work best, you can build your writing time around that. Maybe you work best in the morning, or at night. Maybe you work best on the couch. Or at your desk. Or a coffee shop.

Track your progress. Start now. Make a spreadsheet, with the days of NaNoWriMo down the left column, and the hours of the day along the top row.

Every hour track your productivity in words per hour. Maybe note when lunch is, or when you wake up, or go to bed, or what you do when you’re not writing.

Over the course of the month you’ll see patterns emerge. Take advantage of them to maximize your writing time and eliminate problem habits that sap away your productivity.

Next Time: I’m going to try and make some kind of video, but either way, Monday expect a post on wordcount.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Coorlim’s Guide to NaNoWriMo 3: Characters

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Coorlim’s Guide to NaNoWriMo is a multi-part series on writing, creativity, and the work-life balance throughout the month of November. This week we cover the pre-writing topic of character design.

There’s a lot to be said about the role of character in story, because it may be one of the most important elements in fiction. From a technique standpoint, character is the vehicle that moves the story forward; everything else serves to providide the opportunity for expressed characterization. From a reader’s perspective, character is why most readers read – to meet interesting people and watch terrible things happen to them.

The characters you need

In narrative fiction, there are a few roles you need filled in any given story. Some of these roles may be filled by the same characters. Some may be spread between different characters.

Your protagonist is the one who wants something. His desire moves the plot along.
Your antagonist is the one who gets in your protagonist’s way. His job is to provide the obstacles that are overcome.

That’s really it, and the antagonist doesn’t really need to appear on-screen. For a short story, that may be all you have room for.

But we’re not talking about short stories here, we’re talking about NaNoWriMo, and we have 50,000 words to fill.That gives us room for a few more roles.

Sidekicks who aid and support the protagonist
Cotagonists who aid and support the antagonist, even unknowingly
Love Interests if that’s the story you’re telling
Guides who can provide assistance to the protagonist

Or, if you’re feeling super literary about it, you can call them Mentors, Threshold Guardians, Shadows, Allies, etc. Check out Christopher Vogel’s The Writer’s Journey, it gets all up into mythic story structure.

But really, when you’re talking about your cast, what you need to consider is Orchestration.

What the hell is Orchestration?

Orchestration is how well your casts works together, how tightly the pieces fit. Ideally you want characters whose drives and desires clash and create conflict, because conflict is the fuel upon which story engines run.

Less obviously, your characters are what build identification into your book. The more diverse your cast, the wider net you’ll be throwing to haul in readers.

Big Reader Secret: People like to read about people like them.

Okay, maybe not so secret, but people tend not to keep it in mind. Your cast should include characters that in some way resemble your target audience. Want kids to read your book? Make the primary characters a little bit older than they are. Want older fans? Include older characters. Writing for boys? Make your characters male. Writing for girls? Make them female. Writing for both? Mix it up.

Diversity is the key to a broad audience. The more varied your cast, the more appeal your book will have. Plus, it’s a Good Thing to include diversity in your fiction. People need to read about people they’re not like, and depending on your marketplace, it can be hard for some readers to find anyone they can identify with. Don’t they deserve good books? YOUR good books?

What you need to know about your characters

Some people make up these exhaustive list of character traits you need to define, but I don’t bother. Really, all you need to know can be summarized into three categories.

Physiology: What are they physically? What do they look like? How smart are they? What are their talents? How do they dress, how do they act? What is the face they present the world?
Sociology: What role do they take on in the world? How did they grow up? What is their context, their environment? Who are their friends, their family?
Psychology: Where the two intersect. How do the way people react to them (Physiology) and their context (Sociology) create who they are? Who have they become as a result? In real life, sometimes people are the way they are. Fiction, unfortunately or fortunately, has to make sense.

The exact details will be determined by your story needs. After working out the above three detail categories, I recommend writing an in-character journal so you can get a feel for the character’s voice. Doesn’t have to be long, especially for secondary characters. Just long enough for you to know who they are.

Next time: NaNoWriMo begins! I’ll cover the importance of keeping a good record of what you’re doing, both so you can stay consistent with your fictional reality, and so that you can improve your habits.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Book Nouveau Review of The Isle of Sound and Wonder

Here’s a video review of Alyson Grauer’s On the Isle of Sound and Wonder.

It’s due for a Nov 21st release, but if you’re going to Teslacon you can purchase a copy from the author herself.

Alyson Grauer’s On the Isle of Sound and Wonder is a Shakespearean Fantasy Steampunk book based on an adaptation of one of my favorite works. I didn’t realize it at first because I’m a terrible book blogger with an enormous backlist, and it took me far too long to get around to reading it. Embarassingly I was almost to the end of the first act before I twigged to the fact that it was an adaptation.

And that’s a good thing. It’s not a straight-up stage-to-prose conversion. Alyson is more skilled than that. She preserves just enough of the source material to create that sense of literary resonance, without preserving stage elements that wouldn’t translate well to novel form.

It’s really, really good. Don’t be like me. Don’t waste time not reading On the Isle of Sound and Wonder.

It’s very well written, especially for a first novel, and well edited. I didn’t come across any passages that read wrong enough to knock me out of the book, and ended up gorging on the whole thing in a single day.

I cannot recommend it highly enough

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Coorlim’s Guide to NaNoWriMo 2: Worldbuilding

Image courtesy of National Novel Writing Month

Coorlim’s Guide to NaNoWriMo is a multi-part series on writing, creativity, and the work-life balance throughout the month of November. This week we cover the pre-writing topic of worldbuilding.

Continuing last-time’s discussion on work we can do prior to the actual writing, we can take the opportunity to establish facts about our setting.

Setting the Story

Now, I’m sure you know approximately where you’re setting your story by now, even if it’s only in the most general of terms. If you wrote the beat sheet we talked about, you’ll know what locations the story takes place in, and you can work out their details.

If your story is set in the real world, past or present, you can take the time to do some research.

Otherwise, you’ll have the chance to make up what needs to made up ahead of time, instead of while you’re writing. And during NaNoWriMo, you need to focus on wordcount as much as you possibly can.

Focus on sensual details

The plot will determine your absolute needs where it comes to setting, so fleshing these details out is an excellent place to begin. You need more than the bare minimum, though; lush setting details provide necessary atmosphere to draw your characters into the reality of your book.

The details you’ll need for your writing are both sensual – focused on the senses – and concrete. Specific. Most importantly, the details will depend on the nature of your viewpoint characters; what they notice reveals a great deal about who they are.

Develop more than you need

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what it is that you’ll need, so create as much of the world as you can. It’ll keep your depictions of the world consistent, and you’ll form a more powerful overview of things. It might not be something you exactly plan for, but your subconscious mind will be constantly constructing a virtual model of your setting. Trust in your subconscious… but take good notes.

What details do you need? This depends on your story. Generally speaking you’ll want to focus on the elements that define your genre, because that’s what its readers are looking for. Writing fantasy, develop a consistent system for your magic. Working on science fiction, you’ll want to know how your technology works.

These don’t have to be details your readers ever see, but for the love of all you consider holy, you, at the very least, should know how it works.

Recording it all

There are a few different ways you can track this work that you’re doing. The low-fi method is simply to get a notebook or two and jot down inspiration as it arises.

More efficient means exist, ones that are easier to organize as you go, easier to refer to as you write. A simple text file would work. The program Scrivener is very good for it, allowing you to create connected files in ordered hierarchies.

A third and somewhat more involved method would be a private wiki installation of some sort.

Resources

If you’re interested in more specific examples of what details to focus on when world-building, check out the following resources.

Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions by Patricia C Wrede
Worldbuilding 101
Shakespeare & Dragons Podcast
Magical World Builder’s Guide
Creating a Believable World

Next time, we’ll be covering character creation. What you need to know, and what you can ignore.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Coorlim’s Guide to NaNoWriMo 1: Plotting

Image courtesy of National Novel Writing Month

The end of October is upon us, and what does that mean? No, besides the ever encroaching cacophony of saccharine holiday music.

November is National Novel Writing Month, when hopeful writers pick up their pens or keyboards or clay tablets or whatever and try to whip out 50,000 words in a single month. I’m not participating in it this month because I’m already well into a novel, but I aim for at least 50,000 words every month, so I know of what I speak.

This year I’ll be participating in NaNoWriMo in a different way, with a series of blog entries intended to help you meet or break the 50,000 word target for the month.

Pre-Writing Your Plot

It’s only October, so you shouldn’t be writing yet, but there’s more to writing than putting words on a page. You know this already if you’re a planner, but I’d like pantsers to realize that when dealing with a tight word-count, you can shave a lot of time off of your writing simply by developing your story in advance of the official starting gun.

It’s totally not cheating.

Developing the plot with a beat-sheet

There are a lot of ways you can develop your story’s plot, but this is one of the fastest and simplest. A beat-sheet is more or less just an accounting of what has to happen in your story, a record of cause and effect. I like to write mine scene by scene, but you can use as much or as little detail as you care to.

My average scene tends to be around a thousand words long, so for a 50,000 word story, I’m going to need 50 scenes, and that’s 50 points on my beat-sheet. For each scene I note who the viewpoint character is, what they are after, what’s in their way, and how the scene ends.

You don’t have to stick to your beat sheet exactly. In fact, I usually change it up while I’m writing it. But it provides you with a fairly solid road-map, and I’m never stuck mid-chapter not knowing what happens next, and that saves a ton of time.

The Three Act Structure

I’m not getting into this in any depth here – there are better guides on plot structure out there – but I’ll just generally note that this is a good way to break up your beat sheet further.

Act One introduces our principal characters, themes, and the status quo. It takes up 25% of the book (12500 words, or about 12-13 scenes) and ends when your protagonist sets out to do whatever it is your book is about.
Act Two is your protagonist repeatedly failing to accomplish his goals, all while revealing character and growing as a human being. This takes up half your book. (25,000 words, or 25 scenes). It ends when your protagonist has gotten all the information he needs to be the catalyst for the climax.
Act Three has your protagonist demonstrating his mastery over his inner demons to overcome the obstacles that plague him and accomplish his goals, which may be very different from what he set out to do in act one, because HE is different than he was in act one. Alternatively, you may demonstrate that he has failed to change if happy endings aren’t your bag, man. This is the last quarter of the book.

You don’t have to use the three-act structure, or any structure, really, but you should know what you’re doing and where you’re going. It’ll get you there faster.

Next time, I’ll be talking about Worldbuilding, something else you can do before NaNoWriMo kicks off.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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