“The first draft of everything is shit.”  I’m going to get this writ large on the wall behind my computer.

That’s the conclusion of everything I’ve been thinking as I’ve tried to write something here four times now.  I’m kind of freaking out that my first drafts aren’t high enough quality, aren’t up to my standards, aren’t something I want to read.  This is causing all kinds of issues.  It shouldn’t be, though, and maybe big, black, six inch tall letters will help me get over it and write.

I’ve been asked for clarification of a Twitter post I made earlier today.  Since “clarify” and “Twitter” aren’t exactly words that mesh well, I figured I’d make use of my beleaguered blog.

First, the tweet: I have issues coming up with good antagonists. This leads to issues developing plots, which leads to issues writing stories. This annoys me.

Joe from The Podge Cast asked for examples.  I have two right here on the blog.  My steampunky, alternate-history, whatever you want to call it story, the one I tried to get through the Snowflake Method with, is the prime example.  In that story, I have a lot of ideas for the world.  I have characters that are well-rounded and have a lot of depth (at least, that’s how they are in my head).  There are conflicts between the main characters, which is great, but I’m finding the problem arises when I look to outside conflicts.

The characters will tend to do what they’ve always done and avoid their problems.  They’ll go their separate ways until whatever’s wrong cools down, then they’ll meet up again and start the cycle over.  I need something that forces them to stick together.  I’ve got a vague idea of a politician that can cause problems.  The Crawlers are a threat, but humanity has survived and dealt with them for a long while, now, so they’re not an imminent danger.  Pirates?  Maybe?  I dunno.

I get to thinking about the antagonists of my stories, and I start to peter out.  I want to focus on my world and my heroes.  I want to know who they are, where they come from, where they’re going, how they handle themselves in the face of adversity…. Shit.

Now, I’m no expert at this, but whether you want to write character-driven fiction or plot-driven fiction, you need some “bad guys,” you need something there to stand between your characters and their goals.  I seem to have issues with that.

On the positive, though, I’m figuring out that I have issues with that.  Now I know my weakness, I can start sorting it out.  (Thanks, Basher.)  Maybe I don’t have clear cut enough goals for my characters.  Maybe I haven’t thought out an expansive enough world.  Maybe I need to go through a character outline based around antagonists, rather than protagonists.  Maybe I need to find a writer’s group.  Maybe….

I dunno.  I’m sure once I’ve got this worked out, I’ll find some new road block in my way, but it’s a start, for now.

I realize I never put a cap on the Snowflake Method series I was writing.  That’s largely because I’ve put the project on hold for a little while.  As I got into the steps of the Snowflake Method, it became apparent to me that I didn’t really have a plot that I could outline, even in simple terms.  I have a compelling (for me) premise, but my grasp on the world and the characters is rather weak.

In reading over the outline of the Snowflake Method, I mistakenly thought that this would come to me as I wrote.  That was foolish hope, of course, but it was worth trying out.  Through NaNoWriMo and the Snowflake Method, I’ve learned more about writing fiction than through all the schooling I’ve had.  The most important thing I’ve learned: I’m not ready to write a novel just yet.  If I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it right, not just fill pages with random words.  A page of writing that has no intention of surviving edits is no better than a blank page.

As such, I decided to take a break and read a book I was supposed to read back in my first run through college, ten years ago: Story, by Robert McKee.  It’s a book aimed at screenwriters, but writing fiction is writing fiction, and nearly all of the lessons contained within apply across the board.  I won’t go into the specifics of what I took away from the book, with the exception of the final lesson.

Near the very end, McKee talks about the process of writing.  What he recommends is almost exactly the same thing as the Snowflake Method, only laid out in broad strokes.  He says start small, build an overall outline, an act by act outline, a scene by scene outline.  When you’ve finished the outlines, you should be able to finish the screenplay incredibly quickly.

The trick, though, is that the work is all front-loaded.  He says it may take only a month to write the outlines and the screenplay, but that’s preceded by five months of note-taking and napkin-scribbling about characters, plots and the world of the film.  And that’s the part that I’m missing.  I tried to skip straight to the outlines, not really considering that I might need a bit more preparation, thinking that everything would come together as I write.  When McKee wrote about time spent taking notes and saying “Here’s a random idea.  Here’s an interesting character.  Here’s a piece of world.  Here’s how things might happen midway,” a light when on above my head.

Here is a path I can follow.  Here is what I was missing from NaNoWriMo and the Snowflake Method.  So, I’m in note taking mode.  I’ve got my NEO, for when long ideas strike me, and I’ve got a stack of index cards tossed in my bag for the small ideas.  When my story is more coherent, and my world better formed in my mind, I’ll return to the outlines, and maybe I’ll get a novel (or possibly a screenplay) out of this premise yet.

I received my AlphaSmart Neo in the mail a couple of a weeks ago.  The Neo is basically an old-school word processor with absolutely no bells and whistles.  It lets you type on it.  It has spell check.  It has a calculator.  That’s it.  From what I can tell, you can plug it in to any computer anywhere and transfer your writing directly into any text document you have open.

I’ve been meaning to write a full on review about the Neo.  The problem is, my review ends up sounding a lot like all the other reviews I read while researching the Neo.  What my review boils down to is that I love it.  It’s portable.  It’s easy to use.  I can fire it up, jot down some notes and turn it off in less time than it would take to uncap a pen and write the notes down longhand.  The entry before this about America’s leadership was written entirely that way, behind the register at work, in small snippets as ideas came to me.

I’m easily distracted.  If I have anything that I can do that isn’t what I should be doing, I’ll do that instead.  If you’re at all like me, and you want something to write on that has absolutely no distractions, just stop here and buy the Neo now.  It’s worth the money.

If you want more information, more in depth analysis, more of a real review, here are a couple that I recommend, and I agree with everything they say one hundred percent.

Blogger News Network – Part One – Part Two – Part Three – On the Road

Digital Bits

LitWack

Every day I go to work, I see a commemorative issue of Newsweek magazine celebrating the inauguration of President Obama.  Ignoring for the moment that it’s been two months since the inauguration, what bothers me about the cover is the quote from the President’s speech: “We are ready to lead once more.”

I’m pretty sure he’s not talking about the Democrat Party.  Certainly, since taking control of Congress in ‘06, they had failed to show any sort of leadership, allowing Bush to continue doing pretty much anything he wanted.  There was lots of bickering and complaining about the administration’s policies, but little was done to force a change of those policies.  The Democrats took control and then said, “Wait till the presidential election.  We’ll start doing stuff then.”

But that’s not what the President was talking about.  No, in his speech, he was addressing the entire nation, and as such, he was saying that America is ready to lead again.  Here’s the problem with that statement: when, since the end of the Cold War, has the United States not led the world?  

We are the last surviving super power.  We are the richest and most powerful country in the world.  We have no choice but to lead.  We couldn’t hand the reigns over to another country, even if we wanted to.

You’re welcome to disagree with the direction we’ve been going over the last eight years, the last sixteen years, the last thirty.  You’ll be hard pressed to convince me that we were not leading in all that time, though.

There are areas, certainly, where the U.S. lags behind, where we could do better, but overall, we still lead.  What America does, the rest of the world responds to.  What America accepts or rejects affects the rest of the world’s perceptions.  The world does not act without first considering America’s current position, and what our reaction might be.

The statement “We are ready to lead once more” is nothing more than empty rhetoric and pandering to the anti-Bush crowd.  At best, it is a sound bite representing politics as usual.  At worst, it represents a complete failure to recognize America’s place in the world.  Either way, I’m tired of walking past it every day.

Fraser Ronald of the Accidental Survivors podcast and Sword’s Edge Publishing has given me some thoughts on the chapter I posted earlier.  Since this project is as much about exploring and exposing the writing process as it is about getting the novel written, I thought I’d post my thoughts here.  (Okay, maybe “as much” implies a little too much emphasis taken away from the goal of finishing the novel, but exploring the process is still a goal of mine.)

Fraser wrote:

As a global, this chapter does what it needs to do as a first chapter. I am situated in the setting. Here’s what I understand the setting to be: Late 18th, early 19th century type setting with airships. Temperate climate. Pseudo-European culture. And monsters come at night.

If I’m wrong about any of that, it means the chapter didn’t work as well as I thought it did. (more…)

So, it’s been a while, and I’ve got little to show for it.  Allow me to post what I have, then I’ll explain what happened.

Crynn saves Becca’s son, Erik, from a Crawler attack.  
Becca is almost caught with Cara in her home when Crynn shows up to tell her about Erik.  
Cara, ejected from the house ahead of schedule, wanders the town trying to avoid people while waiting for her rendezvous time, when a rival pirate gang attacks.
Crynn goes out to help fight off the pirates, and catches sight of Cara during the fight, but is unable to find her afterwards.
Becca uses one of her new inventions to destroy one of the pirate ships.
Cara escapes to her own ship, and begins planning retribution against the rival gang.
Crynn and Becca are debriefed about the attacks, and Crynn is assigned to hunt down the pirates.
Becca returns home and discovers that one of her inventions was stolen during the raid.
Cara has to deal with new crew members, as well as her second in command, who wants more technology before making any moves.
Crynn confronts Becca about information and inconsistencies that came to light during their debriefing that leads him to suspect she knows about Cara.
Becca tries to join Crynn in his search for Cara and the pirate attackers, and has to deal with her son.
Cara attacks the rival pirates, and is betrayed and captured. (more…)

You’ll notice this isn’t step 4 of the Snowflake Method.  Part of that is due to family obligations and insanity at work (it is Christmas at Walmart, after all), but the other part is that I’d simply been having issues expanding my paragraph into a page.  I think I’ve figured out how I want to do it, and whatnot, but, now that I’m sitting down to write, I find that my mind keeps returning to a conversation I had with my mother yesterday.

Yesterday morning we finally addressed the elephant that’s been following us for the last ten years.  It started as we were talking about my brother.  He’s turned out a lot like my abusive, alcoholic father, and about a year ago, we pretty much had to kick him out of the family.  It’s a long, probably boring story, but the short of it is that he was manipulative and deceptive and felt it was his right to take advantage of my mother every which way. (more…)

I recently started reading A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin, and I’m trying to read it critically, trying to learn something from the writing within the book rather than just read for enjoyment.  I’m not that good at it.  However, that’s not what this post is about, because I did learn something early on.

In the third chapter, Ned meets the king, who has gone from being a fearsome, muscular warrior to a fat mess.  Martin spends nearly a page and a half describing the thoughts Ned has, describing the look of the king now versus then, and even throwing in a few historical details to boot.  All of this happens within practically no time at all from the character’s perspective.

Why is this significant?  Well, my writing has shifted to more of a real-time feel.  I get it in my head that I can’t spend a lot of time describing something or focussing on anything because my characters don’t have that much time to spend.  The reader should spend no more time on an action than the character spends on that action.

That doesn’t quite work, though, and I look back over my writing and chastise myself because there’s not enough detail.  I rush through, and that’s bad, but something in my subconscious seems to think that’s the way it works.

So, I’ve decided to look at this as a game, D&D to be exact.  In D&D, speaking isn’t considered to take up any time during combat, and I think that’s applicable to writing.  Description need not take up any time in regards to the characters.  Thus, the first writing rule I want to live by:

Description is a free action.

We’ll see if this approach helps with the need to rush through the details.

Exhaustion yesterday and wife-time today have put a damper on finishing up the next Snowflake step.  However, I’ve been considering tossing the fruits of my NaNoWriMo labor up here, so what better time than now?

Be warned.  This, like the first chapter of my Snowflake story, is an incredibly rough draft.  I wrote it quickly and I have not edited it.  Cliche’s, word errors and passive voice may be present.  There may even be an author’s note or two.  (At the end of the chapter, “Caldesor” was originally “LANDYLAND” because I couldn’t remember the name of the country.)  However, I don’t remember being entirely disgusted with the first 5000 or so words of NaNo, so you may find it entertaining, if rough.

Enjoy!

Chapter 1

Ellora Sunstrider wrenched her sword from the orc’s skull. (more…)