Making it "real".

Beginning writers often fall into the same traps, one of which is to describe the hell out of EVERYTHING.   What people looked like down to the smallest details, places, houses, kitchens, closets, stores, how to drive a car…you name it, I can promise it has been described to death by thousands of writers.

Writers do it because, especially when we’re just starting, we’re trying to make it real for the reader—to do that we need to make them see it, right? Every last button, lace, design on the dagger?

Ummm- no.

Good writing has a trick to it—it implies real life, it gives the illusion of real life, but it’s not real life.  Use dialogue as an example.  We may eavesdrop on folks to pick up on things, but you’d never use real conversation in a book (and if you are, stop it. Please. ).  In real conversation people are repetitive, they use fillers (um, ah, etc) they talk over each other, hop subjects, are boring, and a whole lot more.

So, we don’t write like people speak-- we write what feels like how people speak.  Our dialogue needs to give the illusion of real conversation, but in a much tighter and structured form. 

The same thing with description.  A laundry list filled with tiny details might make for a happy writer in some cases, but it’s not going to make for a happy reader.  As writers we have to give an impression of our characters, their homes, their lives.  Give enough detail to anchor the reader a bit, then let the reader’s imagination do the heavy lifting- let THEM determine what everything looks like.

I had a friend ask how I pronounced one of my character’s names once.  I shrugged and told her.  She frowned and said she thought it was something else.  To which I said, “Yep, you’re right too”.  I know how my characters look, sound, move, and react.  It’s in my head all the time.  But once a reader meets them, those characters are theirs now as well.  If they build that character based on your words and their own imagination, that character becomes far more real to them than if the writer forced a list of descriptives down their throat.

Heavy lists of what things look like actually slows down the reader as they try to pull the very detailed image together.  It ruins the pacing and pulls them out of the story.  A death sentence for any book.

I’ve come across books that gave me no classic descriptives of a character at all.  No eye color, hair color, skin color, height, weight, nothing.

And I can promise you I KNEW what that character looked like just from the writer’s other words.  Now, did my character look like what the writer was thinking?  Maybe, maybe not.  But what’s important was that I as the reader saw the character. I didn't see the writer telling me about the character.

The creative brain divided

I have discovered a secret way to be more productive—work on more than one project at a time. 

Now, before you all start screaming about it being hard enough to get one creative thing down at a time, let alone multiples—just hear me out.

At the end of August—the start of the school year, and the most hectic time of year for someone who works at a college—I started demanding a higher word count for myself. Now, in part, this was an attempt to save my sanity by massively immersing myself in my creative world because the day job was brutal.

As a “gift” for getting the word counts in for The Sapphire Manticore, I allowed myself to start Victorious Dead (the follow up to Warrior Wench). I wasn’t sure how it would work doing two different books in two different series in the same squished amount of time.

It worked!

Since the end of August, I have cranked out the highest level of word counts I’ve ever done outside of Nano.

I even upped the multi-world issue by adding a light read/edit of A Curious Invasion- a steam punk adventure with vampires and aliens coming out next year.

Now, a few caveats:

1)      There is a very good chance I have a weird brain. I’ve always enjoyed multi-tasking and while I do also enjoy big chunks of magic time to work on a single subject, that isn’t my reality in my day job—nor my writing.

2)       The three projects are all within the SF/F heading, but all different. The Lost Ancients series is a six-book, first person POV, monster. Aka- it is one giant story carved up into six pieces.  The Asarlaí Wars trilogy, is a 3^rd person POV, three book only series- shorter story arc, and third person is a different head than first. The steampunk is also 3^{rd person}, but is an open ended series—all books are connected and build on each other, but they are not a single story. The pacing is different-these people drink a lot of tea. Not to say it’s not as fast paced as the others, but the feel (and my headspace) is very different.

3)      I couldn’t do it if they were all the same sub-genre.

The benefit is an increased vitality for all three stories- I am writing more, but they also act as each other’s palate cleanser.  I’m tracking more of what happens in each because I have to stay focused since I have three going. Sort of like juggling, I need to keep my eye on three balls, so there’s less likely of me getting distracted ;).

Will this work for you? Dunno. Worked for Isaac Asimov. He apparently would have a bunch of typewriters with a different story in each—one gets stuck, move to the next (and yep, I’ve noticed that too ;)).

It’s been a great experiment, higher word counts, more engagement, and stronger stories. I have to say I have been pleasantly surprised.

Folks often try to make time for what they want, you can’t do that. Make the time. Push yourself. Go beyond your perceived limits. You might be very pleasantly surprised.

I wanna be a KILLJOY!!!

WRITER....Killjoy writer. As in a writer for the TV show KillJoys, one of the best shows to pop on the airwaves in many a year.

There is NO way I'd want to actually be a Killjoy, unlike Dutch, I wouldn't live more than a few minutes in that world. But to be a writer for them? Or even just be hanging out in the writer's room?!  

OMG. SIGN ME UP!!!

First, I'll explain for those of how have managed to not hear of KillJoys  go here  http://www.syfy.com/killjoys, watch the first two seasons (they are short seasons, I'll wait.).

Killjoys is an amazingly fun, dramatic, actiony, sexy, SF TV show. But the main reasons I love it are the characters- they are flawed, massively in most cases, but they still pull you along for the ride. The writing is awesome. They don't "explain" the world, or the set up to you repeatedly and they get that most folks who watch SF shows get it- we've seen SF shows, we can figure out the basic ideas as we go along.

I'm rough on shows, I think it's the writer brain, but I am always guessing what is going to happen--far too often, I'm right. With Killjoys I am almost always wrong. But their writers are so tight, that their way makes absolute sense.

So, my dream is to one day sit in a Killjoys writer room, absorbing all the magic....hopefully for their tenth season ;).

So what TV shows have just knocked you out of the park in the last year or so?

#IWSG- MORE TIME!

Today is the day! A chance for writers everywhere to shout out their fears, worries, conundrums, etc to the world--and hope someone shouts back.

Join us!
http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/p/iwsg-sign-up.html

There are some times prompts for this wonderful day, no one has to use them, but they can come in very handy. Like today ;).

So, today I will be talking about time to write- it is made or found?

First off, I have a full time day job. Most writers, unless they have a spouse with lots of money, have a day job. That means 40 + hours are just sucked out of my week faster than a really thirsty drunken faery working on her first bottle.

Then you have sleep, food, hygiene, etc, and you don't have a lot of time left.

So, I make time. Waiting for it won't work.

I get up at 5am so I can get words in before the day job (I aim for between 500 and 800). Then after the day job, I aim to get the rest of my 1600 word goal for the fourth fantasy book.
Recently, I started adding on 500 a day for the new space opera after dinner.

I limit my TV time to ideally only an hour, and I'm getting up at freaking 5 am.

But it is so worth it.

I don't do this everyday, these are goals to follow and strive for,  not to control my life. But I know when I hit them, even just getting some words in, I feel better.

I've never had anyone tell me, "I wish I had time to write a book". But I'm waiting. So many friends and other writers in groups have told of these people who think we write just because we have nothing else to do. I have been practicing my look of derision and scorn for when that question happens.

No, we write because we make time to do it.