writing

Procrastinating with Productivity

October 14, 2019 by Val Neil

A recently became aware of a new word. While it seems to have a few different variations, this is my favorite:

quiddle blog

Ever find yourself doing a ton of stuff completely unrelated to the thing you need to do? Maybe there’s a big assignment or project you need to work on. Procrastinating on said project makes you feel bad, so instead, you kick into overdrive on something else. You clean the house, fold the laundry, reorganize your desk! You do everything except the thing you need to be doing.

That’s me today. I’m supposed to be writing chapter two of book two. Last week I wrote a bunch, but halfway through realized I was using the wrong point of view, so now I have to go back and rewrite as a different character. So what am I doing instead?

Catching up on email. Brainstorming about writing a reader magnet (freebie that’s used as incentive to get people on your mailing list). I came up with a great one–backstory that can be made into a short story. It’s briefly referenced in Dark Apprentice, as “The Bread Incident.” Harper found Nikolai doing something embarrassing with bread, though what is never specified (it’s probably not what you think). I just need to write it. I sat down at my desk, all pumped to write…

…and immediately went to Canva to make covers.

Granted, this didn’t take long and it was fun, but it still isn’t writing. But covers are done now, time to write, right? Well, no, because it got me thinking about my own procrastination, which led to this blog post idea, which lead to me making another Canva graphic, which led to me talking to you here. It’s not all bad, I did need to queue a blog post for next week, so this will be it.

Hooray for quiddling. As they say on Writing Excuses, I’m out of excuses, now I need to go write.

Let me know which bread cover you like best.

Character Matters

September 30, 2019 by Val Neil

If you haven’t seen them, I highly recommend you set aside a week and watch Red Letter Media’s brutal dissection of the Star Wars prequels (I say a week because there are a lot of videos and they’re pretty long). One of the things they discuss is the difference in characterization between the original trilogy and the prequels. They posed this challenge to avid Star Wars fans:

Simple enough, yes? While the people they interviewed had no problem rattling off descriptions of characters in the original movies, they were stumped when it came to the prequels–resorting to job, physical description, or sometimes not remembering the character at all. You can watch the clip below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrI?start=406]

If you’re a writer, I challenge you to do the same for your characters. Don’t rely on your own descriptions of them. Ask readers! I read for someone recently who inserted her character’s IQ in the text and when I said I found that dubious she felt insulted (the character was kind of a numbskull, average intellect at best). Telling me a character is smart doesn’t matter. Show them being smart.

One of the issues I’ve seen with a couple of people I read for is that their stories lack life. Grammatically speaking, they were an easy read, but they’re not engaging, to the point where I find myself skimming or zoning out. A friend of mine described them as “anemic.”

Why?

Well in one case, the book lacks tension (there’s a lot happening, but it’s just a guy doing stuff and everything goes as planned). But in both cases, the main character is flat. This is especially evident in the story that has tension. The writer is hitting all the right marks–adding hooks at the end of chapters–but none of it matters.

Because the main character is flat and lifeless. She’s not interesting. The side characters aren’t really interesting. The only descriptor I can come up with for her is “ditzy,” and that’s probably not something you want your main character to be.

Here’s another test for you:

Yank your main characters out of your story, put them into a completely different story, and ask your readers how they’d behave.

There’s been a lot of criticisms over JK Rowling lately, but if there’s one thing the woman knows how to do, it’s craft compelling characters. You take Harry, Ron, Hermione and throw them into Jurassic Park and people are going to know how the characters will behave. You can do this with all of her numerous recurring characters, from Luna Lovegood, Molly Weasley, to Bellatrix Lestrange.

It works because we know them. We care about them. And that means we’re curious to see what happens in their story.

No compelling characters, no engagement.

Masking the Psychopath

September 16, 2019 by Val Neil

When I decided to write Nikolai as a psychopath, I wanted to do justice to the neurotype, making it as realistic as possible. As an autistic, I know how much it sucks to see misrepresentation in media. Thanks to common misconceptions, disclosing one’s condition is liable to be met with disbelief, pity, discrimination, or infantizing remarks about our ability to function in public. Psychopaths, on the other hand, can be met with fear and hostility if their condition is made public. They often hide their identities, even online. In interviews, I’ve seen them use pseudonyms and have their faces blurred.

Both psychopaths and autistics utilize masks. Neurotype influences our innate social cues (or lack thereof). Autistic behaviors are often contrary to what is expected and we tend to make social gaffs. Our communication style is different, as are our emotions. So we learn to mask who we really are and how we really feel. Female autistics are generally better at masking. Prolonged masking can lead to autistic burnout.

But while autistics have the freedom to be themselves, at least online and with close friends, psychopaths often don’t. Their behavior baseline is so far removed from what is expected in polite company that they usually retain at least a mild mask, even online and around loved ones.

I’ve already written about the struggle of writing a character with minimal emotions, but likability of Nikolai was also a serious issue in earlier drafts. I had to tone him down a lot. While people love anti-heroes and villains, there are certain criteria that seem to be required for likability:

Charisma
Competency
Tragic backstory

Nikolai is charismatic, but only to other characters and only when he wants something. If he were a secondary character viewed through the eyes of a traditional protagonist, he wouldn’t have the same issues with likeability (you’ll get to experience this later, when I tell Dawn’s story). But he’s not a secondary character and I’m writing in third person deep POV. The readers get to see how the sausage is made, so to speak. While Nikolai doesn’t always act on his thoughts, they can be quite manipulative, dark, and self-serving. Which results in this:

This was after toning him down. The above remark wasn’t even in reference to one of his worse thoughts, but it came after him outwardly being “nice,” so it was jarring in contrast. This has been a recurring theme.

There’s a screenwriting technique known as Save the Cat, where the hero does something good early on to make the audience root for them (in a cool twist, the American version of House of Cards subverts this trope by having the protagonist kill a dog). I wrote a Save the Cat scene for Nikolai, hoping it would make him a bit more likable. He saves a girl from being harassed by drunks. Good, right?

Well, not exactly. Because the reader is in his head, they can see his motivation, which is less about saving the girl and more about letting off steam by attacking the drunks. He does have a certain protectiveness about the residents of Haven, but that’s because it’s a small town and he has daily interactions with these people. In a sense, they “belong” to him and he’s only taking care of his possessions. So while the scene gives Nikolai a nice opportunity to reflect on his own motivations, those motivations are still self-serving.

Psychopaths are born, unlike sociopaths, which are made, usually the result of childhood trauma. This was a problem initially, because it meant Nikolai had no tragic backstory. Or rather, that his backstory was not a reason for behavior. I planned to have him lie repeatedly (and conflictingly) about his past, keeping readers in the dark until book seven or so. I wanted there to be a lesson in it, that some people are just like this and there’s no “wound” or whatever driving them.

Unfortunately, I had to change my plans. Readers were confused as to why a person would be this way and as a result they couldn’t connect with him or root for him. I started throwing in lots of hints pertaining to his past and suddenly readers were a lot more invested. The implication of past trauma, even if it has nothing to do with his neurology, was enough to change their perception.

What does all this have to do with masking?

Well yesterday I had an epiphany after I wrote a scene in which Nikolai takes off his mask. Psychopaths mask themselves to be more palpable to people. It’s a necessary part of their survival. Without intentionally doing so, I have been effectively masking my character to make him more palpable to readers. Talk about meta.

In some ways it’s good, because it’s given Nikolai more depth, but on the other hand I can’t go as dark/sardonic as I want to without offending reader sensibilities. I may be able to ramp that up a bit in book two, when his competency increases.

Until then, mask it is.

Almost Done!

September 10, 2019 by Val Neil

I’m up to chapter 35 of ~37. I’m in the home stretch with my edits! And that is scary as hell. This last pass has been super hard. I did a developmental edit on myself, cut multiple subplots, added in a new POV (along with her subplots)– progress all while trying to stay a few chapters ahead of my critique partners (that didn’t work).

When this draft is done, I need to do a few more sweeps:

Knock off To Do list of minor fixes
Go through my crutch words and replace
Run chapters 10+ through Natural Reader

Once all that is done, I can get my manuscript out to more beta readers while I look for an editor. I need to find one that knows fantasy.

With any luck, I’ll be able to start writing book two for NaNoWriMo, though I hope to start even earlier. In October, I want to fuck off for a week to my mom’s house (6+ hours away) and just WRITE. I did a lot of writing last Thanksgiving and Christmas, because I was sick and able to “rest” upstairs (writing is resting, right?) while other people tended the kids. I need that kind of uninterrupted focus again, where I can churn out 2-3k words a day.

With all the subplots I cut, I already have 30-40k of words going into book two. The next two books are going to interlock pretty heavily and I’m not sure where to cut off certain plot points, so I may have to do the dreaded outlining thing.

The Importance of Accountability

September 9, 2019 by Val Neil

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. – George Orwell

Writing is hard. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. As with all things difficult, where one is tempted to give up and run screaming through the streets when you just can’t take it anymore, it’s good to regularly check in with others who are on the same journey as you. Here are some of the ways I keep myself on target.

In-Person Writer Groups

I’m lucky enough to have a pretty active writing community nearby. My town even has a writer’s guild. Search online and see if you can find other authors nearby. Shut Up & Write is a great organization for this. They host regular meet ups where everyone introduces themselves, checking in on current projects, then writes uninterrupted for one hour (or longer). It’s a great way to meet a variety of people who all have a passion for writing.

Facebook Groups (WITH GOALS)

The key here is ACCOUNTABILITY. While there are plenty of Facebook groups dedicated to writing, very few have weekly check-ins. Sacha Black runs a group called 13 Steps to Evil – Villain Masters, which has a regular check-in on Mondays.

Accountability Buddies

Pick a writer, any writer, and agree to check-in with one another a couple of times a week. I had a buddy after NaNoWriMo last year. We communicated via Facebook and entered our word counts every day in Google sheets. The only problem was that it got harder once I started editing and he fell off the writer bandwagon. If I had to do it over again, I’d probably use a different tracking mechanism and add a few more people for increased accountability.

Word Count Trackers

If you’re not stuck editing, I highly recommend a joint word count tracker like I mentioned above. If someone has nothing input for a few days, you can send them a PM asking what’s up.

Critique Groups/Alpha Readers

If your writing is relatively solid, you may choose to share your manuscript as it’s being written. I personally wait until I at least have a complete draft, but I know several people who use critique and alpha readers very early in the process. It works because you have someone breathing down your neck (hopefully) waiting for the next chapter.

For myself, I found this gives me a much-needed boost during the editing process. Editing is rough, and seeing your story land with people is a real incentive to keep going.

Muddle in the Middle

August 12, 2019 by Val Neil

Oh boy. It’s been a hellava month. As you can see here and here, I’ve been struggling to get through chapter 21. I finally did it, but then chapter 22 didn’t flow and I was right back where I started.

One of my struggles has been whether or not to include Medea’s POV. When I wrote the story, it was incredibly entertaining watching two very different personalities clash on the page. The problem was that I needed to make a plot out of what was essentially banter and training montage.

I succeeded, taking Nikolai’s little problem, which was originally solved immediately, and stretching it out over the course of the novel. What’s happening to him and why? Is it Medea? If not her, then who? It’s a mystery he has to solve.

Yay! I had a plot! Problem solved, right? Not exactly. This particular plot meant the reader couldn’t know Medea’s intentions. At all. It turned a character driven story into a plot driven one, and while there’s nothing wrong with that, this story works better when you can see both sides.

Still, I didn’t see how I could add Medea and have it work. In the original drafts, she’s a static character. There’s nothing for her to do. She’s just trying to train Nikolai the same way she’s trained a bunch of other wannabe dark wizards. Later in the series she has more to do, but she didn’t here. Also, it would kill a big reveal of her motivations at the end.

I toyed with adding her. I even wrote inserts for her, and rewrote a few scenes from her perspective. All of it sat in my Scrivener notes. I kept agonizing over it but didn’t want to mess with my main draft.

Then two things happened.

1. I got stuck in the middle. Part of the issue was that some chapters were falling flat. They felt boring. They were boring, because even though I knew everything going on behind the scenes, Nikolai and the reader didn’t. So it felt like “why is this scene even here?” Knowing Medea’s motivations make them work because the reader gets dramatic irony.

2. A friend of mine beta read the first few chapters and said with absolute conviction, “put her in.” This particular friend writes romance, a genre that is all about character-driven plots.

So I put her in, and suddenly my mess of “Where do I put this scene? Argh I can’t get this cause-effect chain to work!” was gone. I went from this to this:

[First image of multiple chapters with duplicate numbers, all out of order. Second image is clean chapters 20 through 26.]

Not only that, I’ve been able to dramatically up the tension in the middle of my book. I got to let Nikolai do something incredibly stupid that I’ve been dying for him to do, but couldn’t because it didn’t work in the old draft without him going off on a tangent. The way it’s written now, his behavior makes absolute sense within the context of the scene.

Hopefully it keeps flowing. I have about seven chapters left in my developmental edit.

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