BACK

Wow! It's been a crazy year. One in which I found it hard to blog for both personal and professional reasons. But now I'm back, and I'm chalk full of information and new ideas to write about!

First and most important.... You can't edit nothing, but you can edit crap. Just write! Who cares if it's good or bad? You can always go back and change it later. What you can't do is edit something that was never written. In this past year, I have had to change almost everything about my life that I had previously thought to be stable. My relationships changed, I lost people, found new people, changed cars, jobs, schools, and moved to a completely different state all together, both in body and in mind! All of these things leave marks on a person, so put these marks on your characters. Don't dwell on negative or seemingly insignificant changes in your life. If they bother you, whether they are good changes or bad changes, it all gives you new outlooks on the thoughts and feelings of your characters, should you put them in similar situations.

I'm not saying that you need to go out and put yourself in dangerous situations just so you can accurately portray your characters point of view in the same predicament. What I am saying, is that if you find yourself in a place in your life that is new and different than what you are used to, then you should use this information and these sensations as inspiration. Write about it, it doesn't matter what it is. Write about a game that you play, or the loss of family. Write about your new job, or a dog you met the other day. Write all of these things down, and when you are at a point in your writing where your characters need a new perspective, or a new location, you will have a written record of the transitional period that you already experienced. This provides authentic and reliable reference points for your writing.

Again, none of this has to be perfect or even good! You can, and will, as you grow in skill and experience, be going back and editing your work. Eventually, you will end up with something well written and hopefully full of great content and progression. Remember, you can't edit something that has never been written, but you can always edit crap. So just write about anything and everything!

I am currently reading The Silent Blade by R.A. Salvatore. This is one of my favorite authors, and by far one of my favorite series of books. This is book eleven, so I highly recommend starting with book one, Homeland.


"Language is the means of getting an idea from my brain into yours without surgery."  ~Mark Amidon

Magic Moments

I have been trying to figure out just how to add magic moments to my story. Little gestures and seemingly insignificant happen stances that add a whole new emotional level to any scenario. How do I let on that one character is falling in love with another character without actually coming out and saying it?
I am still working on this. Touching on a glance that was thrown or a chuckle that was meant for the person, not the joke. I want to make sure that the audience knows or at least thinks they know what my champions are thinking without making it too obvious. After all, I am not an omniscient writer, only partially. I can see these moments in my head, playing like a movie. The hardest part though, I have learned, is putting them on paper. I can’t show people what I am seeing. I have to describe it. It is by far scarier and more challenging than writing the research paper, or a journal entry. But I have this passion, a fire, a thirst to tell my story that I cannot seem to quench. This is what I am currently thinking about in my book. I have been very busy with school and with my story, so I am going to post again as soon as I have this little obstacle down. Or maybe I will have some other breakthrough. I am going to spend more time writing my book and I will be reporting back shortly.

I am currently reading “Thousand Cranes” by Yasunari Kawabata.

"Time is what prevents everything from happening at once." ~ John Archibald Wheeler

World of Writing

I know it’s been a while since my last post. I have had a crazy few weeks, but I have not pushed aside my love for words. To the contrary, I have actually been doing some research into the different fields in which I could hone my writing skills and make my living at the same time, other than writing my books of course.

I found one very interesting career path that I had not previously considered. Writing the lore and quest lines for video games. This would be a exceedingly interesting occupation in my opinion. One that I would never be bored with. Just think about it, spending your days making up the history and lives of characters and entire nations every day. I mean, essentially it is the same as writing a book. However, the variety would be astounding. For every project you would be able to write about something different. The lore would be one big project, but the basis of this history would come from hundreds of side stories. It wouldn’t be just following a select few, but an entire world would be at your disposal. You would be responsible for telling the stories not just of a main character, but of every individual who made the world that your main character was a part of.

It has been my experience that in a book, some things just are. They are never given any explanation. No one ever tells you why there are dragons, they have just always been. The reader most likely never discovers the reason for griffin being tamed, they just are, and although they griffin may play a pivotal role in the story, no one ever really thinks to wonder where they came from. In a video game however, I have observed many different situations as having a well thought out history and explanation. It is because of these many stories throughout the gaming world, that I find myself fully aware of why things are the way they are. This helps make my gaming experience more personal. I find that understanding why the world is broken in half, leaves me with that sense of emotional attachment that I get from many books. Sometimes though, this experience becomes more intimate because I feel that my actions will play a role in the future of my gaming world. It is for this reason that I find the art of creating a game’s history and bringing the many characters to life so appealing. I want to go to work every day and create something or someone knew, while at the same time, giving someone else in the world a personal experience. I love the idea of writing hundreds of short stories (quests) and then watching as those stories meld into one larger and more impressive world history. This is defiantly something that I will be looking into in more detail. And who knows, I might be writing the next big game’s lore while I write the world’s next big book series!


I am currently reading "Veronika Decides to Die" by Paulo Coelho.
I highly recommend this book as it has been a great read thus far. 
















"Jumping at several small opportunities may get us there more quickly than waiting for one big one to come along."  ~Hugh Allen

Creature Creation Do’s and Dont’s

This blog is about the do's and don’ts of character and creature creation. I used to have trouble creating characters. Lately that is, but not when I was a kid, I remember making things up all the time when I was little.. The Tyrask is the one I remember most vividly. It was almost like a werewolf, only mixed with a bull. They were grumpy and always looking for trouble. They were foul, barbaric and they smelled really bad. At least that’s what I remember. Then I started to grow up and I wanted to write books, and I’ve had trouble ever since trying to make up new creatures for my stories. I think that I have just been trying too hard. If you really think about it, creature creation is very simple. However, there are many do’s as well as many trepidatious don’ts involved in the process.

DON'T:
Don’t think that just because you make a creature that is bright purple, that it can’t be in your story about the green forest. What if that purple creature lives in the trees, hanging or sitting in the branches? It curls up and looks like a big and beautiful purple flower, Of course, when other inhabitants of the forest walks around below it or above, it springs into action, catching and devouring it’s prey in a single graceful swoop.

Don’t let people tell you that just because a critter has legs too short to walk on, that you can’t make it a viable part of the environment. What if your characters are walking through the woods and they see this adorable but sad looking creature waddling around among the bushes? They might feel the need to follow it until they hear crashing branches as a huge monster lunges toward the helpless creature. When the main character decides to intervene, they would surely be surprised as the stumpy critter bounces high into the air, and lands directly in the flowing mane of the terrifying monster, and together they ride through the forest, away from the heroes.

DO:
Use your imagination to its fullest extent. If you want to make a character or a creature that speaks every known language plus one, do it. If you want to make someone who changes colors every day, do it. If you want to make the main character in your book a talking cracker, do it. The point that I’m trying to make is that you can literally make anything you can think of become real in your stories, as long as you have a rhyme and reason for it. If you can tell a great story about a world full of box cutters that only eat lettuce. Do it!

 During this blog I am reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. it is very different from what I normally read, but I highly recommend it to anyone wishing to broaden their horizons and try something new.

"If you don't get lost, there's a chance you may never be found."  ~Author Unknown

He was staring into the freezer like it was frickin Narnia!!

This blog is about description of character. It is also going to be short because this is finals week =)
I love the type of description in this blogs title. I prefer to make metaphors as opposed to spending lots of time trying to describe something in detail. I find it both immensely helpful and efficient when you use something that people already know to give an example of what you are trying to convey. If I was to say that the man was looking into the freezer, the first thing that I would picture is a man standing in his dark and dreary kitchen, wearing baggy clothes and disheveled hair, all the while staring longingly into the freezer for something that isn’t there, something that would make his life worth living. Now, if I said that the man was staring into the freezer with gumption, I would imagine a slightly younger man than before, wearing clothes more suited to someone who actually goes out into the sun during the day and hair that isn’t disheveled from lack of concern, but perhaps from an afternoon jog. This man would also be staring into his freezer in the dark, but this time because the lights are out and he is searching for the ice-cream to eat while he watches his movie.  However….If I was to say that the man was staring into his freezer like it was frickin Narnia….that adds a whole new world of perspective on the subject. This guy is standing in his boxers. He has just gotten up from his sleep and gone to look for a midnight snack. Only what he finds in his freezer is so much more. He is looking enthusiastically into his chilly snack harboring machine, only to find that his frozen treat is missing, and in its stead is a man goat. This man’s hair is also disheveled but this time it’s from the arctic wind that rushed out of his ice box and into his face. This guy is now so excited that he is having trouble catching his breath, and doesn’t notice how cold he is. He is both angry for the loss of his snack and trembling with enthusiasm to explore this new world. Now he just needs to figure out how he’s going to get into the freezer without breaking something. Really...who would pass up the chance to explore Narnia??
This kind of description is particularly useful when describing the anti-hero. Enter Captain Jack Sparrow. He’s the guy that everyone should hate, and he should be the bad guy. But he ends up becoming the hero because of his charm and his unique quirks. If I was to try and describe this guy in detail, I might say that he is clumsy. When in actuality he isn’t so, he is just lucky. I could spend some long winded conversation trying to accurately describe this person, or I could use examples and metaphors, allowing my audience to come to their own conclusions, just as they would with anyone they might meet in real life. Another very effective tool is to show the reader who this person is through actions as opposed to words (no pun intended). This would, in my opinion, create a more accurate personification as well as a more personal one. Allowing the reader to feel a closer and more emotional connection with the character because they really know them, it didn’t have to be explained.

This post I am reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, by Lewis Carrol


"There are people so addicted to exaggeration they can't tell the truth without lying."  ~Josh Billings

Who are they anyway??

So I had planned for this blog to be about character development, and the process of that. With my post about Nezbee Diggle, I feel like part of that subject has already been breached. At least to the extent of doing my own character development exercise. That project was a good start to the art of character development, covering the basics, a little family history, near future intent and little bit about how she got to where she is today. However, that is such a small amount of information compared to what a character, especially for a main character really needs to have to be identifiable and unforgettable. I've been reading a book that helps summarize the process of creating characters, and then what to do with them. It's called Characters & Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card. I am not even halfway through this book and in just the first few pages I noticed that I have been overlooking seemingly obvious ways to develop my characters. I have been providing background information and personality traits for each of my adventurers, but I have not been giving them things like reputation beyond their racial attributes, or hidden agendas as of yet. While reading this book has been immensely helpful, it has also humbled my once very decent (or so I had thought) character creation skills. While I have been successfully descriptive in my writing of the main forces in my story, I have forgotten some very imperative information. One would think that a writer would automatically think of his or her book from the perspective of someone who understands that just because they know their characters does not mean that their readers do too and their readers need more of a past, or motive, or reputation on the people they are reading about to truly understand them. Not I. I have been writing blindly from the heart and forgetting that although I know these characters very well and I describe them so, I have neglected to give a more personal view into their world and into their minds. I also found another source on the web about creating unforgettable characters. Sophie Littlefield wrote about a fool proof formula that she devised to creating unforgettable characters. It is a very simple formula and one that I was ecstatic to see that I had already used on my main character of my book. It goes as thus: back story plus internal conflict plus aggravating circumstances equals unforgettable character. So my main character has all of this, at least I started her off right, however, her companions could still use some work. Of course my book isn't anywhere near being finished yet, so there is still plenty of room for them to grow and develop. I just might want to consider going back and adding to their history a little bit. I want everyone to love these guys as much as I do!

Now on to the characters that everyone forgets, the side character. I have been having trouble with developing these personalities. I want them to be unforgettable yet forgettable. I think that these minor roles should be quirky but never steal the story. they need to be there and play their role well, but then disappear when they are done. I have heard about a computer program that actually creates a character for you after you input minor information. I haven't found it yet, but I haven't looked very hard either. I am struggling with the option of using a program at all. I mean it might make for a good basis to build a person from, helping to save time, but it feels so impersonal to me. I understand the need to save time, I can barely find the time to write this blog, but I also feel like it would take away from my story if I put randomly generated characters into it. However, I also understand that making my own background story and history for each minor role could be very time consuming and possibly ruin deadlines in the future, but for now, my deadline is pretty far away and I feel that I am making some serious headway. I will do some research into this idea and let you all know what decision I make.

I have also decided to put up the book that I am reading (for entertainment) at the time of each blog. This way you can either try it on for yourself, or maybe give me suggestions. I am currently reading Monster by A.Lee Martinez and it is fantastic.

"I am learning all the time.  The tombstone will be my diploma."  ~Eartha Kitt

Concerning beginnings. And sometimes hobbits.

              This week’s blog is about beginnings, my beginnings, both in books and in life. I decided to jump start my brain by comparing the first chapters or prologues of some of my favorite books, and was very surprised to find that, although I had already read these books once before, they didn’t all start out the way I had remembered them to. I have always been under the impression that a book should start with a punch. I guess that I just hadn’t considered what that punch could be. The way I remembered all of the books that I read always began with some traumatic event. Something would always happen in the beginning of the book that made me feel…something that I needed resolved so that I could sleep peacefully at night. And so, I would continue to read that story and go on that emotional rollercoaster so that at the end, I would feel fulfilled and relieved that all of the friends that I had just made were safe and sound. However, when I actually went back and read just the first chapter or so, I came across something both wonderful and surprising.

              Several of the books I went back and looked at did in fact start with an immediate battle of some proportion, begging me to continue on; books such as Eragon by Christopher Paolini, or Homeland by R.A.Salvatore. Even Monster by A. Lee Martinez begins with a fight between a blue guy and a yeti in a grocery store. However, a vast majority of the beginnings that I remembered didn’t actually start out that way. They started as a very soft and mellow description of the world, or of the characters that I would soon befriend. A few of them would even go as far as a few whole chapters of nothing much happening at all. Then the conflict would be revealed a subtle way. Somehow, this was every bit as captivating as an epic battle and I would read on. Yet, how is this so? I used to think that the only way to capture a reader was by making them immediately ask the question….what are they going to do now? Who is going to fix this? I am beginning to think now, that I was so captivated by great beginnings like “Concerning Hobbits” in Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien because by the time I had finished reading the several small chapters about hobbits, I found that I was totally and completely in love with them! So the book was actually even more important to me because I felt that in every adventure I went through and was a part of, was one more step towards protecting these little fuzzy beings that I had learned to love at the very first.

             This new perspective might seem less profound to a more experienced writer, but again....this is what I started blogging for, to force myself to write and to pay more attention, and most of all to learn. I believe that this two week project has done just that. My point of view about beginnings has been dramatically rearranged, and now, I have a good grasp on the beginning of my own book!

“When you re-read a classic you do not see in the book more than you did before.  You see more in you than there was before.”  ~Clifton Fadiman