My Journey as an Author - 17
More Medium posting. I shared some personal anecdotes there. My recent one is almost good, the product of a little freewriting. I was busy organizing my personal notes, expanding those brief snippets into structured paragraphs, helping to lock in fleeting memory. I was quite happy with what I recollected, walking again in Huacachina, or my time on the coast.
It strikes me I have traveled far and wide. I'm not a great traveler. Don't mistake me as one. Really, I think I'm pretty rubbish. I never feel like I get everything out of a place. Not like others. I just spend my time in the air, on the road, or in a hotel bed. Sometimes alone, sometimes not. But I have seen, heard, and done a little, and I guess others are interested in that. Maybe I will write more. No promises.
Dreams, my demonstration ebook is going slow. I need to write the accompanying material to document its process. There is no timeframe set, so I am not behind schedule. I just wish it were a project done and over, so I can move on to other things.
I am annoyed by Hive. Either I am doing something wrong, and I need more resource credits. I tried finding a calculator, and I should have more than enough to post, but I keep getting an error. I don't like it. Web3 needs to be easy to use. It can't have these problems, or be poorly documented. I'm not even sure where I turn to get an answer. So, that's developing.
I spent a block of my time today on an outline. And another split on Pearl of the Cultivators, and Hat Trick. I like these stories. I like the characters. But I have to be on guard. You can't be their friend. You have to poke, prod, and steal from them to help the narrative along. Risks must be faced, wages lost, and they can succeed but only by the skin of their teeth. Otherwise, it is not interesting to the reader.
Continuing on from my thoughts yesterday about outlining, I wanted to talk about a trick. This is something I use when creating beats, and blocking them.
Frequently, authors approach them in a linear way. They think A > B > C. It goes one to the next. And that is good, necessary even, but can be a source of problem. You don't always know where you are going, what you are doing. You may only have B, or C, or A, or even D. So, what do you do then?
I'll tell you. Follow this step. Think about the scene. Not how it unfolds, but what you are trying to accomplish. What is the end state? Does your protagonist come away with the lost idol? Is the villain's identity revealed? Some clue uncovered? Write it down. Better, write the three things down you need to have done at the end of the scene.
These are hard limits. They help you keep on track in your writing, making you remember what you have to do. Some people forget. They are lost in a great dialogue, or setting, and forget they needed to introduce the villain's henchwoman who was going to steal an artifact. Oh well, put that in later, I guess. But that throws off everything else. Maybe for the best, or worst. Try to avoid it by keeping in mind the things that need to be included.
When you have your limits, you can build them into a traditional scene. You know how it ends. You should know how it begins. You just need to get there.
When writing limits, I also like to include what I am trying to accomplish. Maybe I want to foreshadow something to come, or make a reference to another book, or future event, or add some unimportant lore. Maybe I heard a great joke that I want to work in to the dialogue. This is the place to make these notes. It can go deeper, too. If you have a theme, or your tone is shifting, add that to the limits. Your heroes started happy in their home town, but they are weeks lost in the forest, exhausted as they are chased by unstopping skeletons, with food running out. They are not happy. They are cold, ruined, and dark. Remind yourself, and write accordingly. This can help you breathe life into your characters, letting them respond to the world. Even just a brief bit of stress, a resigned sigh, or a moment where they have to consciously redouble themselves can elevate your prose and make these people seem real.
If you want to take it an additional step, each act of your outline can also have limits. Consider your story at every level, and write out what you want to happen. Not the how, but what. These high level concepts are what you really need to understand your story, because they are timeless pieces of a narrative machine. It does not matter if you are writing fantasy, sci-fi, or an autobiography. In fact, you should test your story in a neutral setting.
Why does the villain act the way he does? Is it only because you wanted him to, to be the Evil of the East? He gains nothing in any world but yours, and never would be so foolish. This can show a discrepancy, or something that can be addressed. You might just need a single scene. You need to establish two characters love each other, or hate each other, or anything else. You might even realize the story as you have it just isn't any good.
Now, stories can be simple. Don't get me wrong. I like the traditional quest, which is A to B easy. But everything else might conspire to make it silly, boring, or unlikely. Work with the pieces without all the weight of characterization and setting. They are pieces, archetypes. The king, the hero, the villain. You can place them on the board, move them around, subvert expectations. But you can only get the right picture when you do just this. Moving around your own characters will be biased, and give you ideas that are colored by your own idiosyncratic beliefs, and not the engines of motivation which govern reality.