Why Some People Don't Support Your Writing Goals

One of the weird things about writing is that to many outsiders, you look like you are doing nothing. Often, people don't see the results until months after the work has been completed. That, coupled with the fact that most of the population doesn't actually understand how complex and difficult it is to write fiction, let alone be successful at it, can lead to some negative encounters. Most people don't know how to value storytelling. So much of their experience of it is based on feeling and subconscious thoughts.

And of course, there is the tendency to measure things by income, and to some people, skills and work only have value if they can bring in the money. There is a realm for this kind of thinking, but it's not for everyone and every skill at every level. D. Todd Christofferson once taught, "All true work is sacred." Even those who have made a beautiful income off their writing were writing without it for a long time.

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On Talent and Success

Over the last few months, I've been noticing something.

I've been seeing writers who are less talented than others find more success.

At the same time, I've become more aware of talented writers, smart writers, or passionate writers who sort of drift away.

Since I left high school, I've come in contact with a lot of people who dream of being writers. And over the years, I've seen many educated and intense aspiring authors . . . just stop pursuing. Sometimes these are people who have all the right personal qualities to succeed. They are sharp, driven, dedicated, passionate, and they have critical thinking skills. Sure, they may need more practice, but that comes with time. Perhaps, though, it is because they are so intense and critical, they stop believing they can succeed. They don't think they can actually "make it."

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Coming up with a Plot (from scratch)

Anonymous said: I often have ideas for a scene or a character but there is no plot. How can I expand these ideas into stories? I just don't know what to do with my ideas to get a story out of them. Most plotting tips require that I know at least the beginning and the end of my story. But I don't even have that.

Hi Anonymous,

I've heard of other writers having this same problem, so you are not alone! Here are some ideas that come to mind when I think about this.

First off, you have ideas for characters or scenes, and that's a starting point, and you probably (I'm assuming, because it wasn't that long ago) saw my post What to Outline When Starting a Story, which can give some guidance on what to consider. However, if you have no idea where to even come up with a concept for your plot that post can only be so much help.

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How Many of These Writing Books Have You Read?

As I've talked about on my blog several times, an important part of growing as a writer is learning about writing. For years I've wanted to compile a list of writing books I've read, liked, and recommend. Today I'm happy to say I now have that list to add to my blog (perfect timing for anyone who likes summer reading). I'm sure over time, this list will be added to.

Many writers I've talked to have read quite a few of these books. How many have you read? And is there one I need to look into? (You can comment at the bottom).

If you haven't read any of them, cool. Now you have a list to chose from should you ever want to.

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Are Your Conflicts Significant?

Every once in a while, I hear writers talk about the importance of writing about significant conflicts. And they're right. Stories need to have significant conflicts to be interesting. Often the promise of significant conflicts is where tension comes from. Significant conflicts are particularly important in the opening page or pages of your story.

Significant conflict does not necessarily mean an extreme conflict, and this is where I see people get confused. We are often told that something extreme needs to happen in the opening to get the reader's attention, like a bomb going off. While stories can open this way, they don't have too. While those conflicts are significant, they aren't the only kinds of significant conflicts.

I have seen plenty of story openings with insignificant conflicts. This might be something like the protagonist being out of toothpaste or a cat being bored. Sure, there is a conflict of some sort, but it's insignificant. Who really wants to read ongoing paragraphs about a character being out of toothpaste and how inconvenient that is? It's little better than having no conflict.

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How to Outline When Starting a Story

Last week I started talking about outlining, specifically focusing on story structure and what to outline. You can visit that post here.

Usually when people talk about outlining, they are either referring to what to outline or how to outline. So today, I'll be talking about different ideas on how to outline.

One thing that I probably should have mentioned last time that I'll mention today is that much of outlining stems from brainstorming, so if you are having a difficult time writing down an outline, it may be because you haven't brainstormed enough. Some writers brainstorm and do an outline simultaneously. So if you are having trouble, ask yourself if you have brainstormed enough.

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What to Outline When Starting a Story

Anonymous asked: Hi, I visit your tumblr frequently. Creative writing is my passion and I am learning a lot reading your posts. I have also read books about screenplay (and the book by Lisa Cron about how our brain works). I love writing fantasy young adult novels but for me it's hard to outline. Could you give me some tips? :-) (Forgive me for my grammar errors. English is not my first. language) :-) Thank you so much. When you publish your novel, I will love to read it :D 

Hi anonymous,

Well, talking about outlining can be a little tricky because just as people write differently, people outline differently. For creative writing, there aren't a lot of rules for how you outline. Some writers don't outline at all. They simple start writing and find their story as they go. Personally, I'm a big outliner, but I also leave myself some room in case I come up with better idea along the way.

Now, for some, when they talk about outlining, they simply mean planning things out ahead of time, and how and what to plan, but others mean the actual physical process of outlining (physically writing down and organizing their outline), so I'll try to talk about both.

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Complex Characters and the Power of Contradiction

Hi everyone, this week I'm over at Writers Helping Writers, talking about how to make complex characters by giving them contradictions. Here is a preview:

You’ve likely seen countless posts and resources related to creating great characters, but almost all of them seem to be lacking in one aspect I’ve found to be perhaps the most powerful: giving your characters contradictions.

Some might read this and say, “Huh? Isn’t that inconsistent characterization? Or undefined characterization?”

The contradictions I’m talking about aren’t continuity errors or mistakes. They can relate to internal conflicts, but they are not internal conflicts. If you don’t like the term “contradiction,” many of the things I’m about to talk about also work as “contrasts.”

When writers are given methods to create characters, the approaches often include giving the character strengths and weaknesses, likeable attributes, a unique appearance, and a nice backstory, or a secret or fear. These are all wonderful and useful things. But how do you make your character more complex? More interesting?

The answer lies in giving them some sort of contradiction. Let’s look at some examples of characters and the contradiction or contrasts surrounding them.

Read the rest Writers Helping Writers. 

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Why Being Boring is Awesome

In his advice book for creatives (Steal like an Artist), Austin Kleon has a chapter titled, "Be Boring."

"Be boring," Kleon says. "It's the only way anything gets done."

"I'm a boring guy," he goes on, "with a nine-to-five job in a quiet neighborhood with his wife and his dog."

Like Kleon, I'm a boring person. I do the exact same thing every day or every week. I haven't been on a trip that wasn't writing related in years. I almost never miss a day of work. Saturday mornings I work on my blog and every Sunday I go to church. It's a good thing I'm a Hufflepuff, because I have the tenacity of a rock.

But things get done. (And money gets saved.)

Once in a while, I get messages from people online that go something like this:

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Breaking Writing Rules Right: "Don't Use 'Was'"

A common piece of writing advice is to avoid using "was" or any "to-be" word in your writing. But most professionals use them in their writing--so what gives? Over my years editing, I've seen stories that were crippled from the author's quest to avoid using "was," and I knew I needed to do a post on it. Here is the "was" rule, why it's a rule, and why you (probably) shouldn't follow it religiously--with some of the most common problems I see in avoiding it.

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Context vs. Subtext (Context Should Not Become Subtext)

Context First, Subtext Second

Subtext, especially good subtext, can be tricky to write. But in order to write good subtext, you need to have context first. And in order to do that, you need to understand the difference between them and where each one fits in storytelling.

Some writers make the mistake of trying to make the context into subtext. This is a problem for several reasons, one of the main being that it makes the story very vague. In vague writing, the audience can't really tell what is going on. Without proper context, they aren't sure how to interpret information and actions. Often, this sort of writing manifests when the writer is trying to follow the "show, don't tell" rule too religiously, which usually leads to writing that is too cinematic.

However, creating context does not necessarily mean you have to "tell" straight-out all the time. It can also come from taking advantage of connotations, words with specific feelings attached to them. With that said, though, it's impossible for most stories to have proper context without some telling.

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Character Traits that Hike up Tension

 

Weeks ago, I did this post on the difference between tension and conflict. As a short recap, I mentioned that tension is not necessarily conflict, and I like to think of it as the promise of conflict, that anticipation and worry of what will happen.

As writers, we should definitely take advantage at the elements in our plot, world, and (yes) our conflicts to create tension. But over the years I've noticed that some smart writers really hike up the tension of a book through the traits of their viewpoint characters.

You see, some traits are natural tension-hikers.

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Writing What's Evil >:D (without Promoting it)

Last week, I did a post on why it's important that the world has fiction stories with dark content. You can read that post here. Today I'm going to talk about how to handle dark content--without promoting it.

Long ago, in my first year of blogging, I did a series of posts about the value of shock in writing, explaining that not all shock is bad. Today's topic overlaps with some of those ideas and is yet different from them.

Handling Dark Content Correctly

Before I get into how to deal with evil behavior, I want to explain why it's important we handle dark content correctly. In the writing world, you may have heard of "gratuitous" content. Gratuitous content is graphic violent, sexual (or any other dark subject matter) content that is thrown into a story for little to no purpose other than to shock the audience. Sometimes it might be thrown in because the creators want to be taken more seriously, which is, ironically, the equivalent of a middle-schooler throwing out cuss words because he wants to sound "mature." It might be thrown in just to get a PG-13 or R rating. Sometimes it might be thrown in because the creators think that it's what their audience wants.

There is a poor way of handling graphic or dark content and there is a right way.

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