Tag: writing

Plotting Your Plot with Reverse Outlining

Quan

When you’re trying to flesh out that kernel of a story idea in your mind, putting together a cohesive plot can be a daunting task. Sometimes figuring out what happens and how can seem intimidating. Many writers solve this issue by taking a lot of time crafting a complete plot outline of how everything flows from start to finish before they begin writing. Other writers start with their characters and their unique predicament and make up the plot elements as they go along. These two approaches do not have to be mutually exclusive.

For many of my stories I first create a list of cool moments I want to see happen in my story. Then I build a vague plot outline around those moments. I keep the outline vague to leave some flexibility for if the characters or situations dictate a change in direction. But basically these moments serve as destination points you can direct your story to. You can discover some cool stuff by pointing your characters in a direction and just following them around. This is a hybrid technique for early plotting, where you set a destination point and then make stuff up as you go along their journey to get there.

This is the early plotting stage, so you should not worry about any filters. Be as weird and outlandish as your mind will allow. Don’t try to filter the ideas, just let them flow directly from your mind to the paper (or computer). You can go back and tweak, finetune, rework your ideas, or even replace them with something better later. Just get the ball rolling and follow your muse without overthinking things. One you have your vague plot outline done, then you can go is and add details.

Asking Questions

To get this process rolling, ask yourself a few questions about your stories, and write down your answers. Start with this one: What are the 5 biggest moments that you want to see happen in your story? Now step back. What is the next moment you are working towards in the story? Write out, step by step, how your characters get to that moment. Write single sentences for each action and don’t overthink it. That’s how I map out the next sequence of actions in my story. I don’t have a rigid outline, but I have moments that I want to happen, and I lead my characters to those moments, step by step.

Say you want one of your villains to spring a trap on your group of plucky heroes. How do your heroes get into position for the trap to be sprung? How do they spring the trap? What do they do when the trap is sprung?  How do they get out of that mess? What does the bad guy do when they get out? Sometimes you need to micromanage your plot to get the story moving.

But that just gives you a skeleton to build on. Now you need to add the meat. Pick a character, any one, and follow him or her through that sequence of events. What does he or she see, smell and touch? What are they thinking as they go through this? What memories does it bring up? What are they thinking about the rest of the characters right now? How is he or she reacting to what is happening? And what does he or she do about it?

here’s an example. In Leopard Man, my key scene was Ashlynn being chased through Forest Park by the bad guy. With that in mind. I had to ask myself how the heck she ended up in Forest Park to begin with. She was there with her best friend because they had to walk to her friend’s house in that area. So now why is she running for her life? She saw something in that forest she wasn’t supposed to see. Okay, so now that she is running, where exactly does she run to? Well, there is a small neighborhood at the end of the park, with a church at the end. So what happens if she makes it to the church? Will she be safe there? What if she isn’t? Who is chasing her, and why is she so afraid of him? And where is her friend in the midst of all of this?

Every answer leads to more questions, and each question and answer is a block to help you build your scene, chapter or story. I hope that helps.

Writing Believable Dialogue

Quan

One of the key elements of a good story is the dialogue between characters. Any story that has people interacting will show their conversations, and that is an important aspect in conveying an engaging, believable story. People can reveal a lot about themselves and their world through their dialogue. With good dialogue you can establish everything from character traits to plot elements to setting. You can tell the reader the what, why, how and where using just dialogue, and you can also use it to point out key details in the plot that you want readers to know. It is a versatile tool you have at your disposal that can convey a lot about your story when used well.

Writing good dialogue can be tricky. You want the conversation to flow naturally and sound authentic. You don’t want “talking heads” where it’s just two disembodied voices talking back and forth with nothing else happening (or do you? I’ve read some compelling stories that were nothing but two talking heads. I think this is the exception and not the rule, though). You want your people to sound like actual people with real personalities and quirks. So how can you do this?

I’ve been told that writing dialogue is one of my strengths. These are some of the techniques I use to handle it.

REAL LIFE INFLUENCE

Always listen to how people talk and converse. You will be surprised at how much you learn about how people talk just by listening to how people talk. Follow the ebb and flow of their conversation. Every dialogue has a rhythm and a poetry to it, regardless of who is talking or how they talk. Pay attention to that. You might also hear some cool antec dotes you can use in future stories. Some of the coolest dialogue from supporting characters in my book The Hand You’re Dealt came directly from people I was standing near while waiting to sell my blood plasma (Yes, that aspect of the story is quite autobiographical.)

BODY LANGUAGE

Body language and facial expression is also an important part of writing believable dialogue. People are twitchy, and nobody is just sitting perfectly still while talking. Take time to mention what their bodies and faces are doing while they are talking. You can convey a lot about what a character is thinking or feeling as they talk this way. Oftentimes, I will describe a character’s small action before they say something instead of using “he said.” Because it does a dual job of indicating who is talking while also giving some of that movement to the character. This also applies to giving a brief description of what is going through the POV character’s mind as they speak.

GRAMMAR

People don’t use proper grammar when they talk, not even English teachers. People talk in fragments, have unfinished thoughts, stumble over words, use incorrect phraseology, use filler words like um and uh, cut each other off and try to finish each other’s sentences. When writing dialogue, you want to utilize those quirks to make the conversation, and the characters, more believable. Save the soliloquies for Shakespeare.

SLANG

Pay attention to slang and local colloquialisms. If you’re writing a character from New York, that person is going to sound and talk quite differently than a person from Atlanta. Slang words and different pronunciations can be a great teller of where they are from and what their culture is, and in that instance you can be forgiven for intentional misspellings. I got into quite a few arguments with my Beta readers and editors over a New Yorker I put in The Hand You’re Dealt. They thought I misspelled one of his colloquialisms, and I had to repeatedly explain that he comes from a culture where People call each other “sun” (as in shining like the sun) instead of “son.” I got so tired of the fight I just switched to a different slang word.

Incorporating other languages can also be a key element in establishing a character. If a character comes from a unique culture, including a word or two from their native language will drive that point home. Just don’t overdo it: sprinkling in too many foreign words will make it blatant to the reader that you’re trying to make the character seem more ethnic.

THE WORD ‘SAID’

When writing dialogue, you tread a fine line when using the word “said.” You don’t want to overuse it, but at the same time, it can become quite obvious to readers when you are trying too hard to not use it. If you find yourself trying to come up with a new verb for talking every time you have somebody speak, then you are doing it too much, and you need to use “said” to give the reader a break. “Said” is usually an invisible word: the reader will read that and know what it means intrinsically without it interrupting the flow of the story. The key is to not use it ALL of the time lest you appear unimaginative. You also want to keep a lid on the flowery adjectives (which usually come right after you use the word “said”). Whatever you’re using that adjective to describe in what that character said should be self evident in whatever that character said and the actions and details around it. If you do that well, then the adjective becomes redundant.

TESTING IT OUT

Once you’ve written your dialogue, the next thing is to test it out. Don’t be afraid to read your dialogue out loud to see if everything sounds smooth and believable. Sometimes words and phrases that look good on paper (or your screen) won’t sound right when actually spoken, and that can be problematic if you want you dialogue to sound authentic.

These are some of the techniques I use when writing conversations. Give them a try and hopefully it will make your dialogue more memorable.

D’ya know who else excels at writing dialogue? Chuck Palahniuk! Check out this book from the creator of Fight Club and see for yourself.

The Secret of a Good Title

Quan

For me, one of the more challenging aspects of writing has surprisingly been coming up with good titles for my stories. It’s not as easy as it would seem. You have to remember that whatever title you give to your work will be the label that work is known under for its entire shelf life, and will be one of the first things people think of when they think of your book title.

With that in mind, you want to have the right title, and it is something you need to put some thought into.

So what are the elements that make a story title the right one?

1. Resonance. First and foremost, the title has to “sound” right. Titles within themselves have cadences and rhythms to them, and it shows when you speak them out loud. That’s why many iconic titles have three syllables or less. A shorter title just flows better.

2. Relevance. The right title will have a direct relation to the story it describes. Ideally you will be able to get a good idea of what the story is about just in the title. This isn’t a hard and fast rule (none of these are. You can find more than enough exceptions), but as a rule of thumb if someone reads your story, they should be able to get a good idea of where you got the title from. It doesn’t have to be a literal representation of the story, but it can be an allusion to a major plot point, character, setting, or some other aspect of the story that is worthy of making a title. Sometimes you can take an actual word, title, name or passage in the story and use that as the title. Sometimes the subject matter of the book, if unique enough, will suffice. For instance, “The Leopard Man” was my title for that book from the start because there was a literal man that changed into a leopard mentioned within the story. But the idea of a “Leopard Man” was unique and guaranteed to stand out. The title of “Godmode” came about because the book was originally going to be a literal written video game, and Godmode is a popular term in gaming.

3. Catchiness. This is hard to quantify, but it is nonetheless very important to the marketing of your story. How sticky is the title? Does it have some aspect that makes it stay in the reader’s mind? There are lots of ways to give a title that extra “it.” Some titles are clever plays on words. One of my favorite books is Terry Pratchett’s “Going Postal.” The title has a double meaning which ties directly into the story, but the fact it is also a quirky cliché makes an interesting juxtaposition against the established world the story is set in. A title like “Raiders of the Lost Ark” has a grand, adventurous tone to it that feels like a dangerous quest which sounds like a fun story to get into. In this instance, word choice becomes very important, as different words have different psychological and emotional attachments to them that help craft the reader’s attitude towards what to expect from your story.

There is always a possibility that the right title comes right to mind immediately, or may even be the starting basis of your story. A potential reader turned off by your title might not give your book a chance. No pressure, right?

So if you’re having a hard time coming up with a title, first ask yourself a few things:

1. What is my story about? This is where coming up with your vaunted 30-second pitch will come in handy. If you can describe the essence of your story in a couple of sentences, you can possibly find a word or phrase to encapsulate that summary.

2. Who are my central characters? Lots of stories are simply named after one or two of the principal characters. Are your characters strong and engaging enough to where you can name the entire story after them? Or does a character have a unique enough name to where that can stand out?

3. What are some key details and moments of my story? You can name your book after an aspect of  the book that is crucial to understanding what is going on. “A Song of Fire and Ice” works because of the two big details of the Game of Thrones world: the fact that “winter is coming” and the looming presence of fire-breathing dragons. On top of that, the “Fire and Ice” cliché is known and relevant and evocative, which makes it catchy.

4. What are some of the more memorable quotes of my story? Do your characters or your narrator say something profound or memorable in the story? Many of James Bond’s best titles come from something that one of the characters said during the story.

5. Is there something outside of my story that can refer to something in my story? This is a clever way of entitling a story that might require a little more work. Basically, you are taking a word or phrase that really has nothing directly to do with your story, and finding something in your story that it can reference.  It could be a song title or lyric, or a quirky, unique word, or a catchphrase, or something that has more meaning to the pop zeitgeist than to your story, but can be used to refer to some aspect of your story. Once again, Godmode was a simple video game term to refer to the player having the ability to play the game without any of the normal challenges of the game. When in Godmode, you are invincible, or you have unlimited ammunition, or you can jump higher, or some other hack that makes the game a lot easier for you to play. Conversely, in my book, my protag gets to experience his own twisted “Godmode” whenever he is consumed by rage. He becomes stronger, faster and much more dangerous…but this only happens in short, infrequent bursts. For most of the book, he is running for his life, running out of ammo, overmatched and out of his depth…which makes calling the book “Godmode” rather ironic.

Aside from Godmode and the Leopard Man, titles were something I struggled with for some of my books. Double Entry was a story I wrote because I wanted to write a semi-romantic drama set in a corporate entrepreneurial environment (something I hadn’t seen a lot of before, especially with African-American characters), but it was hard coming up with a title that referenced that. I chose Double Entry because it is a literal Accounting term and the protag is a CPA. In hindsight, I should have realized that the phrase can have entirely different connotations, especially when applied to a romance novel. I’ve had my share of disappointed readers due to that.

That was an issue I tried to avoid with The Hand You’re Dealt. The book was originally going to be called “Spades” because a lot of the story involves people playing the card game of Spades. It was a simple and catchy title that would have been perfect…had there not been so many negative racial undertones attached to the word “spade.” And the fact I was using it for a book written about primarily African American characters. So I had to come up with something else, and I had a really hard time doing it. I tried “Queen of Hearts, King of Spades” to tie in to my two protags’ relationship, but Spades continued to be a toxic word. So I just used Queen of Hearts, but that implied the book was entirely about the female protag, when she was the focus for only half the story. I found my solution in my thirty second pitch for the book that I wanted to use in my query letters: “it was a book about finding love, keeping love during tough times, and playing the hand one is dealt.” The book’s theme is perseverance and adapting to whatever life throws at you, which plays perfectly with a card playing cliché that ties in to the many card games that are played throughout the story.

Currently I am working hard on deciding titles for two manuscripts that I just finished, with the added challenge of them both being the first books in planned series. So I have to come up with a title for the series as well as for the individual book. This presents an added challenge of coming up with a catchy series title that can encapsulate everything that happens over the course of the saga. I also like titles of individual books being consistent throughout the series, which makes them more memorable, like Sue Grafton’s letter-themed Kelsey Milbourne book titles, or The Early Alex Cross Novels from James Patterson that referenced nursery rhymes. So I wanted book titles that were like that. So far, I’ve settled on entitling my urban fantasy thriller “Needle of the Southside,” with the follow-up book being “Jewels of the Eastside.” The overall theme of the title is the name of the big macguffin that the book centers around, with the dangerous area that the macguffin is hidden in. The title of the planned series as of this post is either “American Artifacts” or “The Reliquary.” I haven’t decided yet.

For the other book, my working title of the series is “Aftermath Saga,” because the saga is literally a sequel to an untold story. But to me it’s not quite catchy enough. It doesn’t have that “it” factor to me like a “Lord of the Rings” or “Books of Swords” or “Song of Fire and Ice.” Problem is, I can’t think of anything better. The titles for the three books came easier, though. I wanted each title to get shorter, while describing a key element or moment that drives the story. The first book is called “Return of the Tyrant.” The second book, which I am developing now, will be called “The Queen’s Betrayal,” while the finale will simply be called “Extinction.” Hopefully a better series title will come to mind before I’m done writing all three books.

So my advice to you is to be very cognizant of your story’s title and put a good amount of thought into what it will be. It might be the difference between your story being forgettable and being a classic.

Magic: The Gathering and the Art of World Building, Pt. 2

Quan

If you’ve read my previous post about how the card game Magic The Gathering uses its cards to build worlds, you know that I feel this could be a valuable tool to help a writer flesh out the setting of his or her story. I briefly explained how I did it, but now the question becomes “how can YOU do it?”

I have a few tips.

In MTG, the cards are elements of a world: flora and fauna, people, cultures, landmarks, important events, etc. Each card has its own mechanics that tie in not only to the game, but also to the element represented. For instance, if I were to make a card for one of my characters from my new manuscript Return of the Tyrant – an elf that is the last surviving elf in his world because he killed every other elf, it would be a creature card that destroyed every other elf in play and prohibited anyone from bringing any more elves out until that elf was destroyed. Now the card itself tells the elf’s story whenever you play it. To the makers of MTG, this is called “flavor.”
Each piece of flavor you add to a given element, whether it be a picture depicting the element, or some text explaining the element, or built into how the card works, deepens the story of the element and adds new dimension to your world.

Magic: The Gathering’s Color Pie

MTG’s foundation is a color-based system that defines every aspect of the game. there are five colors, each with its own personality and methodology, and that is the lens through which every aspect of the game is focused. (broadly: red=freedom and emotion, white=order and selflessness, black=selfishness and pragmatism, green=nature and balance, blue=intellect and invention) Each culture, creature, event and landmark is seen through the view of what color ethos it most closely represents. This actually makes defining the core aspects of worldbuilding elements easier because it gives you a base to develop around. If you have a culture of stoic warriors, you might want to lean them in the direction of a red-white combination, if you want some mad scientists, you make them red and blue or green and blue, and a mafia-like organization would be white and black. A cold, calculating manipulator could be blue-black, while a classic good guy could be monowhite.

Using a Game to Discover Your Story’s Theme

By using a game to develop your world, you can also detect broad thematic elements that can help you develop your story. Every world in Magic the Gathering has an overall theme, whether it be the adventure world aspect of Zendikar to the History-reverent world of Dominaria. once you discover the themes behind your world, you can use that as an aspect of your story. for Return of the Tyrant, the theme of extinction and lost civilization became prevalent as I was developing the cards in my game.

I’ve discovered two approaches to this method that work well. The first is what I call a Tourist mentality. You are a visitor to your world, and you are merely recording the stuff you observe as you travel through it. This is good for coming up with the people, animals, vegetation, landmarks, etc. that make up your world. The second is what I call the Historian’s mentality. Your job is to archive and describe in brief the histories and cultures that shape your world. This is how events, backstories and traditions get created…and often are good incubators for spinoff and follow-up stories.

Now, you don’t have to use MTG exclusively to do this. Any game can be used this way. even such classics as Monopoly and Chess. Or better yet, you can try your hand at inventing your own tie-in game. This would be a good idea because you now have a ready-made merchandise item once your book gets published.

Magic: The Gathering and the Art of World Building

Quan

If you’ve never played the popular trading card game Magic: The Gathering, then this blog entry might sound like gibberish to you. Magic: The Gathering is a quasi-role playing card game where you and your opponent play as dueling wizards, with the cards representing the spells you fling at one another. But that’s just the broad explanation of the game.

The story behind it is that each player is a powerful mage with the ability to travel to different worlds, each with its own culture and identity, and the spells are things the player has learned or picked up from observing life on that world. There have been alien worlds made entirely of metal, Scandanavian/Norse themed worlds encased in ice and snow, Japanese-themed worlds full of Spirits, samurai and ninjas, Greek mythology-themed worlds, classic horror-themed worlds, and even a Mongolian-styled world where everyone is at war all of the time. Fascinating stuff.

Of course, now the question is “what the heck does all of this have to do with writing a story?”

The answer? “Everything.”

The thing that sets MTG apart from every other board/card game is the extensive amount of worldbuilding that goes into every set of cards. Through the cards, as well as the tie in e-books, website articles and videogames, you get immersed in a given world that has its own ecosystem, its own bestiary, its own heroes and legends, and its own struggle. And if you’re a story buff, it’s easy to get drawn in and really feel like you are a part of this world.

That is the feeling every writer of fiction should strive for in his or her stories. You want your settings to be living, breathing extensions of your story because it adds more weight and believability to your characters. In fact, some of the greatest stories in fantasy and science fiction were just about the central character exploring his or her world, with hijinks ensuing. (Pratchett’s The Color of Magic and Asimov’s Prelude To Foundation come to mind).  This is where the whole “City is a character” motif comes from, and BTW my buddy Anne Mallory does an excellent job of it in her steamy historical romances.

I thought I’d take a novel approach to said worldbuilding utilizing my passion for MTG. As an excersize for a competition to get a design internship at Wizards of the Coast (makers of Dungeons and Dragons, Duel Masters, and you guessed it, Magic The Gathering), I was given the task of creating an entire set of Magic The Gathering cards, along with the world those cards were set in. there were specific problems I had to solve to flesh out my world, which really stretched my creative muscles. So for this exercise, I decided to use a world I had been planning on telling a high fantasy epic on: a world so ravaged by constant wars, cataclysms and tragedy that it had collectively given up its will to live. (This is actually the world my book “Return of the Tyrant” Is based in). The themes were failure, despair and extinction, with a ragtag band of heroes and former villains fighting to give their world a reason to live, against a mammoth monstrosity poised to destroy them all…and the people actually welcoming the annihilation.

Through this exercise I was able to really flesh out my world and give it its identity, to add layers of myth and lore and create backstories I could explore endlessly if I so chose. I created unique creatures and events specific to my world, and new mysteries, like why the Goblins, Elves, and Merfolk that are fantasy staples are only found via ancient ruins in my world.

I didn’t win the contest (made it to the second round though). But I enjoyed the exercise so much I continued developing my set of Magic cards long after the contest ended, adding new wrinkles and twists. I used as a guide some of the articles written by MTG head of R&D Mark Rosewater which cover the process of designing a set of cards (fascinating stuff. You can read the articles here). As a result, I have a nice toybox to play in for follow-up books and spinoffs to “Return of the Tyrant”.

I also plan on using this technique for an old story idea I was working on in college with a few buddies of mine. We were looking at doing an epic high fantasy adventure set in a world similar to feudal China, and loosely based on the legends of Shaolin and Wu-Tang (and yes, inspired by the rap group). But if I’m going to effectively tell this story, I need to create a believable world.

See where I’m going with this?

Whether I actually start writing the story or not, I think it would be an interesting exercise to see if I can build this world the same way I build the other one. I wouldn’t involve any big creatures, but it would be nice to know if there are any in this world. Also, I’d have to do some more research into feudal China and Shaolin mythology to make sure stuff was reasonably accurate – it doesn’t have to be an exact match to the stuff you see in kung-fu movies, but it has to be close enough for you to recognize the source material. Also there’s the little issue of writing believable kung-fu action when kung-fu works best as a visual. I think that’s the biggest hurdle. But hey, I was able to effectively write video game action, so I think it’s a challenge worth undertaking.

In any case, if you are having any struggles with worldbuilding, I strongly recommend giving this a try. And while you’re at it, give the game itself a try. MTG has been my hobby for over 20 years, and I think you’ll like it too.