The Necessity of Mess

   I suffer from perfectionism. It can be a good thing, and sometimes looking closer at something can identify tiny problems that could be disastrous, but it many fields of life, perfectionism just makes things difficult. It stresses me out. It keeps me from finishing things. It even keeps me from starting them, because I'm afraid that I'll never be able to do or make something "good enough."
   (Note: this is not a post about proof-reading or editing. They exist for a reason.)
   Perfectionism in art and writing stifles creativity and imagination. It keeps you frozen with fear and indecision and nit-picking. Good news, though! For a large amount of writing and other kinds of art, you don't need to make something perfect. In fact, you don't even need to make it good. You just need to get started.

“The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon.” - Robert Cormier

   First drafts and beginnings and practice are supposed to be messy and unedited and, above all, private. Nothing stresses you out more than trying to perform to other people's standards when you're supposed to be doing nothing more than laying the groundwork. It's not supposed to make sense to other people, because other people aren't you and therefore don't have the whole picture.

“I'm writing a first draft and reminding myself that I'm simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.” - Shannon Hale

   Practice and first drafts are the structure that supports your writing. You can't tell what something looks like when it's completely put together by studying its skeleton. At most, you get the basic shape. First drafts are even more basic, just capturing fleeting ideas and pinning them down on paper. It comes out messy and disjointed and often discouraging, because you can feel what it's supposed to be but it't just not measuring up. Sometimes you know why, sometimes you don't.

"Very few writers really know what they are doing until they've done it." - Anne Lamott

   If you don't know what you're doing, then you're doing it right. We can never grow if we don't keep going beyond what we know now. So write, write, write, and keep writing, and rewrite too, but don't let old works stifle new ones. If it's just writing practice, let it be messy. Only rewrite if you're practicing rewriting or if what you've written is already laid out, beginning to end. Rewriting in the middle muddles your mind and ties you in confused creative knots. Begin! Move forward! Don't stop! And then, when you've finished your first draft, brainstorm, dissect, chop up, move, add, and delete until you have a firm structure. Do it again, and again, until the shape of the story is as close as you can make it to what it should be, and then you can worry about word choice and sentence structure and that pesky little descriptive.

"Just do it." - Nike

   And if a full novel is too big, try a short story. After two exhausting first drafts and six months of laziness-induced writer's block, that's what I'm doing. I don't know much about writing. I'm a new writer. I will work on my first drafts, because you never learn it if you don't do it, but I will also write for the joy of writing and I will practice the act of completion on a smaller scale. My first drafts may never see the inside of a publishing house, but they taught me things, and so they are time well spent.

Worldbuilding: The (Awesome) Basics

   Worldbuilding is my all-time favorite part of writing. Who wouldn't want to organize social strata, trace ancient trade routes, and layer meaning after meaning into simple statements?

   ...

   Okay, maybe that's just me. But nuances of culture aside, worldbuilding in all its forms is something to consider seriously. It doesn't simply apply to high fantasy and sci-fi. Every story has a "world" where it takes place, conventionally called the setting, and it is one of the main components of story. Surroundings can work with or against your characters -- or both at the same time! -- establish mood, or provide pivotal information at critical points. Snowy mountain forests swarming with wolves and dark, broken down futuristic police headquarters present their own physical settings, challenges, and advantages to be explored. A primitive mining colonials and aristocratic British nobility will provide completely different social conventions and expectations for characters to navigate. Swords and archery fill a different need than laser guns or dragon's fire. Every component of your story that isn't plot, character, or theme is world.

   If your writing a western, take time to examine the culture. If you have a city girl moving to the plains, know what was in style, clothes-wise and behavior-wise, for her and how that would clash with the styles (or lack thereof) in whatever social circle she lands in. If you're writing a historical romance, or even have a romantic subplot, know what was appropriate and what may be accepted in modern times but would be considered scandalous by both parties back then. Know what was too expensive for certain people to own and what parts of town people wouldn't walk through alone at night. Know what slang is too modern to be included. Know how teenagers acted, because I'll guarantee you that many modern historical stories get it so wrong it makes me flinch.

   Do the same with modern stories, even if it's in a country you're familiar with. Unless you live there, don't assume. In the South you don't say Miss, you say Ma'am, and you absolutely don't say boy, because Miss and boy is what you would call your slaves way back in the day. It's different in the North. It's different in Japan, where surnames come first and there are honorifics galore. In Spanish you have different levels of familiarity for your pronouns, and which ones you use when depends on whether you're in Spain or certain parts of Latin America. Some US states have plates on the fronts of their cars, some don't. Different cities have different forms of government. Some small towns, large towns, or sections of cities are heavily populated by certain ethnic groups, often because of the proximity to disturbed nations, shipping routes, gold rushes, historical trade deals, and historical immigration trends.

   All this boils down to, if you're writing about the real world, do your research. Talk to people. I've read some author's accounts of traveling to places they are writing about, and noting things like the smells, common weather, color differences, and slang. The movie Bolt has a wonderful bonus features piece about how the creators went on a road trip during pre-production, traveling to the different places the story took place and taking pictures and video, documenting the different qualities of light so the animators had enough material to work with. If you watch the movie closely, you can see how the light changes with their surroundings and how the creators worked with it to strengthen the mood and the story, instead of scattering scenes willy-nilly across America.

   Beyond the basics of culture, also try to get a feel for basics of living in any setting. Where you get water, what you make clothes out of, what you eat and how it gets to you, how you keep warm, how you keep dry, where garbage goes, how much and what kinds of garbage you make... Getting these details wrong in a real-world story will be a raging sign of ignorance and laziness to people who are familiar with those details. When you don't consider them in a fantasy story, it can present the same problems, as well as making you miss out on some majorly cool opportunities. This list of questions covers most of your basic considerations.

   While these are generally fairly important when you are building a world from scratch, my favorite part of sci-fi and fantasy is the culture. It's one of the reasons I simultaneously enjoy and am seriously annoyed by many sci-fi and fantasy stories. While it's easy to say the fanbase is just obsessing and overthinking things, wouldn't Star Wars be more interesting if we got to see deeper into the various cultures? The sociopolitical impact of major wars and the use of a clone army? How the collapse of the Republic affected the Outer Rim and Hutt space -- or how it didn't affect things at all, demonstrating just how vain it was for the Jedi and the Empire to think they were shaping the universe? Star Trek spent its time poking a cultural differences and exploration, how it could be beneficial or destructive. Stargate follows in the same vein, complete with the difficulties of politics on any world and the troubles of misunderstanding. There are tropes such as "Every Alien Speaks English" and "Puny Humans," when it would make so much more sense, and be so much more fun, if different species and sub-species and sub-cultures spoke different languages and humans were as terrifying to some species as the Skrulls or Darkseid or the Galra or Borg or Romulans are to us. 

   Basically, embrace culture and history and what it can do for your story in any genre. This infograph covers many of the obvious and not-so-obvious facets of culture. If you're a geek like me, go all out and start working out how the humor of one culture might clash with the preconceptions of family or justice of another. If culture isn't your cup of tea, make sure you at least have the basics of what will affect the story hammered out. If your MC is a thief, know where thieves stand in the social structure (it's not always at the bottom), how other people perceive them (the most horrendous of criminals? Dashing rogues?), and how they'll change their behavior based on the job (you don't act the same stealing from a fruit stand as you do from a mansion). Don't default your story's culture to the one that you're used to. Study other cultures, historical and modern, mix-and-match, come up with new concepts, theorize about how technology affects social status in the future and all the other fascinating things you can come up with!

   To summarize: be creative, be realistic, and be thorough. Flesh out the world your characters live in and your readers will thank you.

Naming Characters

   I used to struggle with naming my characters more than almost anything else. So many times I would have an idea, be writing out a bit of cool dialogue or description, and grind to a halt because I couldn't think of what to call my character. In that case, maybe the best course of action would have been to put a blank and move on. There's also the incredibly helpful babynames.com, and a name generator geared towards fantasy & scifi that covers towns, castles, inns, pirate ships, and so many other things. There are others, some that will generate entire character profiles plus a name, that name options have become almost limitless. Despite that, it can still be hard to think of a name that matches a character, or that sounds good, or that fits with your particular storyworld. These are a few thoughts on choosing and generating your own names.
    When I'm searching for the name of a character, real-world or not, I usually start by going to babynames.com and searching for names with a meaning that's related to the essence of the character, a nationality, and a beginning letter. The meaning is simply to narrow things down and provide names that could be cool Easter eggs just for my pleasure. The nationality is both for accuracy (if a character is Greek, she's not likely to have a Hawaiian name) and for the feeling of the name (Welsh, Scottish, and Russian names tend towards more harsh sounds and shorter names, while Spanish and French names are softer). Choosing a first letter might sound odd, but there is power to it. Start with W and English for the nationality, and you'll get names that tend toward Washington, William, Wolfgang, and Wellington. These have an air of aristocracy and snobbishness, which you can play up or turn on its head at your pleasure. Contrast that with names like Rob, Richard, or Ray, which in turn have a different feeling than Albert, Adam, or Archer. Try to find one with an air that feels right for your character.
    It comes down to syllables, consonants, and vowels. Simple character? Fewer syllables. Tough or mischievous character? Try names that start with consonants like "R" or "L" and have one or two syllables. Quiet, kind character? Try finding names that start with vowels or consonants such as "T" or "F."
    That doesn't even begin to cover the full scope of naming choices. Delving into different nationalities provides a range of options that can go from exotic to harsh to just plain weird. Names can contradict norms or fit a variety of characters. A character might be named something that completely contradicts his personality, either for comedic effect or to illustrate that his parents wanted a different kind of kid.
    But what if you're looking to name a blue-skinned teenage Martian princess? Patricia is hardly a viable option. But before you turn towards the alien name generator, you need to establish a few facts about her people's culture and language.
    Maybe worldbuilding isn't you're thing, but there are so many things that can enrich your world and affect your choices that you can't ignore it. You don't need to develop a whole language, but try and establish a feel for what it sounds like. That way, characters from the same culture won't end up with wildly different names (unless they're from different cultures, in which case it would be a good thing if there's some difference in their names). Also recall that the first name-surname format doesn't apply to all cultures at all times. For Japanese peasants in the 1600s, many only had a first name. It was the noble class who had surnames. The same in England, which is why we now have names like Tanner, Smith, and Cooper -- they were occupations, which got tacked on to certain people's name to tell them apart from others with the same name. Sometimes not even royalty had official surnames, just titles (Alexander the Great, Henry VIII).
    After you've done a little developing, it's a great help to turn back to babynames.com and search in languages that sound similar. In my fantasy novel, the warlike people from the north have names derived from Norwegian, Scandinavian, Russian, and similar languages, many of which were spoken once by real-world warlike people from the north. Those from more southern countries, where the MC originates, have names inspired by Hebrew, Welsh, and Scottish.
    If that's still too real-world, try altering names. William can become Tillian or Willam or Wulder. Or try just simple syllables. Rik. Tess. Buk. Sal. Swap out letters. Kevin becomes Kelin. Nathan becomes Naran.
    But with all these different options, there are four simple rules to follow when naming characters:
    1. Feeling comes before meaning. Nobody will know and few will care that Character A's obscure, confusing name has a special meaning related to his ancestral history of arms dealing. Unless it's specifically important to the story.
    2. Make sure it's easy to pronounce. Don't yanks your readers out of the story because they can't figure out if you pronounce Jealaraca with a silent "J" and a hard "C" or a French "J" and soft "C" or however many ways there are to pronounce it. Don't confuse!
    3. Start names with different letters, especially with recurring characters. A lot of people like to give their twins names with the same first letter. If your twins are the same gender and you want people to be able to tell them apart, don't do it. Nobody will know who's who. Same goes for non-twins, especially when you're making up names.
    And that's all I can cover in one post. Have a good week, and happy naming!

Description in Fantasy & SciFi

 
If you're like me, one of the most attractive things about scifi and fantasy are the opportunities to create entirely original cultures and languages. Making special titles for parents and grandparents, deciding what's the accepted method of apology, what simple actions are outrageous insults and what are flattering compliments is one of my favorite parts about writing and worldbuilding.
    But I encounter two problems when applying this, my favorite of activities: using unfamiliar concepts too much and coming up with names. We'll cover names in the next post.

    People read books to be fully immersed in a new world with new people, places, and experiences. It seems logical to try and cram the story with as many new and original concepts as possible. But that discounts the second part of the equation: readers are looking for new things... that are repackaging old things. "...there is no new thing under the sun" (Ecclesiasted 1:9). Beyond the fact that it's impossible to be entirely original, you can't dump people into a completely new world and expect them to follow the story. They'll be more concerned figuring out why it matters that grandma is wearing yellow instead of red, or why waving your little finger would get you yelled at, or what travalad forlic desh'rya means, than about your character and the problems she's going through. No, better to be telling a story about unfailing honor with just a little setting filled in than it is to have three pages describing Malu buying star-berries with every little detail described and explained.
    That last mistake is called infodumping. Dictionary.com defines it as an act or practice of presenting an indigestible or incomprehensible amount of information all at once. It's like reading an encyclopedia about this strange new world instead of experiencing it through the senses of the characters. It's like walking into a theater expecting to see and action movie and getting a documentary on nuclear physics instead. How many people would get up and walk out? It's the same if you infodump in the middle of the book, or at the end. Story comes first. Don't interrupt it.
    But what if there's some information the reader just needs to know to understand what's going on? Rule #1: don't stop the story. Rule #2: working large chunks of information in-between action means it's gonna get skipped. Rule #3: characters standing around chatting about something they already know and don't need to discuss is also stopping the story. 
So what do you do? 
    Some of the best examples I've seen of working info into stories is in action movies. Action movies only exist if the audience doesn't get bored, and that kind of audience has a very, very short attention span. Usually, there's an elaborate plan involved in the course of the story. The audience needs to know the plan so they're not entirely lost when everyone's suddenly split up and doing seemingly unrelated things. Often, they use a specific version of the "dumb puppet trick" (see here for the explanation), what I call "the briefing." Here are examples from Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.

    We've learned all kinds of information. We know the plan, we know the character's opinions of the plan, we know additional information such as Lando's promotion and the fact that the computer array in going to be very, very hot. We don't necessarily need that information, but it enriches the story world and keeps us connected.

    This is only one kind of info-sharing, but it's all I can cover in one post. Try applying this principle to your stories and characters, in your books or just as a standalone scene.

    Next: coming up with those pesky character names when babynames.com doesn't help.

    Further reading:

http://thewritepractice.com/what-is-infodumping-and-how-can-you-avoid-it/

http://www.wherethemapends.com/writerstools/writers_tools_pages/tip_of_the_week--21-30.htm

https://ellenbrockediting.com/2014/07/03/novel-boot-camp-lecture-3-how-to-avoid-info-dumping/

Writing During the School Year

  It's the time of year that stores are pulling out their overly-cheerful “back to school” signs and I'm frantically trying to hide from reality. School tends to eat up enough time that things like drawing and writing and baking get pushed to the weekends. However, if you want to be a novelist, it takes more dedicated practice. These are some of the tricks I'm going to use to keep myself writing through the school year.

1. Have a word count goal. Even if it's just 100 words a day, I'm still writing something. It doesn't even need to be on my novel, although that would be preferable.

2. Work on something, even if it's not writing. Brainstorm to get myself out of whatever corner I've written myself into, work on an outline for the new idea that won't leave me alone, write in a character journal – something writing-related, at least, even if I'm stuck with writer's block.

3. Variety. School is already drudgery, no matter now interesting the subject matter, and there's no better recipe for writer's block than making writing drudgery too. If I just can't bring myself to work on my novel, I can play with a different character or try out my poem skills.

4. Drabbles. Incredibly useful little pieces of writing generally between 100 and 500 words. Not even a short story, just a scene. Find a list of prompts and use one. Explore how your characters react in the most outlandish situations you can conjure up. Who would they be if they were members of Starfleet? Who would be a jedi and who would be the bounty hunter if they were Star Wars characters? What would happen if the medieval story becomes a sci-fi story, or vice-versa? What would happen if the main character died? How can I apply the principle I just read about on that writing blog?

5. Accountability partners. Few things are more inspiring than the fact that you can't get the next bit of your friend's story if you can't send her the next bit of yours.

6. Schedules & timers. For a horrible procrastinator like me, leaving writing for when I feel like it often ends with me having written nothing for weeks. Getting on the computer to write often ends with me browsing pinterest. Setting a timer for ten or twenty or thirty minutes helps me keep focused, while a schedule motivates me to get it done.

  This is what works for me. It won't work for everyone, but it's always good to have a plan. What are you going to do to keep yourself writing?

What is a Character?

When I'm looking for something to read, the first thing that catches my eye are interesting covers and

engaging titles. Then I turn to the back of the book or the inside cover and skim the summary. At that point, I don't care who thinks what about the book or if the writer is a New York Times bestseller. What I'm looking for is an adventure, one on which I will follow someone through peril and hardship to victory.

So the deciding factor on whether or not I will read the book is the main character (MC). Many people have the same criteria. A unique plot or clever prose might be enough to satisfy some, but it takes a good MC to bump the story up to the next level.

There are a lot of criteria that can be applied to a good MC. He needs to be likeable. He needs to be the catalyst that moves the plot. He needs to have a character arc – to learn something through his struggles in the story. He needs to be relatable. It can all be summed up in a simple statement:

The character needs to be someone who we can learn through.

It's been said that readers live a thousand lives. If that's the case, that means we're learning the lessons that the characters do. It follows that an MC must be, first, someone who has something to learn (and presumably learns it), and second, someone we are willing to follow as he or she learns.

If you've been studying character building for a while, you've probably come across the terms “Mary Su” or “Gary Stu.” If not, it's a nickname for characters who are too perfect, whether in their looks or personality or both. This violates the law of relatability and eliminates any meaningful character arc, which in turn prevents the development of a quality plot. Finally, readers just don't like them. Perfection doesn't exist in the real world, which makes images of perfection feel false and radiate an aura of “holier-than-thou.” Most people aren't willing to learn from someone they don't like. A perfect character also doesn't provide an opportunity to learn in an intrinsic, meaningful manner, since perfection is where learning stops.

This means that a good character is a character who is flawed. Not suffering from clumsiness or a stutter or an ugly nose, but flawed with things like rage or hate or greed. Deep flaws that cause major problems. But still, the basic principle of a “likeable” character means that there must be other traits to balance out the flaw. A character who struggles with anger can still be loving or generous or unselfish or all three. Once again, readers must be willing to follow the character through that character's learning, which means that there must be – at least – strong hints of that character being someone worth following. The current trends toward antiheroes and outright villains as main characters may seem to contradict this principle, but I'll address that later.

Finally, the character needs to learn. Where's the point in following someone through the story if he never reaches the end of his character arc? Or if he never has an arc at all? There might be things happening, but without emotional stakes in the main character's development, the story doesn't have a heart.

All writing teaches something. It's your responsibility to teach the right things in the right way, and the best way to achieve that is to teach your characters and let them teach the reader.

Love Languages and Character Development, Part 2

After posting a similar article on a writing forum, I received a number of comments that pointed out other facets of how love languages can affect characters.
For instance, it can provide sources of conflict between friends and allies, not simply between enemies. User_1 (not actual name) gave the following examples:

Person A is a words type, and B is a gifts type.  B lightly rebukes A and then moves on and forgets it, as, after all, it's a light rebuke.  A, however, takes more offense than B considers justified from the rebuke, and remembers it afterward. 

Or, the obvious one, where say A and B are fond of each other.  B tries to demonstrate this affection with lots of little gifts, but A is not responding in kind, and doesn't even seem terribly impressed.  This distresses B.  A says nice things to B, but B never responds in kind, and this similarly distresses A.

She also pointed out how surroundings and circumstances can affect a character's use of love languages:

...love languages can be repressed- if A is surrounded by people with the gift love language, it's possible they'll learn to display affection in that language rather than their own.  It's not as natural, but it's what is expected by the world, so that's what they do.  However, it is likely that this would make words tie in with even stronger emotions for A, as they're rarely used. 

Finally, imagine other conflicts- A is a words type, but also an illiterate mute.  Or perhaps A's best friend is an illiterate mute, or someone who speaks a different language.  Or perhaps the villain cuts out A's tongue or something- this might affect A more than if they communicated love with a different language.

A different user added:

My current favorite MC [main character] is an INTJ [see here for an explanation], and was physically abused as a child, so she has problems with touch. Her primary love language is Quality Conversation, an offshoot of Quality Time. (This is common in INTJs). However, when she is deeply attached to someone, she likes hugs from them, holding hands, etc., as long as she is initiating it. This is also due to the fact she didn't get loving physical affection when she was a child.

 Another friend commented on how a person's language for showing love can be different than their language for receiving love.

I had an interesting thought about love languages a few months ago while hanging out with my mother. I often tease her about how much she likes to give people things. If I mention in passing that my husband and I should probably buy a couple more towels, the next time we're at her house, BAM. Towels. She is always five steps ahead of people, anticipating what they'll want/need and trying to hand it out. 

However, the way she primarily receives love is definitely not gifts. She appreciates them, but spending one-on-one time with people and hearing clear verbal affirmation means the world to her. I don't actually think my mom's primary way of expressing love is the same as her primary way of receiving it. It was strange to realize! I'd never even considered the possibility. 

Of course, that's not to say that they aren't related. Gifts aren't as important to me as any of the other love languages (sorry, Mom), and so I'm often not as thoughtful as I should be about giving them to others. I am much more likely to think to encourage someone with meaningful compliments or ask to spend time with them than to think of finding the perfect birthday gift. For many characters, and many people, the list probably is pretty much the same for both giving and receiving love, like it is for me. But I don't think that's always the case, and once that occurred to me, I was able to realize some things about a few of my characters. 

For example, [my character], who is constantly helping out his large family and mostly getting no thanks, is starving for affirmation and appreciation. He lives and breathes to be praised, to impress people, to get a pat on the back for a job well done. Words of affirmation is definitely the way he receives love, and without it, he grows resentful. But on the flip side, he actually expresses love through acts of service. If he feels loved, he does more and more and more to try to help out, and as he grows as a person over the course of the story, he becomes more loving, and thus more willing to perform acts of service even without getting the words of affirmation in return. Sometimes you can connect the "incoming" and "outgoing" love languages in interesting ways that add complexity to the character.

A third commenter pointed out that complex people (and characters) might not have obvious love languages.

For example, my younger sister is a very withdrawn, shy, sarcastic person, but her primary love language is touch. 

She'll push you away if you try to give her a hug when she's sad, but if you keep trying; pat her on the back, hold her hand, try another hug, her sadness or anger just melts. It's amazing. 

However, since she's so reserved, most people would type her as a 'quality time' person, or perhaps 'words of affirmation'. 

What love languages do your characters have? How can they be points of conflict or of resolution? How can you use them to ratchet up the tension?