Vlog returns

[I gave up with a flawed take after...I dunno twelve tries?]



Hi everyone,



Today seems as good a time as any to reintroduce Vlogs here at Writing About Writing. We got a little side tracked there for a while because of the move and stuff, but life is getting back to normal and some of our old regular bits here are returning.

Now this one here is just a filler vlog, to kind of remind folks that this is something I will be doing, and that I always intended to get back to it as my life came back together and stopped looking so much like a post apocalypse movie.



We’ll probably only do about one a month.



I know some of you don’t like vlogs, preferring to just read. I’m the same way, so I’m going to put my write up in text at the bottom. It may not have every tangent I go on, every change I make extemporaneously, and my speaking rhythm is much different than my writing one, but for those of you who hate vlogs, it will at least have the basic information.



I also have a video editing program that came with my MacBook, so over the next few months, depending on the learning curve for that, I may be able to make videos that I don’t have to do all in one take.



The reason I’m posting this TODAY is because of Writing About Writing’s meta mission to bring you the “behind the scenes” of writing–to demystify the impression some people have that writers do very little work they don’t like, simply get hit by inspiration, and then birth a work of genius.



So let me tell you about yesterday….



Yesterday I sat down to work, because that’s what working writers do, and I stared at the same paragraph for 14 hours. The words just did not come. And I sat there and sat there, and I pecked at that paragraph and I finally got it done. But it took all day.



And some days are like that. You just have to sit down and have shitty productivity because that discipline and habit is the price you pay for the twelve and sixteen hour productivity days the next day or the next week.  Now today, I’ve managed to do a couple of hours of solid writing already but if I’d just given up yesterday, it would be that much harder today.


So I just want people to know… if you think that just because I have an audience and make money writing doesn’t mean I don’t have shitty days…it doesn’t.

Best Book Marketed to Young Women (Last call for nominations/seconds)

What is the best book marketed to young women?  

I've got a dozen things to do today that aren't blogging, so I'm going to just remind everyone that I'm going to start semifinals (quarterfinals?) for this poll THIS weekend. So get in your nominations in and second the titles you want to see on the poll. But do so on the ORIGINAL POST! I can't guarantee any nominations on this post will make it onto the poll.

Also the rules are there; probably worth a glance.

If I fall into the free time that is theoretically out there after all this basic crap is in the "Done" pile, I'll keep going on the Tab Cleanup Project™ which is about to enter the Facebook Page Stage–a handful of posts for the now half a million people following Writing about Writing on Facebook. You might see something going up later on today if that goes well.

Note: I've noticed that a few of the nominated titles are definitely NOT Y.A. (remember it's not when a bunch of bibliophiles reading way above their level got into it that defines what that means). I don't really have a way to enforce what gets nominated or even a good definition for where the line is, but I'm going to veto some of the clearly adult titles.

Five Steps to Motivational Rejuvenation (Mailbox)

How do you get back lost motivation for a project that's been on hiatus? 

[Remember, keep sending in your questions to chris.brecheen@gmail.com with the subject line "W.A.W. Mailbox" and I will try to answer a couple each week (after this week). I will use your first name ONLY unless you tell me explicitly that you'd like me to use your full name or you would prefer to remain anonymous.  My comment policy also may mean one of your comments ends up in the mailbox. Thursday might look suspiciously like Wednesday when I am actually so far behind that this should have gone up six fucking days ago.]  

Antonio asks:  

I have a story that I had to put on hold for at least six months because of other projects. Now I really want to get on it. But every time I see the point where I left it... I kinda feel disconnected and unmotivated.

Thoughts?

My reply:


I answered a question not too long ago about how important it can be to at least "poke" at a work in progress if you don't want it to go stale. One of the reasons for that is exactly this. If you leave a project on the back burner for too long, there can then be a divestment of brain from interest. Maybe you think of a couple of good things here and there or a twist you would love to add, but mostly that motivation has dried out and your passion for the project goes stale. It can be really hard to try and just pick back up where you left off when your mind is scratching at the inside of your skull to try and get the gestalt of your idea on paper, but the trail has gone cold where you actually are in the writing.

Before I let Ima Lister slap down the Patented Guide to Rekindling Your Passion....(for an abandoned work in progress)™, let me just make one more quick USDA Writing Guild required disclaimer. This is the reason that it's generally a good idea to keep a limited number of irons in the fire and is why so many writers who have "made it" yodel from the mountaintops, at the slightest opportunity, the advice to finish one's shit. It is so so so so so fucking easy to take a break that turns into forever. Finishing projects, especially before bounding off to new projects, is one of the most powerful skills a writer (any artist really) can ever learn.

From here, I'm going to hand my reply over to Ima Lister, who has a few things–well five of them actually–to say about this.

Hi everyone. 

Time for me to drop my Patented Guide to Rekindling Your Passion....(for an abandoned work in progress)™. Remember to try these steps in order as each may depend on the aggregate effect of those that came before. Skipping right to step four might seem like taking Percocet instead of Advil for your headache because "fuck it, I need the good stuff," but it'll actually be less effective if you haven't run the gamut first.

1- Reread your work. 

Simple. Elegant. Refined. And ironically so overlooked.

Many writers simply look at their stale work in progress and never pick it up. And when I say they "look at it," I mean they physically glance at it from across the room. Or think about it in passing as they're eating a chocolate cream pie and rewatching season 1 of Sense8 to prepare for the coming of season 2 next month. Or perhaps once every few months, they open the text file to that blinking cursor, skim the last paragraph for the thousandth time, and then close the file again because they're just not feeling it. And if they're really avoiding it, they might carefully tiptoe around the WIP, avoiding it at all costs. They glance down the hall to make sure it's not in the bathroom before darting to their bedroom, and listen carefully for sounds in the kitchen before going to eat so that they don't run into it at the breakfast table–a bite of bran flakes frozen halfway to its mouth as their eyes meet.

"Why aren't you working on me?"

"Eat your fucking cereal."

*eyes narrow*

But what they don't do is sit down and reread it–from the very beginning. They don't give themselves that jump back into the world of their fiction. They don't engage what once captured their imagination and let all those ideas come flooding back. They don't remind themselves of all the little things they gave attention to when writing it.

Honestly, give the old dusted off words a good once over. Let the prose take you back to where your mind was when you were writing it. Fire up a few of the old synapses. You're going to remember more about what you wanted to do and where you wanted to go than you even realize you forgot.

For the first time through, don't mess with it if you see some revisions you want to make. Let the urge to make it better go un-indulged and let that create a tension within you to return to the work.

And if reading it doesn't work by itself....

2- Do a little revision. 

Holding back from revising during your first read might have you chomping at the bit to make some changes.

That's okay. That's what you want.  Anything to get you back to this piece.

However, if you're not so enthusiastic even after reading over some things you really think you could have worded a lot better, go ahead and try to make a few changes anyway–even if it's just to clean up the language and tighten up the grammar. Lord knows that shit could at least use some proofreading.

Going under the hood of your story kind of forces you into that mode you were in when you were working on the story before. Like most of writing, it's recursive, and you are likely to think of improvements faster than you can make them. Hopefully this knocks over enough dominos to start a chain reaction and topple you back into the headspace you were in when you were really hitting it on the regular.

But if that doesn't work....

3- Skip ahead from where you are, and write the next scene you are really into.

One of the problems with a project losing steam is that you just weren't as into the next thing that needed writing as the arc in general. Maybe the next scene you were really into was several pages from where you are now and the idea of the filler wasn't grabbing you. Maybe every time you thought about getting back into the writing, you were daunted because the next thing you had to write was a scene you weren't that into or some plodding exposition to get your characters from Cool Event 1 to Cool Event 2.

Setting aside for a moment that your reader is likely to be Just. As. Bored. and feel like something is mind-numbing filler if the writer does, the easiest way to deal with this as a writer who "doesn't wanna" right now is to skip ahead. Fuck it! There's no rule that you have to write the whole manuscript in order from first page to last. Do a scene you're really excited about to help get you back into the groove. Then use that momentum to swing back around on revision and fill in the stuff you weren't so hot on.

You may even think of a much a better way to get through that part you're not so hot on besides a slog of events you're less excited about writing.

And if this doesn't work, it might be time for some painful self honesty.....

4- Are you sure you want to write this? Like...really sure?

Okay, so you've tried everything else and nothing's working. You're just not feeling it. It's time to ask yourself a really tough question from that place of deep and profound honesty. Go to your happy place, align your chakras, and high-five your patronus. And then ask yourself this question:

Do you really want to write this piece?

Remember you're not asking yourself if you think there's any possible story there or any writing value, or even if you might want to return to this story someday. Rather, you're trying to figure out if you really want to put in the time and energy to write this piece right now.

And please understand...you don't have to. You're not obligated to love everything you start. (It's a good idea to try to finish, but there's a difference between abandoning one project that just wasn't doing it for you after a while and having sixteen half-finished novels lying around the house, all of which you're going to get back to "someday.") Maybe inspiration really did dry up. Maybe you've moved on as an artist. Maybe it'll come back around in a month or a year.

Sometimes writers get attached to projects because of the amount of time they've already invested in them. It's kind of part and parcel with this hubris that everything written must somehow be destined for future publication. They really need to remember that some things they write are only ever going to be practice.

Is it possible that what you really need to do is put that project on the shelf for either years or forever? Reach deep into your soul and be brutally honest.

You still want to do this? Okay, well in that case....

5-Physically rewrite what you have so far.

Take a copy, print it out, put it down next to you, and start to type the whole thing from scratch.

Hang on. Deep breaths.

I know you just felt your anal sphincter clench hard and that may sound very, very daunting, but this is actually something you should be doing anyway. Computers have made a generation of writers who are terrified of revision involving full rewriting, and they only want to tweak their completed computer drafts. Truth be told, the best thing most of them could do would be to completely rewrite their story at least once.

Can you imagine that this was once the only way to revise? Even ten, twelve, twenty times...always completely rewritten. We may not be fettered to archaic technology, but sometimes a good part of the writing process gets tossed with the luddite bathwater.

Two things happen here. Number one, you can't type as fast as you can think (by hundreds of words a minute) and if you're forced into the world of your story, you're probably going to be thinking about that. Now maybe this will simply yank your creativity cord like starting an old small engine. (Is it true lawn mowers don't have pull-start engines anymore? KIDS THESE DAYS!). You may recognize this technique from the movie Finding Forrester. (Or maybe you're way too old to have seen that and I am obviously a fossil.) But they did pick a trick that actually works pretty well. It's rather difficult to type something and not engage it in a creative way.

This may also lead to some of the really good artistic magic. Since you're rewriting instead of cutting and pasting, you will likely be willing to take bigger chances–like changing the tense or removing whole scenes or taking out a character. Redoing the whole thing means you're less married to all that draft and since you're doing the work regardless, you might find exactly the bit that was causing the wind drag in the first place. And with some surgery, your story is back where you were, looking better than ever, and with you excited about moving forward.

It's Going to Get Weird Until Wed

Not that weird.

It's going to get a little weird for the next few days.

You might see posts going up late, early, or a couple one day and none the next.

It's going to depend on writing time and internet connectivity while I spend a couple of days and change in Yosemite balancing majestic vistas with the brisk cold that is April on a mountain.

I also will be continuing the "Tab Maintenance" this coming week, which means some days with multiple postings for those on feeds. Some of that information is three years out of date.

Logan: Why Character Matters

**Part 1: No Spoilers**

A year ago, if you'd told somebody that arguably the most popular X-man movie of all time, and (to many) a contender for the best of all Marvel movies, would only actually have two X-men in it–two older X-men way past their prime to boot–you would probably find yourself on the working end of some skepticism.

No Magneto? No multi-mutant fight at the end? No Apocalypse or sentinels chewing through two or three mutants every time they are on scene to prove the stakes are really, really high? Pfffffffft.

And if you said that a number of critics would hail it as the best superhero movie of the decade, perhaps ever, you would likely have to deal with a bit of laughter as well. (The snickering kind–not the good belly laughs you hear before someone asks if they can buy you a mug of the finest ale this side of The Dragon's Thirst Inn in Valacia.) Going up against The Dark Knight or The Avengers, as well as older titles like Raimi's Spiderman 2 or even something a bit genre-bending like The Incredibles is not something genre fans would think could be done casually by two aged-out X-men.

After all, the formula for superhero movies has been ramping steadily upwards to bigger and better fights with more and more superheroes on screen at a time, higher stakes battles, more CGI than you can physiologically process, and often the fate of the very timeline hanging in the balance.

Yet there's something undeniable about these movies as they become bigger and bigger special effects extravaganzas with more and more and more superpowered characters stacked in like cordwood. (And it's not just that I stopped considering them to be on my "Must See" list after X3.) Their interest to their audience doesn't grow exponentially. The epic-fury of their battles don't make the movie "good" or "bad." Even when a story does focus on a small cadre of characters, the external plot instead of characters can make blockbusters eminently forgettable–and writers don't have the benefit of soundtracks, huge stars, or special effects budgets.

The conversations about these movies still end up being about the same thing: the characters. Were they interesting? Were they believable? What did they want? What were the stakes? Did the internal conflict matter in a way that made the story more interesting or did they just ho-hum stop the city from being nuked (again). Though film gross is based on a lot of factors, and some of these movies still do well in today's market, the more critically acclaimed and beloved by fans a/the film, the more its characters are interesting and not necessarily its battles eye-popping.

A lot of writers describe the epicosity of their climactic battle. ("It's this HUGE battle between three massive armies....") There's something in the success of Logan, and films like it, for writers to learn about what makes a character arc genuinely compelling and what stakes will drive the highest levels of tension. After all, while a writer has an effectively infinite "special effects budget" and seamless "CGI" for as long as they want to commit pages and pages to such descriptions, writers run the same risk that any summer blockbuster might of getting so caught up in the tools of telling a story that we forget the story itself.

And as cool as that end battle is, if readers are not invested in the characters, it'll be forgettable–no matter the magnitude or scope, it'll be forgettable.

While I have my doubts that Logan is going to "redefine the whole genre," given the current Marvel plan for a thirty-movie ramp up to a sixty-character crossover two-movie battle royale, with each movie making more than the GDP of some European countries, its runaway success and spectacular critical reception is a cautionary tale to writers who forget that what readers are really interested in is the characters, and a reminder to us all that they're the engines of any story we have.

**Part 2: Contains Spoilers**

Look at how well these characters arcs played out.  Within just a minute we've established Logan's wants and needs, and that they are constantly struggling within him. He wants to get out, go away, take a boat away from everything. He wants to die. And he wants to not love things in his world so that he can let go. But he does love things. He is fettered by his concern for the things in this world. And though at one point it seems clear that, had his body not betrayed him, he would have abandoned Laura at Xavier's grave, in the end he keeps stepping up to the plate again and again for those fetters.

And in the end, they are what set him free. Not just a physical release, but his own redemption as a character.

One of the greatest successes of the character arcs in this movie is how it shows without telling. Take this very early exchange between Charles and Logan:

Charles Xavier: Fuck off, Logan.
Logan: See, you know who I am.
Charles Xavier: I always know who you are, I just sometimes don't recognize you.

So much is said in this exchange. Not just about the devastating tragedy of neurodegenerative diseases and how they take away one's ability to recognize loved ones, but also on a subtextual level to establish a meaningful lens into Logan as a character. He is "unrecognizable," which might be the same thing any fan of classic Wolverine might say at the outset of this film.

This exchange also establishes a bickering relationship that is the source of so much fun (and often well-needed levity) in the film. Logan never says he loves Xavier. But even though he wants Xavier to die (so that he can kill himself), he still spends all his time and energy trying to protect Xavier from those chasing him as well as protect him from the abject horror of remembering that it is Xavier who has killed all the other X-men. Logan even indulges Xavier's quest to find a "utopia" that he (Logan) believes isn't even real. Xavier never says he loves Logan either. But he spends all his time and energy trying to give Logan's life the tiniest spark of redemption and connect him with his daughter. Their actions belie their constant fighting.

Actually the movie is really great in general about not spoon-feeding the audience. They never came out and said that the mutant gene had been suppressed through corn syrup, but there's some evidence there if you pay attention. Trust your readers to be smart enough to get some things, especially about character relationships, without your help. You don't have to give them everything on a silver platter.

One of their best successes is finding the way symbolism fits into the story rather than shoehorning a story into symbolism. X-24 is how Logan sees his younger self–mindless, savage destructive rage. It is his past come back to haunt him....in this case literally. And that rage kills Xavier. Wherever Logan goes, that violence follows him and destroys the innocent bystanders around him (as he did the Munsons).  In the end, Logan does not have the strength to defeat his past alone. He needs the help of his daughter.

The entire movie is a parable for getting old, dying and death (as well as the loneliness that accompanies these), how the past comes back to haunt us all, but at the same time about family, redemption, and the sacrifices of a parent. The guy who found walking excruciating was able to engage in mortal combat to the last once he had a reason.

In the end, there is even a poignant metaphor, as the torch of all this power is passed to a wildly diverse group of children from two white men who have spent the movie protecting it from the hands of another group of white men who wanted to control it and keep it to themselves.

But none of this symbolism came at the expense of telling a fun story about bad guys who wanted to kidnap kids and good guys who would put claws through their brain pans.  They teased the symbolism out of a compelling romp rather than try to wrap a story around a bunch of symbolism. And that makes all the difference in how poignant a narrative can be.

And perhaps more importantly, the external plot was almost insultingly simple: "Mutant-creating bad guys want to get back a mutant they created who escaped." Everything beyond that was developed through character, whether it was Logan's reluctant willingness to indulge Xavier's fantasy of Mutopia or Xavier's want of some creature comforts that ended up placing the Munsons in grave danger. What drove Logan, through all its tragedy, angst, and eventual redemption, was not a railroaded plot about stopping the end of the world but rather the characters.

And he died with his heart in his hand.

Logan wasn't a perfect movie. It had pacing issues in the third reel, especially when Logan kept passing out as the characters advanced through the various plot points. The serum that made him Wolverine-y was kind of an awkward "Ha I'm badass again! Nope, just kidding!" plot point, and the grunting, limping, how-pathetic-am-I? portrayal was at times overdone. The "Chekhov's Gun" of the adamantium bullet being what would kill X-24 was stone-cold-obvious about 90 minutes and change before it happened. The use of Shane was an excellent parable, and a fantastic choice for meta-media, but arguably was also a little heavy-handed. A whole other article could be written about Logan and the "white savior" trope, and it never even gets particularly close to passing the Bechdel test. Overall though, Logan was an intensely character-driven ride about the human condition that blew audiences away and brought the X-men arc that Patrick Stewart and Hugh Jackman began 17 years ago to a bittersweet and nostalgic, but satisfyingly crunchy end.

Logan's success, measured against a tiny handful of the best movies of the genre ever, carries with it a lot of lessons for writers. Characters are vital...more important even than a big exciting external plot. A couple of well-thought-out characters inexorably drawn towards a climax of high personal stakes in a tight, contained story-within-a-story about how excruciating death without meaning can be, is far, far better storytelling than a railroaded, save-the-universe plot with epic battles and dozens of mutant powers on incredible CGI display.

Best Book Marketed to Young Women

What is the best book marketed to young women? 

I have extra time with The Contrarian again this week, so my heavy hitters are going to be over the weekend. We'll also be finishing up our "Tabs Cleanup" over next week, so those of you on feeds, be ready for a bit more posting than normal.

Obviously the heightened state of the nominations means we're certainly going to take this poll into semifinals (and perhaps quarterfinals). Regardless, it'll extend beyond April, so let's take another week to grab all the nominations we can get and have a proper throw down.

Rules are on the original page if you have questions, particularly about what "marketed to young women" means for the sake of the poll.

Please please please put any new nominations on the comments of the original page. If you leave them here, you might not get a second, and I might not see it when I compile the poll.

Story Fundamentals, Part the Second: Setting (by Arielle K Harris)

Story Fundamentals, Part the Second: Setting
Arielle K Harris  

So you don’t want your writing to be crap, and you’re here for advice.  You now know, either by reading my last article Story Fundamentals, Part the First: Style or by using your own acute observational skills, that style is a thing and as essential to writing as your pen and paper, or your fingertips and your word processor.  What I failed to mention in that article is that style doesn’t necessarily need to be a conscious choice or decision you make, just a sense of self-awareness.  If you try to consciously adopt a particular style it may quickly backfire on you and become forced and contrived if not done perfectly right.

The same goes for the next element of storytelling I’ll discuss, which is setting.  A poorly contrived setting is as easy to see through as that of style, but even worse is a story that omits setting details altogether and relies on vagueness, minimalism, and hopes that the reader fills in the blanks.  A story written like this doesn’t really have a setting, it has a set.  Not the good kind of set like for a high-end movie or HBO series, more like a middle-school production of As You Like it where the Forest of Arden is constructed out of toilet paper tubes.  You know how much I love to quote Ursula Le Guin, well I’m going to do it again:

“It is a fake plainness.  It is not really simple, but flat.  It is not really clear, but inexact.  Its directness is specious.  Its sensory clues – extremely important in imaginative writing – are vague and generalised; the rocks, the wind, the trees are not there, are not felt; the scenery is cardboard, or plastic.”

You can clearly see the fakeness in a setting made of cardboard, and with that awareness no reader will be able to immerse themselves into your story.  A setting must be fully realized, solid, and instantly felt and seen through your words.

I’m a fantasy writer so I worldbuild my settings.  This is my favorite part of the writing process; it’s like traveling but free, inside your own head, and you always know the language.  Building an entire world out of nothing can be daunting but I actually find it less of an undertaking than setting a story in the real world.  Real world stories require intense research, especially if the location is not where you live, or have lived, and if you get it wrong then critics can easily point to flaws in your assumptions.  Worlds you make up are entirely under your control so you can’t make up a street that shouldn’t exist.  If you’ve written it then it does exist.

However worldbuilding requires utmost consistency, maybe you wrote that street into existence on page 25 but by page 60 your characters are running around and that street no longer leads to where it used to, unintentionally (there are times when, of course, this may happen intentionally).  Or the path through your forest is supposed to be going east but several scenes later your questing hero drags herself forward, nearly reaching her destination, but is now facing into the sunset (unless of course you’ve already made it clear that your world has a sun which sets in the east).

The best way I’ve found to ensure internal consistency in worldbuilding is with maps (this could easily be true in real world settings too, and the maps are already drawn for you).  There’s no better way to make sure you know your way through your world than to put it down on paper and refer to it frequently.  Your map doesn’t need to be particularly attractive or artistic if it’s just a writing resource for your own personal use, it just needs to show you the geographical space your characters are moving around in so you can see directions, limitations, and distances.

What do you mean that this isn’t a good map, it has a compass and everything!

The above was my working map for the first part of Bestial, and I have to admit it was not my best effort at cartography.  It did the job, though, I was able to orient myself appropriately when my characters moved between these three locations.  Sometimes it’s really as simple as that!

There is of course something to be said for a more detailed map that covers more geographical area, but that’s only necessary when your story takes place throughout a larger region.  If your entire story takes place in one city it’s unlikely you’ll need to know the geography of a whole continent.

That's a bit better.

This one was a map I drafted for an older, unfinished novel and it looks a bit more like one might expect of a fantasy map – it even has simplistically-named mountain ranges à la Mount Doom.  I did intend this one to be added into the book which is why it’s all pretty and stuff and not on a post-it note.  This novel was going to take place across the whole of this landmass so I needed to know a lot more than the orientation of three locations.  I intended to do a second map just of the capital city of Cobault as well, giving myself street map with which to orient myself and inform my narrative, so that I wouldn’t get lost in my imaginary metropolis where a lot of the action would happen.

When in doubt always worldbuild in more detail that you might actually need.  Even if you don’t think you’ll ever refer to the types of vegetation that grows on your world’s hills, or the region’s primary exports (which is invariably determined by its geography), or the relative position of the sun when your characters start questing, you should know it.  The more you know about your world the more fluent you are in its details.  Those details are what makes a setting fully realized, believable, and lacking in cardboard.  For a great worldbuilding resource have a look at Patricia C. Wrede’s Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions which are incredibly detailed and pretty damn comprehensive.

One issue I’ll discuss in terms of those beautiful details, however, is the horror that is the infodump.  You know infodump, it comes at the beginning of many stories, often labelled as a Prologue (I’m looking at you, Anne McCaffrey, the first mother of dragons, may you rest in peace), and what follows is an expositional orgy, sometimes as much as ten pages of it.  You might feel like there’s a lot about your world that needs explaining but infodump is a surefire way to bore the pants off your reader.

So your world has two moons and an unusual tidal pattern because of it.  Don’t tell me “On the fifth planet from the star K4-B lies a planet with two moons and an unusual tidal pattern.”  Tell me something like:

“J’ruk looked up quickly to orient himself, seeing the second moon Hoj rising towards its sister Ko.  He readied his fishing gear on the sand, grateful for the exposed length of sandbar and the brilliance of the sky.  This would be a good night to go derssi-fishing as the lithe and elusive cephalopods would only found in the tidal pools on this, the lowest tide of the cycle.”

Make the details embellishments to your story and, further to that, have them drive your story onward.  If the tides hadn’t been that low J’ruk wouldn’t have been out there that night, leading to whatever exciting action is bound to happen next.  If there hadn’t been two moons then this incredibly low tide wouldn’t have occurred.  It’s all connected, or at least it should be.

A good setting is more than just a backdrop to your story, it should be part and parcel of it.  Your story shouldn’t be able to exist without it.  Could Lord of the Rings have happened anywhere other than Middle Earth?  No, certainly not.  Throughout the writing of your story the setting will influence your character’s decisions, motives, history, and even their moods (I dare you to try to stay cheerful on a long, difficult journey in the rain).  It will determine limiting factors in battle and define whole civilizations.  It will tell you what foods are eaten, what fabrics are worn, and what professions people have.  Only once you understand your setting and have created your world in its entirety are you able to tell the story taking place in it.

But first you’ll need to know your characters, so stay tuned for the next installment of Story Fundamentals!


Arielle K Harris is the author of the novel Bestial as well as the ridiculous steampunk time travel drama short story The Adventurous Time Adventures of Doctor When. She is responsible for one very opinionated toddler as well as a writer, poet, falconer, knitter of many half-finished scarves, drinker of tea, enthusiast for wine and sometimes has been known to have wild birds in her spare room.

She can be found online at her own website: www.ariellekharris.com as well as on Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/ariellekharris/ and her published work can be found on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/author/ariellekharris

If you would like to guest blog for Writing About Writing we would love to have an excuse to take a day off a wonderful diaspora of voices. Take a look at our guest post guidelines, and drop me a line at chris.brecheen@gmail.com.