How Getting Published Has Become Like Getting Laid: Writing/Publishing is Emulating the PUA Culture of Modern Dating

While reading a thread over on AbsoluteWrite about the old adage: “You should pitch your book as a standalone-with-series-potential” I finally made the connection to a trend a lot of dating blogs talk about: trying to game the system.  Pick-Up Artists spend a great deal of time marketing–and I assume selling, or they would get a new gig–tips and tricks and even full-fledged systems for getting laid.

 

There’s all sorts of different people peddling different ideas, but the major idea of PUA is that women are gate-keepers (usually for sex), and that there are sure-fire ways to trick/convince them to unlock those gates.  If you aren’t getting laid, you just need to get more game, and the PUA masters can sell it to you for ten easy payments of $9.99.  These systems occasionally include good information hidden in the dross, but their main suggestion is that you need to lie, cheat, and trick women into liking you, and there are scientific reasons why and for how to do it.  In fact, you can even convince someone who doesn’t want anything to do with you that what they actually want is nothing else but you.  Hopefully you agree that that’s total bullshit, and dis-respectful at best, possible rapey at worst.

 

And after reading some of the response to that thread on AW, I’ve come to realize that a lot of publishing advice tends in this same direction, although it tries much harder to present itself as education and understanding of what publishers want than PUA tries to pretend it cares about women’s feelings.  Obviously gaming publishers into giving you a contract is morally incomparable to the sorts of rape-tastic, misogynistic, creepy bullshit that is most PUA, but while the degree differs greatly, the pattern of thinking is remarkably similar:

 

If you just do the right things, say the rights things, have the right timing, women publishers  will give you a blowjob contract, and the reason you’ve failed so far is because you just haven’t learned the rules.  Even if you’re ugly/poor/an asshole your book has some issues, you can greatly improve your chances to get laid be published, if you just learn these ten simple tricks/pick-up linesbody language cues query rules/grammar tips/plot structures.

 

But that’s not really how dating writing works.  These ideas teach you to lie to women compromise your story on the basis of a few trends or anecdotes coming from a small group of people, many of whom don’t really have the knowledge or experience to back up their claims.

 

The issue that inspired this post was about querying series vs. standalones.  And how you should pitch a standalone-with-series-potential, even if you wrote the book you’re pitching as a pure series/pure standalone, and some fairly significant changes would have to be made to fit this “rule” of querying/publisher’s desires.  Otherwise you’re committing serious publishing faux pas.  And this is just one example from a long list of writing and publishing truisms, such as “show, don’t tell” that don’t reflect the reality that much.  There’s a whole mythology behind this type of thinking, and it’s being perpetuated even more now that the writing community is so interconnected and interactive.  Someone, no matter what their platform, spouts off about these rules, and the people who hear them take it as gospel and repeat it to everyone they know.  I’m not saying anyone is doing anything intentionally malicious here.  The fact that 99.99% of this interaction is in good faith makes it all the more insidious and damaging.

I have a problem with this type of thinking for a few reasons:

A)  A lot of it is just plain untrue, or misunderstood from legitimate/contextually specific suggestions and advice.

B)  Not every situation is the same, nor do all agents/editors/authors/readers agree on every little detail.

C)  It perpetuates an idea that the rules are what get you published, explain why bad books get published/accounts for why your literary masterpiece is still seeking representation after five years and forty rounds of increasingly desperate querying.

 

Much like the great majority of PUA philosophy, it takes the responsibility off the shoulders of the AverageFrustratedChump author, places the authority in the hands of a few misogynist assholes merely lucky/misguided/well-meaning-but-misinformed authors/agents/editors.

That’s not to say that these people are lying, or stupid.  Just that success doesn’t necessarily equate to understanding of that success.  Eeveryone’s experience in dating writing/publishing is different, and you can’t apply every little thing to every single person.  Sometimes you just have to admit you’re boring/an asshole/have bad timing aren’t quite ready for publication/this book will never be published.

I wish I had some answers.  Some way to remove this fog of misinformation.  A sure-fire route to publishing success.  But just like everyone else, the process is always going to be just a bit beyond my full understanding, and I’ll have to take some risks, indulge in some trial and error, and eventually work my way there by hard fucking work or a bit of lucky coincidence, just like everyone else.

 

Raging Reader Round-up (08/05/11)

Maybe I should just officially change the date for this to Sunday. XD

1.  Is responding to a review ever a good idea?

2.  Are you happy when you’re not writing?

3.  Epic Fantasy is what?

4.  Things You Should Learn From Writing

5.  How Selling a Book Really Is

6.  FanFic is fun, whether you’re writing it or arguing about it.

7.  How Good Writing Can Still Make a Bad Book

8.  Starting a Book?  It Might Help to Know the Endgame

9.  Your Agent Rocks, but She Isn’t Wonder Woman

10.  If I Had a Jam Jar as Big as #8, I’d probably go ahead and fill a swimming pool with jam.

11.  If you wanna get a record deal, you gotta do coke.

12.  Distractions, baby.  I love ‘em.

13.  How Do You Feel the World?

14.  Writers and readers are characters, too.  Don’t let anyone tell you they aren’t.

15.  Why One Character is Never Enough

16.  Revise, Rinse, and Repeat

17.  Good descriptions, but I’ve never been a fan of mixing genres and age categories.

18.  Samuel’s Real Skinny on Self-Publishing

19.  A Path to Publishing with Bookends, LLC

20.  Life doesn’t happen to us, we happen to life.  And it isn’t always pretty.

21.  Sex, Genetic Determinism, and James Tiptree Jr

22.  Men read romance, too.  Considering her blog, I’m considering buying this book.  Internet marketing works, people.

23.  If only SFF authors wrote posts like this, they would sell a lot more books.

24.  Still don’t like it.

25.  I love my state.

26.  More bullshit about social networking.

27.  Literary writing is still literary.

28.  Young authors are great, and I’d love to see more.  But old folks still got game.

29.  Chick lit is still lit people.  Deal with it.

30.  How long will books and movies stay on their own sides of the line?  Alternate endings are…?

31.  Inciting incidents and authorial experience.  Do established authors get more slack?  Do they deserve to?

32.  Can you be a dummy and write YA?  That’s what the title of a book by this lovely lady says.

33.  Writing Tips from a Dark Future.

34.  Short Story Submission

35.  A link to a list of Marketing Links I stole from Sierra Godfrey.

36.  Short stories are not novels, Mr. Martin.  But otherwise good advice.

37.  Other authors are awesome, but you are, too.

38.  Never say that hard work doesn’t get you anywhere.

39.  Push some paper, publishers.  We know you can do it.

I never set out to be an aggregator blog, but it’s almost all I can do to keep up with these round-ups in-between the cracks of “real life.”  That will change eventually, I hope, once my schedule settles down.  Hope y’all find this links useful in the mean-time.

 

Raging Reader Round-up (7/22/2011)

Because having to read 100 posts in a week to pick out the gems makes me rage.  But now you won’t have to.

1. I wish I was a Lannister.

2. You have a million excuses.

3. You remember that awesome post I did on where writers get our ideas?  Well, it was a lie.  We really steal them from teenagers on the bus.

4.  You know that theory about how every choice we make creates a branch in the timeline?  Well, it would certainly explain all the contradictory posts about the future of publishing.

5. Neil Gaiman’s Guide to Writing

6. If you don’t love agents, they won’t love you.

7. Bad Pick-up Lines for Snagging an Agent.  And worse ones.  Also, drunken beagles?

8. Alien planets are great.  But how ’bout something a little more exotic?

9. Why you might not wanna leave a drawer full of crap for relatives to find.

10. Don’t trust the word “average” in publishing too much…

11. Even being a published writer these days can suck.  Especially if your agent thinks they should be your publisher, too.  That’ll probably look something like this.  At least not everyone is doing it.  And agents and editors are out to get you, or at least, the people they work for are.  That said, if you do get an editor, you can be pretty sure they love your book.    Of course, even if your publisher is still your publisher, you might find your contract amended automatically by e-mail.  And it’s more than one publisher.  Which might be good or bad for you as an individual, but says a lot about how well publishers are treating their authors.  Not much of it good. The book industry is in more trouble than you though, huh?  And the booksellers are in worse.   But we can save it!

12. The above links talk a lot about how writers should know the business side as well.  Tawna Fenske prefers not to.  What about you?

13.  The first week of sales matters.  You probably knew that.  Did you this?

14. Is your character boring?  Passive?  Perhaps even a bit wimpy?  That’s okay.  YA Historical Fiction author Katy Longshore has devised an 8-Step Program for Crappy Characters.  You can save everybody.

15.  Motivation is important.  But just how obvious should you be about it?  Janice Hardy has some suggestions.

16.  Establishing your character’s, er… character, is very important.  But studies show that circumstances can have a much more powerful effect on behavior than your underlying personality.  Janice Hardy has some tips on how to incorporate this into your stories.

17. The Intern (is she really an intern, still?) dissects a book that readers couldn’t put down:  Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  And goes on to explain how it’s like a video game, and why that makes it so appealing.  Being a gamer myself, I have to agree with most of her analysis.

18. The first thirty pages of your novel are probably boring.  Cut ‘em.

19. What to do when an agent says no to your new project

20. How to Manage Your TIme as a Writer by Mindy Klasky.

21.  When you’re a fantas or science fiction writer, you often deal with world-building, and creating new cultures.  One way to make this easier is to learn ore about cultures on Earth.  Here are some interesting stories from Juliette Wade.

22. An interesting discussion on the origins of various cultural structures and metaphors courtesy of Google + Hangouts.

23. How cosplaying can teach us about world-building.  You know who you can ask about various types of clothing in different historical periods, or just about clothing in general?  Cosplayers.  Just because they may happen to be dressed up as pichu in high heels, that doesn’t mean they won’t know how to cut a Japanese yukata, or how to sew a Fauntleroy suit.  The take-away:  Even the craziest hobbies have unexpected value.

24. Is language completely arbitrary?  Many studies say not.  And you can use that in your writing and your world-building.

25. On the construction of story endings and tying shit up.

26.  On hooking.  Because all the best writers are doing it.

27.  Kids are the future, and they know it.  So how come you don’t hear about it much in YA?

28.  Lots of cons and conferences tout manuscript evaluations as a feature.  John Gilstrap over at The Kill Zone give us his Ten Rules for Manuscript Evaluation and how to get the most out of it.

29.  Meg Gardiner on drafting a novel.  No lie, brainstorming is the best part.  Writing the thing out is… somewhere in the top 10.

30.  Kathleen Pickering on on-site reasearch.

31.  What typos cost you. Courtesy of the NYT.

32. Three Ways to Publish from Anne R. Allen.  Of course, there are more than three ways to publish.  Plenty of folks are successful with web serializations.  I’m gonna be publishing a manga a page at a time on Deviant Art.  But Anne does tackle the three main methods of publishing a book-length work.

33. Jennifer Archer on selling her debut novel. Three times.

34.  Genre vs. Literary: Why the hate?  Thanks, Roni.

35. Best-selling vs. Best-writing from Meghan Ward.

36. Making Old Thoughts New Again

You know how I mentioned I read over 100 posts this week?  That was a lie.  That’s just the number in my blog reader.  But blogs love to link, and I can’t help but follow.  It was really something like 200.  Which may explain my lack of novel-writing this week. XD

So why only 36 points?  Well, keep in mind that some of them had more than 1 post.  And some of the posts just weren’t worth passing on.  Just be glad I read those ones for you.

 

The Good, the Bad, and the Timeskip

One of the most versatile tools in ther writerly arsenal is the time-skip.  In fact, it might be the most versatile tool in the story-teller’s arsenal in general.

Let’s look at some examples from television:

There’s an intense moment, perhaps a friend has just been killed, or fallen off a tall tower, or maybe the heroes have just killed the monster, and… BAM! Timeskip.

Because, really, what is left to show after the hero screams “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” for two minutes.  How are you going to show the come-down from that?  For the most part you can’t.  Which is why I hate shows with a lot of long, anguished screams.  You see this in anime all the time, as well.  You see, the timeskip can be a great tool, but it can also blind the writer to other possibilities.

After the 40th time I’ve seen a scream/timeskip, I’ve gotten really tired of them.  Seriously, writers, find a better way to show this emotion.  The fact that you have to resort to timeskips so often after a major character dies tells me your skills at emotional depiction are rather one-trick pony.  It’s clear you just don’t know any other way to move on from such a scene.  But they exist!  And you should learn to use them.  And the same goes for any other dramatic moment.  Fade-outs aren’t everything.

 

But timeskips can still be good.  Once you’ve finished the scene and sequel, we don’t need to see everything that happens between then and the next major event.  A little “***” can work wonders.

“Quick, shut the door!” she yelled.  I slid the bolt into place just as the first oozing, moaning thing crashed up against the glass.  The sun peaking over the roofs across the street just made the pale, peeling skin more sickening.  I could hear the scritch-scratch of broken nails as they dug into the solid oak grain.  I could see the hunger in life-less bllodshot eyes.  I closed the curtain.  He wasn’t getting fries with this.

***

Eventually the creature wandered off, looking for easier pickings.  I shivered despite the warm sun poking through the thin fabric of the curtain, knowing that if this had been a summer blockbuster instead of the real thing, there’d have been an arm through the door, ready to rip off whatever was at hand.  But without a fully functioning brain, the nerves couldn’t get enough of a charge to do anything to solid wood except claw and moan.

That’s a passage from halfway through a zombie apocalypse book I wrote for god-knows-what reason.  It’s certainly not well-written enough to stand out from the crowd.  But between those two paragraphs was hours of whispers, weeping and shaking.  It would have taken thousands of words and the reader didn’t need to see it.  And that little line of asterisks let me skip all of it, and you never even realized you were missing anything.  You had the build-up and the resolution and none of the junk in between.

 

The same goes for long journeys.  If nothing happens between Parsell and Merrit, your characters can go to sleep in Parsel and be awake and in Merrit by the next paragraph.  There’s no need to drag the reader through the eleventy-hundred bowls of stew and loaves of journey-bread the characters eat on the way.  Which is not to say that you can’t put scenes in between, especially if it’s a long journey.  They just has to be relevant to the story.

 

Which brings up the third use of time skips.  Lots of time actually passing.  If four years happen between one important scene and the next, you’ll never be able to include the in-between, and you shouldn’t need to.

The real secret to doing good timeskips is knowing how to show the time passed.  In our little zombie snippet, it was just a few hours between evening and morning.  Not much happened but the zombie leaving.  But if you’re skipping months or years, things are going to be different.  Characters will have moved around, things will have been accomplished that may not be important for the reader to see, but they will have an effect on the characters and their circumstances.

 

Those are three common uses of time skips: skipping short periods of time between scene and sequels, skipping over time and distance such as ona  journey, and skipping long periods of time, such as in an epic fantasy saga.  There are more, but I can’t address them all in one post.  I wish I had been able to include more specific exmaples showing the difference between a good timeskip and a lack of one, but that would also take up too much space.  If you’ve read any decent amount of books or watched tv shows or movies, you’ll have your own examples to look at.

 

Check Your Divs

People are always trying to convince me to switch from IE to Firefox, and I’ve always decided not to.  And so have a significant portion of other people.  So when you’re building or switching templates for you blog, you might want to make sure they work in both IE and FF.

I’ve had several frustrating experiences lately where folks have decided to use fancy image files as blog backgrounds.  But they’ve chosen images where the test doesn’t show up against them.

But wait!  They can just put a solid color <div> tag on top, so the text will show up.  Unfortunately, in my IE8 browser, these divs do not display properly, which means I have to highlight the text to read.

Not surprisingly, this makes me less likely to come back.  If you want to have a writer blog, you have to hold up the blogging side of that, not just the writing one.  So check your divs!

 

First Lines: Do They Really Matter?

I wanted to title this, “First Lines: WTF?!”, but I thought some people might find that a bit offensive.  And anyway, the title I ended up using better communicates the topic of this post.  (Ad as you’ve probably heard here and in many other places, that’s one of the main things that draws in readers.)

I was plowing through the 600+ blogs posts my reader has racked up in recent weeks—I’m still not done—and I came across another post on the importance of a good first line.  And as I was reading it, I thought to myself: “Why do people get so worked up about one little line?”

1.  “It’s the first thing an agent/editor/reader will see, so it’s important to get it right.”

2.  “The first line has a larger impact on readers because it’s in such a prominent place.”

3.  “Many readers see a cover, grab a book, read the blurb, flip to the first page, and read the first line.”

4.  “Readers buy books based on the first line; if the first line is bad, how can they trust the author to have written a good book?”

Etc…

All reasonable arguments, I’ll admit.  But I think they place way too much emphasis on one little line.  One sentence cannot carry a 100,000 word novel.  I’ve never seen this much emphasis placed on any other sentence in a story, except as a general “Make every sentence as good as you can.”  Nobody demands that a writer have a perfect third sentence, unless that writer is John Scalzi.

I rarely, if ever,  see writers expounding on the importance of a fantastic final line, although there’s at least as much structural weight implied by that position.  And I’ll be honest, I can’t remember very many first lines from books I’ve read, but I do remember quite a few last ones.

Now if we think about the reasons I quoted above, a first line will likely appear in more versions of a story.  It will be in the sample pages, the partial, possibly even in the query or synopsis, if it is that sort of sentence.  So yes, it will be seen a lot.  It will be seen by those who don’t finish the book, but do take the opportunity to leave a scathing “review” on Amazon.  So yes, it will likely be seen the most out of all the lines in the book.

But so what?

If it’s a bad book overall, it won’t matter what the first sentence is like.  Even if you spend hours slaving over this all-important scrap of literature, it won’t matter if the rest of the book can’t hold up.  (The same goes for any other sample or benchmark of your work, but we’ll stick to the first line for now.)  No matter how much you polish it, if the rest of the book isn’t polished, it won’t matter.  And if the rest of the book is polished, it won’t be such a big deal either.

Here’s a little secret;  I have never bought a book based on the first line.  I’ve picked them up because of titles or covers, flipped through the pages because of good cover copy, even read a chapter or two in store because of a really good opening.  But I buy books now mostly based on recommendations, or good reviews, and that’s true for a large majority of readers I know. 

I’m not an agent nor do I know any agents personally.  (I have read slush and been staff for a small e-mag, and I never accepted or rejected a piece based on the first line.)  Perhaps someone will chime in with an example of where a first line made or broke a deal, or convinced them to pick up or put down a book in-store.

Of course you should always try to write to the best of your ability, but to be constantly pre-occupied with ten or twenty words that may or may not make it into the final draft is just silly.

Well, that’s how I see it.  I’m sure there are folks out there who would just love to disagree with me.  I’m looking forward to it.

 

Why Atsiko Hates Short Stories

Okay, let’s be honest:

Atsiko loves to read short stories.  Mostly spec fic short stories. *pauses for gasps of surprise*  And also other short stories.  *more gasps*

 But one thing about short stories that Atsiko does not like about short stories is writing them.  Because Atsiko is terrible at writing short stories.  They start out nice and short and stiff, and then they get long and squishy and…  well, you get the picture.  Obviously, this is not fun.

(I’m making an analogy about gum here.  I don’t need anyone else’s mind in the gutters, dirtying them up.)

But last night, I had a dream that I could turn wholesale into a perfect short story.  I had my first person character voice down pat.  (Normally, I usck at first person.)  I almost had the whole thing written in my head.  But then I had to go to class.  And when I sat down a few hours later to write, I had a hazy idea of what my story had been about, and not the first clue how to get it down on paper.  My poor brain was half boiled by all the mental cussing.

This happens to me every time.  Every single time.  Or something like it happens, anyway.

And that is why I will probably never finish a short story.  Darn it!  *goes to cry in the corner*

 

Atsiko’s Character Recipe for Stories

Last time I talked about how to move from a plot idea to a full story idea.  We learned about ideas, plots, and story questions.  But as I said in that post, there are many ways to begin a story.  One of the other most common ways writers begin stories is with a character.  So today, I’m going to give the basic steps of taking a character and creating a story around them.

Again, there are a few aspects to this–four, to be precise–and you can start from any one of them.

First, we have an image.  That is, a picture in the writer’s head of what the character looks like.  Images can be a lot of fun, but to turn a character image into a story probably requires the most work.  Common inspirations for character images include dreams, chance sightings in public, and sometimes a certain aesthetic, such as Steampunk, Victorian, or Vampiric.

Character images are very similar to character designs in games and anime/manga—that is, the visual aspect of the character.  While this is less important or visible in writing than character designs in visual media, it still needs to be known by the author, in order to allow for description and scene-setting. 

Now, why might this aspect be the hardest to start with?  Because stories are about characters—and more specifically, their personalities and goals.  While a character image might reflect that, it’s not the root of the issue.  But character images are only part of what you would find in a character profile such as many writers use to describe the character.

The second part of that profile is usually the character personality.  Their dominant traits, such as neurotic or fiery; their likes and dislikes, such as favorite food or favorite color; and of course the way they interact with other people: Are they bright and boisterous, dirty-minded and sly, or perhaps aloof and brooding?  This aspect is easier to build from, but still not the easiest.  While it is important as far as cast interaction and sympathy go, it doesn’t have the most influence on the plot.

Our third aspect of a character is made up of goals, dreams, and motivations.  This is where good stories arrive at their themes and basic plots.  Most plots either involve pursuing the characters dreams, or frustrating them.  Myself, I prefer a certain amount of frustration, since that’s where most tension and conflict in the story is derived.  It’s hard to write a good story with interesting characters when this aspect is lacking.  It’s also one of the primary issues that pansters seem to encounter in their first drafts. 

In fact, this aspect is where most stories are lacking in terms of character.  If you’ve ever heard the term “card-board character”, this is what it’s talking about.  You might have the character image down-pat, but if there’s nothing behind it for a reader to relate to, the reader can’t root for the character, because there’s nothing to about them that’s interesting. 

Personality plays a role as well, but if this aspect is not addressed, all the snark and wit in the world isn’t going to drive the story forward.  “Passive character” is most often the term for a hero who’s got both image and personality, but is an empty vessel as far as trying to achieve their own goals.  While you might be able to get away with a passive character in some types of stories, it’s still a risk that you shouldn’t take lightly.

And now we just have one more aspect of character to discuss: skills, abilities, and attributes.  Anyone who’s familiar with RPGs knows how important this is, although since there’re only NPCs in fiction, it doesn’t have quite the prominence they’re used to.  This category deals with skills such as self-defense, manipulation of the environment and others, and normal physical attributes such as speed or strength.

Now, you’ll notice I’ve divided this into three categories.  I’ve used ones derived from common RPG mechanics, since they fit so well.  Naturally, these categories are going to be a bit vaguer in fiction.  A “skill” is facility in a certain area, such as computer programming, writing*wink*, or swordsmanship (to keep fantasy from feeling left out).  It’s generally something learned through studying, training, or practice.  “Ability” refers more to a specific power, and is often inherent, such as being genetic.  An attribute is the most passive category.  It refers to a general facility, such as intelligence, physical stamina, or charisma.

I think we could benefit from some examples, here.  Since I love talking about magic so much, we’ll focus on that—but this can be applied to any area, whether it’s sports, music, or fighting. 

Ged from A Wizard of Earthsea has magic most accurately classified as a skill.  It is learned, in a school, and honed through practice and concentration.  Elemental magic systems usually map as abilities: elementalists are born being able to control their specific set of elements, and often do so with no training or instruction whatsoever.  If you’ve ever seen Avatar: The Last Airbender, or played a game such as Golden Sun, you’ll know what I mean. 

For “attributes”, I think it’s easiest to use examples from gaming systems.  In many RPGs, such as Elder Scrolls or Dragon Warrior, characters are assessed in several attributes, such as strength, speed, luck, and intelligence.  These are general characteristics used to calculate health, attack damage or mana points.  They are generally not learned, but increase automatically as a game progresses.  Now, in a book, this progression will not be made in terms of points or levels, but more vaguely, in terms of “becoming stronger”.  The character will be able to swing a sword harder, run faster and farther, or figure out more difficult puzzles.

A strong character, and one that a good story can be built around, requires that each of these aspects be known and balanced against story obstacles.  Some aspects are more amenable to fudging or simplicity, but ideally, they would all be fleshed out and used to determine the course of the story.

Some of these aspects answer questions that came up in the plot recipe.

The skill and personality aspects deal with how the students from the previous post would act up.  If they were good at manipulation and had outgoing personalities they might incite crime or riots among other students.  If they knew a lot about computers, they might cheat on tests by hacking the system.  If they were physically fit and prone to violence, they might abuse other students, terrorize teachers, or destroy school property.  They drive the plot.

The motivation aspect answers the story question.  If they wanted to get good jobs and rise in public society, they would have to work hard to outshine all the other students, and meet the demands placed on students by the government, such as high test scores and acquiring skills in profitable sectors of the economy.  If they didn’t have the drive, they might burn out or drop out, and resort to rebellious behavior.  And if they were intelligent, driven, and angry, they might…  Well, you’ll just have to wait until the book finds a publisher to get the answer for that one.

Finally, how is the story idea affected by the character aspects?  Well, image doesn’t map very well onto any of the plot aspects.  The story idea, being the main thing that makes the story stand out, is going to affect all of the aspects of character, rather than being affected by any of them.  The setting is going to influence the fashions, and thus the character images; the level of tech and the environment, and thus skills and motivations; and also the socio-cultural climate, and thus the characters personalities, and their way of expressing themselves.  Keep in mind that we’re only talking about how to start a story.  As a writer, you’ll have to deal with all of these things eventually.

This post has gotten rather longer than I expected.  In the next post, we’ll discuss more about how these various aspects affect the story; and after that, common terms for different character types, and how these types impact the story the character is in.

 

Atsiko’s Plot Recipe for Stories

There are three ingredients you should have when writing a story: An idea, a plot, and a story question. You can come up with these in any order, but from a structural perspective, they usually go like this: idea leads to story question leads to plot.

When I start working on a story, sometimes I have a plot, sometimes I have an idea, and sometimes I have a story question. And sometimes I have a combination thereof.

An idea is a “what-if?” I generally look at it as defining the setting of the story. A story-question is what most people think of as an “idea”. Every idea can allow many story questions. A plot is a “then this happens”. Every story question allows for many plots.

You can start off with any of these, but you need to figure out all three somewhere within the writing process. Let’s look at an example.

Here’s a hypothetical idea: “What if a nation in a world equivalent to near-future Earth is in danger of being economically marginalized by a super-national economic/political unit similar to the UE, and it attempts to restructure its school system to produce valuable skills and professionals to help it compete?”

Now you need your story question. Let’s say: “How would this affect the students within such a system?”

A basic plot might be: “Smart students in a prestigious school do ‘bad’ things.”

This is from a story I am actually working on. I picked it because it demonstrates the loose order in which you need to come up with each element. I came up with the plot first. Then I came up with the story question. I wanted to know how current educational practices in various countries might affect the way children developed and behaved as students. How would the pressure to achieve affect various types of people, and what would they do to lessen that pressure?

I came up with the what-if last. Since I was looking at current systems of education, I needed a setting that could incorporate them. Since I was looking at the extremes of these systems, I needed slightly more overt pressure on the country to adhere to these trends.

But it’s completely possible to come up with the what-if idea first. A lot o sci-fi works on this model. A lot of epic fantasy or romance starts with a plot. A lot of serial UF and mystery begins with a story question.

It’s also important to keep in mind that you don’t have to begin with something in the plot continuum.  What we’re looking at here is mostly the plot angle of attack.  You could also start with a character, or a scene, or a setting, or whatever.

 

It’s All Just a Draft by Tobias Buckell

I just spent half-an-hour reading through this series of chapter drafts by Tobias Buckell, and I have to say, they’re pretty awesome.  Especially for people writing short stories, this is some must-read material.  There are a few things that some writers might find a bit controversial, but for me, Tobi’s articles squared extremely well with my experience–limited as it may be.