Unorthodox Writing Tips 25: Talk to someone about it.
Have you ever struggled with a scene and just couldn’t figure out how to make it work? Your fought and typed and pained your way through and something just wasn’t quite right? Yeah, never happens to me either. See you next time…
Okay, kidding aside. It’s difficult when you get to a scene and you want to make it right. You’ve done some research, maybe watched a documentary or read an article, but it just didn’t ‘feel’ right. Maybe it’s too sterile. Maybe it’s too stiff. Maybe the vernacular just doesn’t flow the way you feel it should. Talk to someone about it. Find someone who might be in the field of what you’re writing about.
For example, when working on My Teacher is a Zombie I need to understand what made Zombies want to eat brains. I couldn’t talk to a zombie, so I just made that part up. But what the kids were learning in class, that I could talk to someone about. In fact my favorite daughter was a wealth of information when I asked her about certain topics and what her class might be studying at the time. This brought in a dimension into work that would have been missing or I would have had to guess at. Not only did I get topics they might have had during the class, but she also provided me with little things I would have missed like participation points for raising your hand and answering a question, the way some desks are one unit and others had a desk and a chair, the layout of the classroom, the layout of the school. All things I could have incorporated and may in future issues of the storyline.
You know a lot of people. Sure, you’re a writer, you’re an introvert, you usually don’t leave your home unless you have to, but you know a lot of people. Almost everyone you know does something different. Even if you just associate with writers, each of them likely has a day job. Ask them what they do. Go ahead, I dare you. Ask one what they do for a living when not writing. Use this time with someone you know and get some information on their job. Do they use a security badge to get into the office? Do they have a desk? Do they work from a vehicle? What types of tools do they use? Are they in charge of people or a subordinate? What is their boss like? Do they own their own business? Write up a whole array of questions, but of course warn them before hand so they’ll be prepared to answer some questions.
This will open up a variety of things you can pull from to spice up your latest WIP. Adding little things to help your reader relate to you, your characters, and get more involved with your writing. You’ll be able to give your character something mundane to do/perform/look at/think about that a normal person may as well.
Take this one step further. Find someone you want to talk to about a certain topic. Again, be prepared. Get a list of questions. Perhaps you can contact the person ahead of time before you talk and send them the questions you’d like to start out talking about. When you have your conversation, start out with introductions, basic nicety, and ask a question. Allow the conversation to flow organically and as you think of other questions, write them down or ask them. If you can, have a recorder handy. Remember last time when I said watching too many shows will cause ideas to fall away? This is the same thing. You’re going to get a lot of information in one sitting. Your brain is like a glass and the person you’re going to talk to is like a pitcher of water. You won’t be able to retain everything.
If you prepared before you talked to the person, you have a pen (or pencil or tablet), notebook, highlighter. You’ll want to highlight things that make you go “OH! YES!” These are things you’ll be able to use right away. Something that might play into foreshadowing or back story, but something you know you want to use. Then you’ll have a lot of other details. These are things you can drop in “he swiped his keycard and opened the door”, “The middle drawer to cabinet 43 always stuck a little and had to be jiggled to open”, “The warehouse could easily hold a football field under its roof”. Little things that will give that element of realism.
Don’t use everything! Just like you won’t retain everything from the person you talk to, neither will your reader. Nearly everything you get will be your research. If you dump absolutely everything on your reader you’ll 1) bore them to tears even if you’re talking about Nuclear Welders and 2) give them far more information than they need. People like little bites handed to them, not whole meals shoved down their throats. If you put in too much, they’ll skim past it. Just give them enough to be curious that they may even go online themselves to look up some of what you handed them. Open the door and let them walk through, don’t shove them unsuspecting.
Yes, it’s not easy to talk to people. They’re mean, rude, crass, and usually don’t want to talk about work. They’d rather be doing anything else. So start with a friend, give them fair warning, and let it go from there. Don’t be pushy, but don’t be shy. You can even start small. Heck, ask the donut shop owner how many different kinds of donuts they make. They might be happy to just start talking rather than just taking your order. You never know what you might learn, and from whom you might learn it.
Until Next Time!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: I won a book!
Every once in a while (probably more than I know) Tor.com gives away books. Entry is usually quite simple. Email them your address, they’ll mail you a book. I’m not a lucky person so I do the steps needed and never think about it again.
Well, this time Mr. Murdock was lucky! I went here: http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/04/broken-universe-sweepstakes, and I’ll be getting a copy of the book before it goes on sale! Yesterday I talked about waiting for stuff to show up in the mail. Well, here’s something else in the mail for me. WOO WOO! Excitement is mine.
If you haven’t already done so, Nightshade books is having a half off sale. They’ve got a TON of books out there. I met them at WFC2011 and they’ve got a great collection of books, authors, and anthologies. I mean, come on, 50% off! How often do you see that happen? Plus, if you buy four books you’ll be entered into a drawing. What are you waiting for? GO!
Ok, you can finish reading this first.
Yesterday I was on FIRE! Maybe not litereally, but I got my blog post out and I hit my word count goal (now for fiction only). I put down around 2500 words. Hopefully I’ll do the same thing again today. We’ll see how it goes. My favorite daughter wants to go see her friend run in a track meet and then she has practice. I’d like to get a little walking in again today.
Did I mention I’m walking again? Not as fast and furious as last time, but I am walking and it feels great. My brain wants to run, but I know if I do I’ll end up hurt once again. Don’t need that happening. Slow and steady until I’m ready.
The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences is dropping stories. Be sure you’re subscribed over at http://www.ministryofpeculiaroccurrences.com/ and check amazon on occasion. I will try to drop links where I can.
Like this
http://www.cynicalwoman.com/2012/04/19/published-hanumans-gift-by-helen-e-h-madden/
And this
http://www.ministryofpeculiaroccurrences.com/
So go buy a story, enjoy. And don’t worry, I’ll let you know when mine is out there. I’m excited to know what Tee does for a cover. He’s been doing all these covers and they all look great. I’ll just have to wait and see.
I’m waffling. I haven’t waffled in a long time. I know I want to write Of Gnomes and Dwarves. But I’d also like to do the sequel to V&A Shipping. I’m torn. I love both universes. I think I’ll be putting To Fall From the Sky in a desk drawer somewhere and revisit it later. Of course I need to finish My Teacher is a Werewolf first and get that one out there into the wilds of the world. I think I’m driving myself nuts with so many writing projects. Changing my daily goal to be a fiction goal really lit a fire under me to start producing more fiction. I want to get back into my two favorite universes and the only thing stopping me is me.
I also need to get Jack Kane over to my co-author Mike Plested. Oh, and I need to write up a guest post for him. He’s got a book coming out and I’ll post all over about that as soon as it arrives. I mean, it’s Mik Murdoch (with an h, not a k so he’s not related to me so stop asking).
This post was a very random collection of thoughts. Gee, I should write stuff down. In case you’re wondering, yes, this is how my mind works. 🙂
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: I remember…
There was a time when I was a kid oh so many years ago. I’d be reading a comic and think, I should order those x-ray glasses. Wow! 100 army men for only a dollar! That joy buzzer looks cool. And I’d get some of my lawn mowing money together, shove the order form in the mail with cash (I wasn’t a smart kid) and then I’d wait on pins and needles for the next 6 to 8 weeks before something would arrive. I loved ordering things through the mail. I even had my own Sea Monkeys. It wasn’t the having the item, it was the ordering and the waiting. The anticipation. I loved the wait wondering when it would show up and I’d have my prize. Sometimes I’d have three or four orders out at one time and I’d lose track.
I had a junk drawer in my dresser dedicated to all the little things I had ordered over the years. Some things broke after one or two uses, others died flaming deaths (green army men burn nicely, but smell horrible), other things I’d hang on to for a while before they got lost.
The joy was never in the having of the items. Sure I got my use out of the cheap, plastic toys, but it was always the looking for something else to purchase. The excitement of waiting for something to arrive in the mail. The sheer enjoyment of tearing open a package, envelope, box, to get at what lay inside. Some times I would be disappointed, but most times I was very happy with my little purchase. They never cost a lot of money, but brought me a lot of joy.
I think that’s why I love ordering things from http://dealextreme.com, http://tigerdirect.com, http://amazon.com, and http://monoprice.com. It’s not that I NEED the things I order or even that I feel they’re be of higher quality than what I already have. It’s the excitement of ordering something and waiting for it to show up. Right now I have five orders that I’m waiting to arrive. Lots of little things (a bigger thumb drive, some cables, a book, new earbuds) but each day I go to the mail and it’s filled with junk. 99% of what shows up in my mail box is trash. The rest, stuff for someone else (more trash) or the occasional bill (I have almost everything paperless).
Now I’m like most people. I think instant gratification is a wonderful thing. I could head off to Fry’s or Best Buy and pick up what I saw online and have it right now, but there are times that I enjoy the wait. Wondering when I’ll go to the mail box and find something interesting in there for me. There was a lot of junk today. Maybe tomorrow there’ll be something. I’ll just have to wait. 🙂
Where are some cool places you like to shop online?
Remember when I said that hitting my writing goal yesterday would be a challenge. Yeah. Unfortunately writing time didn’t happen at all yesterday. I worked through lunch, picked up my favorite daughter, went to visit my father-in-law to say Happy Birthday, attempted to fix his sprinkler system, took my favorite daughter to volleyball practice (and I even walked for 30 minutes) and then it was back home. I did take care of replacing a loose/bad outlet, renewing my driver’s license, ordered checks (we were down to 2 before I renewed my license) and I even took care of a couple needed phone calls.
Yeah, yesterday was crazy busy. Today, not so much. Or so I hope. We’ll see how it goes.
I’m treading new ground at work. That’s always fun versus just bashing out code. I’m actually having fun experimenting…until I hit a wall that is. I have a co-worker who will be helping me at some point today. I’m sure it’s either a silly mistake or I’m just not using the code as designed. I don’t think I’m trying to re-invent the wheel. Again, we’ll see.
I’ve bookmarked a couple anthologies that I’d love to submit to. I’ll post those once I decide to write story for them. The links to the anthologies, not the stories. I also need to write a couple calls for guest posts. I have a couple friends who are having open calls for guest posts. This should be fun. There’s a lot of writing I need to get done this afternoon. I’d better get at it.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: Well that was interesting.
Yesterday a couple of interesting things happened. If you’ve been on the web or follow those that I follow you’ll have seen the Tu-Pac holographic performance with Snoop Dogg. Now I’m not into Rap, hip-hop, Gangsta or anything like that, but seeing the video of Tu-Pac on stage years after his death fascinated me.
Then this morning Jay Lake put out his daily post talking about writing and comparing writing to learning to drive. I was going to be typing up an Unorthodox Writing Tip doing just that same. Great minds think alike I guess. I will still write up that UWT, but I will have a slightly different take on it.
Today is my father-in-law’s birthday. We’ll be heading over there and then off to my favorite daughter’s volleyball practice. Getting in my word count today will be a challenge. But it’ll be a great time. We used to live around the corner from them. Now it’s about a 20 minutes drive. It used to be that 20 minute drive to my favorite daughter’s school. Now we’re around the corner from her school, but further away from the in-laws. We’re saving a lot on gas, but there is less time at the in-laws’. My favorite daughter used to go over there every Wednesday after school to spend time with her Abuelos and her cousins.
Speaking of writing goals, I did hit my goal yesterday. I shifted my focus on my daily word count. Now my daily blog posts no longer count to my daily word goal. They will count toward my annual word count, but not the daily word count. For that I’m only going to count my fiction words. Yesterday I got in my 1200+ words and it felt great. I had been slacking on the word count numbers because I would see that I’d hit my goal and stop for the day. Last night I hit my goal and for the day I had over 2200 words, but that’s because I had a very long blog post.
I’m going to keep the word count spread sheet like this for the time being and see how it goes. This should help me focus more on fiction rather than these blog posts. I can type these up on auto drive. They’re easy to do, but I need to write more fiction. A lot more fiction. So expect to see many more words and works from me in the coming months. If I can help it, I’ll be even more productive than before.
I still have edits to do on Jack Kane, and I will be getting those hammered out as soon as I’m able. I have a couple pieces to finish and then I’ll get back into those. I’ve let them sit. Shame on me. That story needs to get cleaned up and sent out. I think it’ll do well once it gets into the real world.
Speaking of the real world…
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: Something a little different today
First, if you’ve read this, keep reading. If you haven’t read this, go check out Mur’s letter to her daughter.
http://www.murverse.com/2012/04/15/dear-daughter/
I’m not going to cry or complain about my childhood here, I’m just going to explain how it was for me growing up.
Growing up as a kid in the backwoods of Minnesota, it was expected for you to ‘be a man’ even when you were an 8 year old weakling. I wasn’t ever that strong, or at least I didn’t think I was. I never really liked all the things that other boys liked. I’d rather play jump rope with the girls instead of hitting a baseball. Sports were boring and I wasn’t big on pain. This earned me a lot of ridicule and I was called gay/girlie boy/fairy/fag you name a term, they gave it to me. Girls started to shun me because they didn’t want to be associated with me.
My step-father was a man’s man. He was a roofer, hunter, baseball coach, self-employed, all those things that made a man a man. My brother and I spent a great deal of time in the woods cutting down trees, loading them into a truck, and splitting the wood to be stacked for our own use or to be sold. It was hard, backbreaking work, but it made us stronger.
Because I was so shunned by boys and girls alike, I grew up very self conscious and hating my very existence. The girls were less mean than the boys, so when I had the choice between shop (all boys take shop) and Home Ec. (All girls take home ec) I took Home Ec. I had already learned how to sew from my mom and how to cook, clean, iron, all those things. So the class was easy for me. I even taught some of the girls in the class how to thread a needle because they just couldn’t get it. Being the only in class got me a lot of harassment from the boys in shop class.
What happened because of this? Teachers saw that I was the only boy and how well I did and a new policy got passed. All children had to take shop and home ec. Sex no longer matters, all girls would take one semester of shop and all boys had to take one semester of home ec. This earned me even more hatred from the boys who had no desire to do girlie things.
Back to my Step-dad for a moment. In his eyes, it wasn’t alright for a boy to cry. I’d get a smack upside the head if I did. It didn’t matter if I had stepped on a nail and could see it protruding through the top of my foot or if I had dropped a log on my foot. I was a clumsy kid and hurt myself often. His ‘tough love’ was to hit me to make me stop crying. Brilliant.
What did happen is I grew stronger during my youth and during an arm wrestling competition with the other boys in 9th grade I bested all of them except one. The only one I didn’t beat was a kid who had flunked twice and was 3 years older than I was. I was also the youngest kid in the class. Even some of the kids from the class behind me were older than I was. But being strong gave the other kids a little respect for me even if I was a dork/geek/insert bad name here.
I also wasn’t smart. I grew up and had a sever lisp, I wore glasses (the only kid in the class to wear glasses), I was overweight, slow, shy, and I had dyslexia. It wasn’t until 6th grade that my lisp got help from a speech therapist, and my dyslexia got diagnosed and I also got help for that. Getting the right strength glasses also helped me seeing the blackboard better. Gee, I wasn’t stupid, I was just having other problems.
I still didn’t like sports .Fortunately it was at that time that my mother divorced my step-dad and I moved in with my father. It wasn’t fortunate that I moved away from my mother, I missed her a lot. But I was now away from any stigmas that I had grown up with. I moved to a land where I wasn’t judged by which sports I played, or how strong I was, or anything like that. I made friends and life moved on for me.
Reading Mur’s letter sparked a lot of memories for me. One thing I’ve always tried to instill in my favorite daughter is to be proud of who she is and what she does. She plays volleyball for herself. Some boys had teased her that volleyball is easy. During gym class she spiked a ball into more than one of those boy’s faces. Not to be mean, but because that’s what she’s learned to do playing volleyball and the boys who said ‘it was easy’ couldn’t return the ball coming at him that fast. They’ll learn quickly enough that my kid isn’t one to be messed with.
She also took kickboxing lessons for a short time. In the Navy, I was taught how to take a hit and how to deliver a punch. I taught my favorite daughter how to hit. I did this so well that she bruised both my arms. I wish I had bought a punching bag. I also taught her what to do it someone tries to grab her, assault her, kidnap her. Yes, she can be a shy, delicate little flower, but she can also defend herself. I had the bruises to prove that.
I would have done the same thing if I had a boy. I’ve never tried to put limits on my kid’s imagination, inspiration, or focus. I’ve let her wander into any topic of her choosing. She grew up with Barbies and Dinosaurs. Unicorns and trucks. She was the only kid in her group during science class that wanted to cut open the cow’s eye while the boys cringed and squealed as she did this. I always let her pick up bugs, crabs, tiny fish, anything she wanted that I knew wouldn’t hurt her, but I would explain the dangers of other things like spiny sand crabs that pinch hard.
Just like my mom let me be me, I’ve let her be her. Her choices in music and television shows may bother me to no end, I still accept her choices. If something it inappropriate I will intervene, but if she wants to watch Pretty Little Liars with her mom and Mythbusters with me, I’m good with that. She’s not a girlie girl, she’s not a tomboy. She’s her own person and I couldn’t be happier with the person she’s become.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: A little nothing.
I just wasn’t feeling in the blogging mood today. We drove up to Huntington Beach last night. Stayed in an awesome hotel. We upgraded to a suite with a bay view for an extra $20. Had a great view, had a great dinner. Relaxed. I slept great. I woke up very refreshed.
Then my favorite daughter’s team had some volleyball to play. Her games take everything out of me. They’re draining. I cheer. I whistle. I scream. She tells me they can’t hear anything on the court, but it makes me happy.
I also celebrate from the sidelines for every great play and my heart breaks on every bad play or missed point. I really get into the games. I’ve watched other sports, but Volleyball is all action. I would compare it with games like Lacrosse and Field Hockey, but with Volleyball there are a lot of points scored.
So they lost their first two marches, taking each to three games. And they took the third match to three also. The team was the 4th seed in their group. What they didn’t know going in was that group had beat the other two teams and had moved up from a lower division because they were so good. That was frustrating for me to hear also BECAUSE THEY WON!
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m very happy they won. What’s frustrating is they should have won all their matches. It’s like sputtery truck not firing on all cylinders. Once something starts to go wrong, it all falls apart. As a parent you don’t want to see your child lose, but my favorite daughter had an incredible day. She had many awesome digs, and every spike went over the net. She only missed one serve, but that happened after a timeout. Her rhythm had been throw off.
So it was a super proud dad moment to day to see how well she played and how many points she scored. It’s just hard to come back down to reality and write this post.
So speaking of sputtery truck, we took it up this weekend. I hadn’t taken it on a long road trip since getting new guts. It ran great. I even got it up to XX miles per hour and it ran like a champ. Even though I drove up there and back at XX miles per hour, I still got passed by many cars. Simply shocking.
I got through some reading while in our suite. It was nice for all three of us to be crammed into the same spot. I will post a review of what I read soon enough. I’ve got a couple of reviews to write in fact.
I had an idea of what I want to do with my daily word count. I don’t seem to be increasing my fiction writing as quickly as I would like. So for the next month I’m going to try and hit my daily word goal with fiction only. I’m still going to write the daily blog posts, but not count them against my daily word goal. The blog posts will count to the annual goal though. I want to get a number of projects finished and if I’m hitting my word goal with blog posts, I’m not so anxious to write fiction. I need to put a little pressure on myself and get a little push in the right direction.
I’m about two thirds done with the next episode of Golden West and about three fifths done with My Teacher is a Werewolf. I am going to try and do a section of Golden West each month and a ‘My Teacher is’ each month. Then I’m going to finish off To Fall from the Sky and get cranking on Of Gnomes and Dwarves.
I’ve got lofty goals. It’s not easy staying on track, but I am. I surprise myself some days with how many words I’ve written so far this year. Not only surprised, but happy with how they’ve turned out. I’m not writing a lot of garbage like I used to. That may change, I don’t know, but I’m happy with how the words are flowing at some points.
Speaking of words flowing, I should get on that.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: A little rain, a little hail, a little sunshine
The weather has decided to be a little nuts. I think the weather man is nuts as he said it would start raining around 2PM and IT DID! Right on time! I had to look at my watch to make sure I was seeing things right. I had a flash back to the movie Back to the Future. You know the scene. If you don’t, go watch Back to the Future II. Even if you do, go watch the movie anyway, it’s a great movie. Heck, all three are great movies.
Speaking of movies, we (the wife, my favorite daughter, and I) went over to the Millican’s house last night. I’ll get to the movie in a moment. We had dinner, and we started talking about ice cream. I love me some ice cream. I told them about Pistachios, my favorite daughter’s eyes lit up. And off we went to get ice cream and other goodies. Oh my oh my. I could eat that stuff every day, but I shouldn’t.
So anyway, we got back to their house and decided to watch a movie. We joked about some, watched previews for others that pretty much showed the entire movie and/or what we assumed would be the only funny parts of the movie. We finally settled on The Hunter being that we all like William Defoe and it looked like it would be a good movie.
Is it a good movie? To be fair, it was alright. It was very slow in spots, but I sometimes like a slower movie. I think the best part was the cryptozoology. The main character was off to hunt and kill a Tasmanian Tiger. The last one seen in the wild was in the 1930s. Or maybe that was in captivity. I forget. Either way, the movie, although slow and very predictable (I’ve become cynical in my old age) was a decent watch. I wouldn’t have seen it in the theaters, but was a good enough rental.
I bought a couple of ebooks recently. With all the free books I’ve picked up, I decided to buy a couple. I got the Hunger Games trilogy and Mike Stackpole’s Of Limited Loyalty: the Second Book of the Crown Colonies out through Nightshade books. I’m really looking forward to reading both of these. I had had gotten the first Crown Colonies signed by Mike Stackpole at WFC2011. I still need to write up a review for that one. I’ll probably wait and do both.
On the writing front, I hit my word goal yesterday. I’ll hit my word goal today. I’ll hit my word goal tomorrow. At least that’s the plan. Tonight we’re heading up to Huntington Beach. My favorite daughter has a tournament tomorrow so we’ll be heading up there tonight versus driving up at 5am.
If I’m going to hit that goal, I’d better get on it. So…
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Unorthodox Writing Tips 24: Consumption
As a producer of a blog, writing tips, and a lot of fiction, I know there’s a choice that needs to be made: To produce or to consume.
These may sound like different things, but in many ways they feed into each other. Obviously it’s far easier to consume something than it is to produce something. Look at some cooking shows where chefs spend hours making a wonderful creation only to watch it disappear in moments. But I’m getting sidetracked (boy that happened fast this time).
Looking at what you’re consuming is important to good writing. If you’re watching garbage it makes the creative process more difficult. Not just garbage, but too much garbage. I noticed that when I watch reality shows with the wife that my creative side drips out my ear as my brain melts. If I watch one show, I might pick up an idea, a mannerism, a turn of a phrase, something, but watching too much just eats into my brain and I need to stop. Even watching documentaries will do the same. I’ll be so overloaded with information that I won’t recall what was so cool that I wanted to keep or use in a story. It’s all about finding a balance.
Being creative isn’t hard. You can dream all sorts of different things. The brain is a wonderful tool. You can also stifle your creativity. In order to continue to be creative you need to feed your brain. Think of it like working out. You can’t work out day in and day out without taking a break now and again to eat something. You also cannot eat day in and day out without working out. And it’s not just a matter of putting food into your body, but putting the right things in.
If you’re going to consume something, be picky, be diverse, be inventive. Don’t just sit, turn on the TV, and hope for the best. That’s like going to McDonald’s and saying “I’ll have whatever you give me.” Plan out your time when you’ll sit down and know ahead of time what you’re going to watch. Set up a schedule that will allow you the time to watch a show and still get in some writing. Pick a show that might feed that creative need for what you’re currently working on, but try to broaden what you’re taking in so you have a broader view of your WIP.
The same goes for your reading. If you only read the genre you’re writing in, you’ll only regurgitate what you’ve read. You need to expand what you’re reading to allow you to bring in elements that people might not have thought to bring in before. This is how you end up with genre mash-ups that are happening more frequently. People read outside what they’re expected to read and BAM! New genre crossover. Even if you don’t create another genre, you can bring in a little bit of something else that your readers can relate to and gain a firmer grasp of the reality you’re creating.
Just as important, you need to read in your genre (or watch, or play). You need to understand what is being published and why. You should be following the trends. That’s not to say pick a genre and go for it. You also need to decide where your writing best fits or should you be writing in multiple genres. Having a laser-like focus is a good thing, but you need to make sure it’s focused in the right direction. Even better if you can focus in multiple directions.
Beyond genre reading (both inside and out) you need to have a firm grasp on the real world. There’s a lot of ways you can do this. Magazines, blog posts, news feeds, the 10 o’clock news. You need to keep up on current events even it you only find one little element that fits in your story, the real world influences what you’re writing more than you’ll know. Science Fiction of the 50s and 60s was very much a reflection of the times both socially and politically. The writers of that era understood what was happening and looked beyond to generate fiction that people could relate to based on current events.
Even beyond current events, pop icons, genre reading, TV watching, game playing, and all that, you need to do research. Reading wiki is an okay place to start, but you need o look deeper. Take a trip to the local library, get a library card, and open a non-fiction book on something you might want to include in your WIP. Guns, the old west, history, the pyramids, anything. Pick a topic and start reading. Bring a level of realism to your writing because without it, readers will have a difficult time suspending their belief to allow themselves to fall into your story. If you’re writing science fiction, you can’t just fly by the seat of your pants and hope for the best. You need to understand what you’re writing so it makes sense. You need to understand weapons and how they work or someone reading will call you out and expose a weakness in your writing. You need to be well informed.
There are only so many hours in the day. The best you can do is take small bites and press forward. If you discover something that needs to be corrected in your manuscript, write it down as a note and fix it later. Don’t try and fix it as you go. If you get to a point where something needed to happen in chapter 3 so chapter 45 makes more sense, write that down and fix it later. That’s what re-writing is for. To help you make your story better the second time through. Continuous research will feed your WIP, feed your brain, and improve your writing. Not just reasearch, but focused consumption. Don’t just let things fall into your brain. Put them there on purpose.
Until Next Time!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: How long?
I still feel a little bad about the little bird. I know it had gotten knocked out of its nest or tried its first flight during the rain and on the ground would likely have died without my knowing about it. That’s just how nature works. But in that short time of taking care of the little guy I grew attached. It didn’t take long at all.
This is part of what made working at the Humane Society in Durango so difficult. I grew attached to the animals very quickly. It made me happy to see one adopted, but when we became over crowded, euthanasia was our only resort. It didn’t matter if the animal had been there a day or a week, it was never an easy task. Dogs were more difficult as they didn’t fit into the gas chamber and they would look at you with those needy, trusting eyes that would just tear your heart out time and again.
All this got me to thinking. How long does it take until you feel that something it yours. Be it your property or your responsibility? How long does it take when you pick up something, say a pen, and decide that it’s now your pen. Or borrow a shirt or a blanket and forget to return it and decide its been too long and now it’s yours? Or adopt an animal. How long does it take until something truly becomes yours? Does the age of the items or animal in question come into play?
I have a sweater I bought at a second hand store about four years ago. It’s been washed and worn many times, but in my mind even though I wash it, fold it, put it away, and wear it again, I’ve never really thought of it as mine. I’d always wondered why the original owner had donated it. Each time I wear it (It’s from Minnesota) if perhaps I somehow knew the person. A lot of things pop into my head, but I’ve never really considered the sweater mine. It’s weird.
But when it comes to that little bird, I felt an almost immediate connection that this little guy was mine and my responsibility. I felt like I should have done something more to ensure that it could have survived the day and been released back outside a little stronger and better prepared for the elements. I find it difficult to explain, but that little life had been in my hands (literally) and I failed to help it thrive. I did look up instructions, but it seems I wasn’t in time.
So what about you? How long does it take for you to become attached to something? Does it take less time to become attached to an inanimate object over a living being? Do you find it difficult when you lose something and wonder where it’s gotten off to? I lost a pocket knife once and always wondered what had happened to it. I’ve had animals run away when I was a kid and I still remember the day they got lost. Anything you’ve found that you still remember finding that you consider yours or something you lost that you still miss?
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
J.R. Murdock 