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Posts Tagged ‘my methods’
Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
I’ll admit something about gaming – as much as I plan my novels to obsessive detail (down to POV for each scene) before I write them, I can be a bit of a pantser when it comes to running my games. Actually, I’m a lot of a pantser.
I have a couple of reasons for this. Primarily I have had the privilege of gaming with and running for some really great groups in my day. These are folks who define the concept of making their own gravy. I could quite literally sit down at the table and say “It’s a post-apocalyptic game, you’re all survivors from a hospital, go!” and we would have four or five good hours of game-play. But having great players who get into character and have lots of interplay at the table has its downsides too – specifically, they tend to go off on tangents, chase leads I never intended as significant, and generally go any direction that I hadn’t particularly planned for them to go.
So I started looking at things differently. I started making a list of things I wanted to happen, both over the course of the campaign and from game session to game session. For a Pulp Adventure game, this might look like:
- Players get attacked by dinosaurs.
- Players find crashed plane (German equipment?)
- Players find primitive tribe. (Enslaved? Need help?)
- Nazis Riding Dinosaurs!
In the book Save the Cat (which is about script-writing and a great resource) – Blake Snyder calls these the “Set Pieces” – the beats that drive the story forward. For me it’s more like a grocery list of things I have to include. I don’t worry about how to get from one to the other; I just keep track of what’s next and let the players give the direction of the story. If it’s a game that requires more organized encounter planning (like 4th edition D&D) I put down some possible encounters on cards and mix-n-match to make an appropriate encounter for the situation as it arises.
Obviously, this runs counter to everything I do in novel writing, but at the same time, it takes advantage of the creative power I have around my table. If the players try to get the plane working again I’m just as ready for what happens next as if they decide to ride the dinosaurs a la Valley of Gwangi. So, Gamer-writers (and writer-gamers) any differences between how you work on your fiction versus how you craft a game session?
Tags: gaming, my methods, Nazis on dinosaurs, nerdPride, save the cat
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Monday, August 30th, 2010
I’m terrible with names. I’ll come out and say that up front. If I meet you every day for a week, I’ll probably remember your name by the end of that time, assuming I’m not meeting a hundred other people at the same time. I may get close, and I may even get it right, but if I do, assume it’s a fluke rather than some particular skill on my part. Needless to say, this makes networking at conventions, where I’ll meet dozens of people in the course of three or four days, a bit difficult.
I’ve come up with some tricks over the years to make up for my shortcoming in the name-association department. First, I participate aggressively in what a friend once called the ‘almost Japanese obsession with business cards’ at conferences. I swap business cards with anyone I exchanged more than ten minutes with at a conference.
I can’t stop there though – If I do, I’ll come home with a stack of business cards that I won’t know as anything but names on cards. It’s tough for me to send a thank you to the people I met at conference, if I cannot remember the circumstances of our meeting. I have a trick, however that helps me keep this from happening. As soon as I get the chance (sometimes even sitting at the table with the person with whom I’ve swapped cards, but typically in my room before bed) I go through the business cards I’ve received. On the back of each one, I write where I met the person and the circumstances of our introduction. If we talked about something in particular, I write that on the card as well. When I come home from the conference, and it’s time to send e-mails to the people I’ve met, I have all the information needed to jog my memory written on the back of each business card.
Of course, saying this, I realized in the middle of RWA10 that I had prevented anyone from doing the same for me. My cards were black, and the back of the card was emblazoned with the cover for Hearts and Minds, making it impossible to take notes anywhere on the card. Ah, well. Point for me to remember in the future.
So, there’s my trick. Do you have any particular tricks you use to remember the people you meet in the swarm of conference faces? I’d love to hear about them. I’m never too old to learn new tricks.
Tags: Conferences, Hearts and Minds, my methods, Networking 101, RWA, writing
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Wednesday, August 18th, 2010
With my apologies to Robert Burns, it’s time for another knitting post. Today I need to talk about my terrible addiction to that most notorious drug of sweater and sock knitters – the cable.
I love cables. They are fun to knit, they look really impressive when you’ve done a long chain of them, and most importantly, they aren’t half as tricky as the rest of the knitting world would have you believe. (Actually that last secret is true of knitting as a whole. I shall have to do a post on breaking the great secret of knitting – that’s it’s all easy – open for all of you.) It’s not even math, like some elements of knitting, it’s just counting. I don’t even do the counting in my head – I have a stitch counter on my iPhone that I can set to count for me. I color code my cables on the needle, then label a row on my counter for each cable. When I increment the whole project one row, each of the cables increments on their own counting system, so I always know where I am. Easy Peasy, Lemon Squeezy.
There’s a problem to loving cables, though. Once you realize how easy they are, the tendency is to start putting them on everything. Like a flame paint-job on a car, cables work best with a little restraint. A thin line down the side of a kilt stocking is okay. A twenty-stitch wide knotwork probably doesn’t belong on a footie-slipper. It’s the knitting equivalent of getting a sweet flame paint scheme on your ’82 Omni. You can do it, but even ironically it looks a little off.
Okay, back to trying to figure out how to put triangular knotwork on the earflaps of a hat.
Tags: I can stop cabling any time I want, Knitter Pride, knitting, my methods, obsession
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Monday, August 9th, 2010
“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are.” – Brillat-Savarin
I will be the first to admit that I have odd hobbies, but chief among them is my love for culinary history. Fortunately, this also provides a near-limitless opportunity to get into the heads of my characters and really begin to understand how they think and (as Brillat-Savarin states) who they are. And why shouldn’t it? Taste and smell and some of the most powerful triggers of memory – who doesn’t sigh at the whiff of baking cookies or have a particular comfort food they turn to in times of stress.
Food features in almost every story I’ve ever written, whether it’s the lichen infused vodka of Hearts and Minds or the eponymous banquet in Feast of Fools. Knowing the flavors and tastes that are common to a character’s palate helps to understand them, and in terms of world-building, provides a great opportunity to express information about the world or the character without resorting to ‘telling’.
For example, if your character has only ever been accustomed to polished white rice, what would she think if presented with unpolished rice mixed with millet (a far more common meal than she would be used to)? Would she be offended? Would she be curious about the new taste? Would she pity the people who only have such rough fare to eat? Each choice tells us something different both about the character and the world around her.
Thanks to the internet, and the growing popularity of culinary history, it’s possible to find recipes from all through Earth’s timeline. If you write fantasy, consider picking up a copy of “The Medieval Kitchen.” For Edwardian writers, “Last Dinner on the Titanic” offers recipes from all three dining rooms on the night of the disaster. It’s worth looking through for the differences in meals between First and Third Class alone. Are you a Science Fiction writer? Well, there it gets a little trickier, but think about the influences on your future society and extrapolate from there. For me, Pan-pacific fusion is the cuisine of cyberpunk novels, but it could just as easily be based on Parisian haute cuisine or Taco Bell (I’m looking at you, Demolition Man).
Regardless of what you write, nearly all characters eat. Food, thus, becomes an important part of the research in world- and character-development for any story. More than ever before it’s possible to cook some of the food your characters have a particular fondness for, and even if you don’t include it in your story, it can help you get inside the skin of your characters. Even if it’s only a moment, the experience is worth it.
Besides, you might find a new favorite dish.
Tags: character building, culinary history, Fantasy, Hearts and Minds, my methods, tasty tasty research, world building, writing
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Wednesday, August 4th, 2010
This past weekend, Debbie Macomber received the Nora Roberts lifetime achievement award for her contributions to the Romance genre. In addition to her wonderful stories, Ms. Macomber also has a number of knit-along books where the patterns from her Blossom Street stories come to life in exciting new dimensions. I have always loved the idea of people inspired to craft by their connection to a story, whether it’s dedicated propmakers replicating Dr. Jones’ Grail Diary or items from the ill-fated Dyer expedition to Antarctica to the wide assortment of musicians and makers that flocked to Catherynne Valente’s Palimpsest and added their own touches to its wonder and magic.
It taught me why I continue to knit whenever I get the chance – as I’ve said, it keeps me calm in difficult situations (like surrounding an introvert with 2500 new people). Even better, it provides an instant connection with other people who knit or do other crafts. No matter where we may be with our projects, there we suddenly had a common ground as Makers of Things discussing our passions.
These thoughts spawned an unusual thought in my head – for too long, my knitting has been the unwinding act that I use to step back from my job or my writing and immerse myself in something else for a while. Instead, I wonder if I should use it to draw myself deeper into my craft. I’ve new ideas in the wake of RWA, and plenty of things that make me more excited about my craft (and my crafting) than I’ve been in ages.
Tags: Knitter Pride, knitting, my methods, RWA
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Monday, July 26th, 2010
A very wise friend of mine once said that it was difficult to tell the difference between a writing conference and a support circle for Asperger Syndrome sufferers. I try to remember that when I go to conferences because, theoretically, it should help to know that everyone else is just as introverted and uncomfortable as I am.
Note that I say should.
To be honest, I don’t do the conference thing well. Like a lot of writers, I suffer from terrible Imposter Syndrome when I meet other people who practice my craft. It doesn’t matter that I have a full shelf over my desk with all my works on it, I still feel like the kid who’s snuck into the party and will be thrown out as soon as they figure out I don’t belong. This is why I started taking my knitting to conferences, it helped keep my relaxed. As an added bonus, it provided a safe neutral topic I could talk about without seeming nervous.
Writing is a solitary business – it’s a profession that is, for most of the year, carried out in semi-vacuum. It’s you, your beta readers, your editor, your agent and occasional forays into media-marketing. There’s not a lot of face time for most writers, even the ones who are lucky enough to have a local support group with whom they can share the trial and triumphs. The great majority of us are introverts, and the idea of being in a social situation leaves us uncomfortable. We get together anyway, and eventually we either build up our courage (or have a drink to settle our nerves) and we say hi to somebody. Because as much as it can be a rough road to walk alone, it’s also pretty cool to meet someone on the same road and be able to catch a few pointers, or warn them away from a few pitfalls. Some of my dearest friends are people who I met at writers’ conferences.
I say all of this because this week is RWA – that the National event for Romance Writers of America (of which I am a member). It’s a big deal, sells out early, and is generally awesome. Take all those things I just said about having issues at a regular conference, and triple them. Then add in the discomfort that this will be my first RWA, and you can imagine the sort of stomach churning terror I am dealing with.
Seriously. I eat Tums like they’re a fifth food group.
That said, I try to think of myself, despite all evidence to the contrary, as a friendly sort. So if you’re at RWA, and you see me (I’ll be knitting, probably a red-orange clapotis scarf, I haven’t decided yet), please come say hello. We can always talk about knitting.
Tags: Conferences, Knitter Pride, knitting, my methods, RWA, Samhain, SF Romance, writing
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Monday, July 19th, 2010
The Tarot Deck, a mystical fortune telling device that looks into your future and knows all. Or, if you’re less interested in the mysticism, a great way to pull together a quick background for a secondary character. I wanted to explicitly state secondary characters in there, but I’ve met folks who use it for their hero and heroine as well – just not for me. As you’ll recall, I dislike surprises, so I tend to know my mains’ backgrounds pretty well.
That leaves a lot of room for everyone else though, and sometimes I just don’t know what a secondary character wants, or why they’ve decided to help. When that happens, I pull out a deck of tarot cards (I have a couple different decks, but mostly I use the standard Rider-Waite) and lay out three cards. One card indicates a motivating moment in the character’s past, one represents his or her current state, and one is used to indicate the character’s goal.
So for example, I draw the Tower, the Three of Pentacles and the Ten of Swords – It gives me a character who came from a broken home or otherwise never felt safe, but has now mastered a skill and exchanges it for money. At some point in the future, the character will betray someone, either the hero/heroine or the antagonist. It’s not much to go on, still, but it gives me a sense of direction and gets my gears grinding towards a more compelling secondary character.
I can’t really bring up tarot and writing and not talk about the Fool’s Journey. There is a school of thought that views the twenty-two cards of the Major Arcana as a metaphor for the path we each take through life. I’ve been to seminars on writing and the tarot where this was discussed explicitly as a means of evaluating characters, or even plotting the novel. I’ve never done it, partly because it has similarities to Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, which I think has been done to death. If you’re interested in learning more, there are plenty of resources on the fool’s journey to get yourself started.
So how about you? Have you use the tarot, or some other randomization technique, to explore the background of a character? I’m always looking for a new method – feel free to leave yours in the comments.
Tags: characters, my methods, tarot, writing
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Wednesday, July 7th, 2010
Knitting, it’s safe to say, is a pretty significant part of my writing procedure on any given day. I’ve heard that it causes the same sort of alpha waves as transcendental meditation, but I can’t respond to that. I do know that after 30 minutes to an hour with the relaxing tik-tik-tik of the needles, I am much better able to focus on my writing that day.
Obviously, I can’t recommend it to everyone – I’ve seen other people for whom the miracle of two-stick magic is an exercise in profanity and frustration. For me, it’s a mental time-out that helps break up my day between the writing I have to do for my day job, and the writing I do in the evenings.
Beyond just serving as a transition, the time I spend knitting helps me hone in and focus on what I have to write each evening. While I’m plugging away on a row, working through the iterations of pattern that are required, my sub-conscious strips down and digests what I have to do next in the story, or helps winnow out unusual problems that the plot had been having, and devising creative solutions for them.
Strange, I suppose, that I haven’t included a knitter in any of my stories so far. Then again, despite the write what you know adage, I’ve only ever included one writer in my stories as well. Maybe my next hero or heroine needs a little needle-based me-time.
Tags: knitting, my methods, writing
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Monday, July 5th, 2010
Characterization is rough, at least for me. I have a love for words, and if I don’t take care all of my characters – from educated dilettante to grime covered street orphan – start sounding like that reclusive librarian that lectured you on spoken grammar. I recognized this as a liability pretty early on, but only in the last few years have I really come up with a way to work around it other than careful re-writes (I still use those, by the way, but this helps).
Disclaimer – I’m a plotter. I plot and outline until there’s no mystery left. If that’s not your style, you’ll hate my solution.
To combat the problem, I use the Lists of Ten. My friend Rich Dansky was the person who introduced me to this, so I give him all the credit. The concept is as simple as it is elegant, and it works like this. For any character that has more than a line of dialog, I create a list of “10 things Character_Name frequently says.” I pair this with a second list – “10 things Character_Name never says.” I story these in the character folder for each character, and keep a copy tacked to the wall where I can read it while I’m writing their scenes.
It sounds fairly minor, but it’s a huge help for me. It’s a visual reminder that my urchin likes to use “…if it’s anything” in his declarative statements, or that my dilettante never uses contractions. I also take care not to handcuff myself to the list – it can be broken for emphasis obviously (a character who never uses profanity suddenly drops the F-Bomb), but even our catch phrases only show up once or twice in a given exchange. The list acts as a guide for me, and helps my characters sound different without making them sound repetitive.
Much of the time I don’t fill it out completely, starting with 5 to 8 of each. This gives me room to expand as the character grows and changes in the course of the writing. Likewise, if it’s a bit character with only a few lines in one or two scenes, it may not get the full 10 at all. Just 5 may suffice–something to help me develop a unique voice for the character.
How about you? Do you have a method for characterization of which you are especially fond? I’d love to hear about it. Drop me a message in the comments.
Tags: character, dialogue, my methods, writing
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