Browsing Category

Craft

Stop Focusing on the “U” in Community

Posted on January 5, 2020

I am a lonely writer.

I feel like I am writing this story for an audience of one, me. I’m scared that no one will ever care about it, and glom on to those who show the slightest inclination of interest, feigned or legitimate, out of desperation just to not feel like I am alone in this anymore. I want someone to love this as much as me. Hell, I’d just be happy if someone invested a small amount of time into it as a casual fan. But, I don’t just get excited about my own work. Inspiration comes from everywhere, and I yearn for an environment where writers have come together to collaborate.

I envy people who get to work in writer’s rooms or in tight-knit established writing circles where ideas are exchanged and thrown about as casually as confetti. I pine for collaboration— to pick the minds of other creatives and find solutions together. I get energized in situations where I’m free to just expel ideas with abandon. I’m an idea man, Chuck!

At this point you’re yelling at your screen saying, Hey idiot. Just join a writing forum or a writer’s group or something like that.

Well, I have, and after twelve years of pursuing this collaborative pipe dream, I have decided, writer’s groups suck. After all the groups I have joined, forums I answered questions in, contributions and connections I have made, I’ve gotten very little to show for my efforts. I’m still writing alone and I’m the only one who cares about my story.

In a world where the internet exists, where there are countless communities designed specifically to connect writers of even the most esoteric genres, how can this still feel like a solitary pursuit? How is it that, even though I have writer friends and belong to different writing communities from fanfiction websites to a private slack of former Inkshares authors who all went rogue, I still feel like I’m alone and I am the only person who cares about my story?

Without the limitations placed on us my the perceived parameters of our own projects, we tap into pure imagination. We open our minds.

The answer is simple: I am the only one who cares about my story, period. Sure, I might have a few fans or writer friends who are interested in the idea, but the thing about writers is that they are all way more wrapped up in their own projects to care about anyone else’s. Writers are fucking selfish.

What? What? What? You expect me to give my valuable time and creative energy, wasting that on someone else’s project? The short answer to that is yes, yes I do. So go ahead. Yell at me, and scoff sarcastically, clutching your metaphorical pearls in disgust as you ask: Why would I put my limited time towards focusing on somebody else’s creation?

Well, since you asked so politely, here are several reasons why you should.

The beauty of helping other writers through their blocks is it unlocks a beautiful mechanism of our brain we often limit when writing our own works— our imagination. When we’re brainstorming on our stories, we automatically start out with limits. Our brain throws out a random idea, and we immediately begin negating it to death, throwing out a million reasons why it won’t work. That’s out of character for my lead; the magic system doesn’t work that way; that feels like a deus ex machina; blah blah blah. I’ll wallow in creative agony for hours, days, weeks, months, years, trying to find creative solutions to corners I have written myself into because I’m afraid that a good idea will force me to go back and change what I’ve already spent hours, days, weeks, months, or years working on. I’ll throw out an idea even before I’ve played around with it simply because it doesn’t fit what I thought I wanted to write. But, if a writer friend comes to me and lays out their specific writing dilemma, I suddenly turn into the Muse from Dogma.

Serendipity the Muse, Dogma (Kevin Smith, 1999)

So, why is it that when asked by another writer for help solving their own problems that I can come up with a million ideas, but can’t come up with any for myself? Easy. I don’t have any stake in their story. I’m not the one who has to rewrite things if my ideas don’t fit. I have the benefit of being removed from the situation, and with that comes clarity and flexibility. I can throw out a dozen ideas in a minute, no problem, because what is the worst thing that is going to happen— they say no, they don’t like that idea? Who cares, here is a dozen more ideas. I’ve got a thousand of them. Ideas are everywhere.

Without the limitations placed on us by the perceived parameters of our own projects, we tap into pure imagination. We open our minds. The benefit to the other writer is that they can see things they could not see before, solutions that may have been obvious, that were obscured by their limited perspective.

Okay, that’s great for the other guy, but what about me? I still don’t see why I should waste my time and creative energy for someone else’s benefit.

Well, if you could look past your own selfishness for a moment, your limited perspective if you will, you’d see there are two benefits for you that result as a by-product of your creative generosity: 1) you just generated a bajillion ideas right there, and even if you are writing a different genre than your writing buddy, there still might be a gem in their you could mine and use to fit your own story needs, and 2) your writing buddy is likely to turn around and say, “Dude, that was super helpful. Thank you. What are you stuck on? Maybe I can help.”

I envy people who get to work in writer’s rooms or in tight-knit established writing circles where ideas are exchanged and thrown about as casually as confetti.

As writers, we perceive our time as valuable, a precious non-renewable resource. Most of us are hobby writers hoping for a break while we work or attend school full-time, juggle family and social obligations, and also try to make time for other hobbies or maybe just relaxing and doing nothing. So, we hoard our creativity, our time, and our energy like Golem and the One Ring. We join communities to connect with other authors, but we only ever talk about ourselves, our projects, and use those connections to try to get people excited about our projects. But, those other writers are so engrossed in hoarding their time, energy, and creativity, they form surface level connections with the other writers in the group, and never actually go out of their way to help, collaborate, or even just fucking read/watch/listen whatever content you’ve produced.

I don’t know how many times I’ve helped out a “writing friend” who was stuck and needed to talk through a block, was begging for a beta, or a multitude of other reasons a writer needs help, only to be told when I hoped the favor would be returned “I’ll get to it when I can, I’m just so busy” or “I don’t want to make promises right now” or “I’m swamped as it is”.

Did I offer to help? Yes. Did I do it because I automatically assumed that my investment in you and your work would yield an investment in me and mine? Yeah, kinda. Do you owe me because I was kind enough to help you out? Honestly, no. Nice people don’t do nice things because they want to be rewarded, and I know that. But, it doesn’t make you less selfish for not even offering, or even worse, offering with the condition that you want to pay me back when you can, which is basically the death sentence of promises.

I’ve abandoned writing groups for this very reason, and that too was selfish. I wasn’t getting anything out of it. I felt like I was only ever giving and never receiving. I crave to be part of a creative conscious bigger than myself. It energizes me, and it makes me a better, more productive writer. Last night, I spent what probably amounted to less than an hour helping a writing buddy just to brainstorm some ideas, and even if 99% of the ideas I threw out were unusable to him, or even just bad, there were a few that absolutely broke through his creative block. And, as a result, I was energized to work on my own stuff. Sure, I gave up my energy and time for someone else, but it made the time and energy I put towards my own work more productive in the long run. The added bonus was he immediately turned around and asked what I needed help with.

You expect me to give my valuable time and creative energy, wasting that one someone else’s project? The short answer to that is yes, yes I do.

Instead of sequestering myself to stagnate on ideas I have mulled over umpteen times, I gave up a little bit of time, and was even able to multitask doing other things while I helped him over Slack, and I benefited from that exchange immensely. I even cannibalized one of my own ideas (which is another benefit I argue is a good reason to write fanfic in this article here).

My point here, whether I’m managed to express it well enough without sounding whiny, is this: We are in this together. To get, we must give. I want people to care about my stuff, so I put myself out there, hoping to make connections, and sadly, they turn into dead end streets. People want me to beta for them, buy their books, watch their content… but don’t have time to return the favor. I get it— we’re all busy. But, aren’t you lonely? Don’t you feel like you’re suffocating over there by yourself. Come up for air. Step away from your own thing for just a few minutes and reach out to another creator in need. Stop focusing on the U in Community. If you would stop being so selfish and short sighted, and you just might prosper more than you would on your own.

Craft Editorials Genre

Conquering Genre: A Consummate Rebel’s Argument for Convention in Order to be a More Innovative Author

Posted on June 9, 2019

As a writer improves their craft, they are inevitably going to hear about genre — those dreaded categories of fiction we’re forced to shape our story to fit. Some authors find them limiting, others blend them together to create sub-genres. As an author who already knew her genre was SFF, I have not taken any time to read about genre, at all. I didn’t have to decide anything. I wanted to write what I read. What more did I have to worry about? So I didn’t, and I moved on to areas I deemed far more important to honing my craft.

Then, searching for new writing podcasts, I stumbled upon a podcast that had a bunch of episodes featuring “Story Grid Editors.” Upon Googling story grid, discovering they also had a podcast, I made my way to the work of Shawn Coyne, and summarily fell down the rabbit hole of his articles on his website, storygrid.com.

And, his take on genre has fundamentally changed the way I think about writing fiction.

I printed out eight of his articles, then read and annotated all of them like a reading assignment for one of my old college classes. I consumed them. They blew my mind because they approached the concept of genre in a way that redefined its meaning for me in the writing process, and delivered it as framework to lay the foundations of my stories. More than anything, it appealed to my anxiety riddled OCD nature to categorize and organize everything.

Step 1: Stop thinking about genre as simply a label that determines which section in the store this book will be shelved. As Coyne describes genre, it should be used to manage reader expectations.

Many authors set out to break the mold with their writing. Despite our favorite bard’s claim that there is nothing new under the sun, writers will spend years plotting out and a building a story that doesn’t fit expectations. In other words, they avoid cliches. Obviously some writers embrace cliches. They find their niche and realize that no matter how many versions of the same story they write, readers will still buy and read the book. Their critics would see this as the pinnacle of hackery. They learn the cliches only so that they can thwart them. For every author who puts into their story a swooning damsel in distress, there will be an irate author who is so offended by that concept that will write a badass warrior woman…. Who then becomes another cliche, and the cycle repeats.

There is nothing wrong with writing a story that exceeds expectations, but the majority of readers will hold some level of expectations whether they realize it or not. When readers have a preference for a particular genre, it is because that type of story satisfies a particular intrinsic need. No matter how much we strive to break the conventions of genre, we’re fighting a battle between readers and the critics.

If you write a story that can’t be categorized, that doesn’t meet reader expectations, you may win acclaim, rewards, and shiny foil stickers that emblazon your dust jacket, extolling the enlightened and cerebral virtues of your seminal work… but that doesn’t mean readers will want to read it.

As a writer, we aspire for acclaim. The stories we write are products of our brain. We literally create substance from nothing. They are intangible. They are out intellectual property. They would not exist without us. That is why writers see their stories as extensions of themselves. When our stories are criticized or rejected, we see that personal criticism or rejection — a complete dismissal of everything we are. When a reader scans the jacket of a book and puts it back on the shelf they might as well be standing in front of us, taking us in from head to toe, and saying “Nope. Next.”

I know that acknowledgement of my stories satisfies my need for validation, and that the escapism readers seek in another form of validation. In the article about meeting your needs as an author, I discussed Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Avid readers are seeking something, and they have found that something in the conventions their favorite genre. Because of that, tweaking the conventions of genre too much creates the risk of turning away readers.

You don’t throw out a particularly delicious recipe just because you’ve eaten it a dozen times. You just add in different ingredients.

Writers who aspire to write the next literary masterpiece are seeking intellectual validation. They are the student who wanted an A for the sense of accomplishment that came with knowing not everyone was capable of it, and they were singular for doing so. Thy are intrinsically motivated — internally driven based on meeting their own personal expectations of accomplishment.

Other writers, myself included, are writing a story to share. They are writing a personal message that speaks of our own experience, and they seek to share it with others they believe also need to hear it. They are the student who wanted an A because a good GPA meant the difference between acceptance and rejection at their first choice college. They are extrinsically motivated — driven by the positive reward of meeting others’ expectations. In this example, readers are the college board of admissions, reviewing applications for acceptance. They have requirements. For them to read your story, you must meet their demands. The expectations of their preferred genre are a dealbreaker.

This does not mean you are pandering to your audience. Expectations are broader than you think. Most readers aren’t looking for cookie cutter stories. They also don’t have mega-specific demands. It’s not that they wanted a story about XYZ and you gave them one about ZYX, or even ABC. It’s that they have been conditioned to expect certain elements of story in their genre. If they pick up a fantasy story, they probably won’t put it back just because the protagonist isn’t the cliched orphaned farm boy who finds out from his secret wizard mentor he’d actually the royal heir, and the only one capable of saving the kingdom. But, if you write a protagonist that doesn’t follow some semblance of the Hero’s/Heroine’s/Fool’s Journey, or fail to write in some form of personal and physical questline, that might land your book right back on the shelf. The fun is trying to take the conventions, and put an original spin on them What if the old farmer next door tells the youngest child from a large, loving family that he’s actually magic, and he’s the only one who can stop the royal heir from destroying the kingdom? Still fits the journey and quest expectations, but without telling the same story that has been written a hundred times before.

If you are an extrinsically motivated writer, you are writing for an audience in a specific genre, and it’s fair to say it’s the same one that resonated with you as a reader too. Think about what you love about that genre — what elements of that type of story satisfy you. Furthermore, what elements of that type of story have become obligatory, as in, they have become a fundamental aspect of that type of story? A mystery story isn’t a mystery without a few red herrings, but it will become exhausting if you write it the length of an epic fantasy. Then again, a mystery is usually a form of realism, and doesn’t require the type of worldbuilding that fantasy novels must establish for the reader to their suspend belief. These are the types of things that are dictated by genre convention. While conventions and expectations can be flipped, inverted, or altered, they cannot be ignored, eliminated, or abandoned. At least, not if you want to write a story that connects with readers.

When I get the craving for a romantic story, go-to being period/historical romance, it usually stems from the fact that my husband and I have been on opposite schedules and he is working a lot of overtime, preventing us from spending time together. This creates a void, a need… not that kind of need, you degenerates. Your brain is smart, and it knows how to meet your needs, physically and emotionally. When I haven’t taken in enough salt, I crave chips, chicken noodle soup, crackers, anything with high sodium. When I’m feeling lonely, I crave period romance.

I choose that sub-genre, rather than say a rom-com, for very specific reasons, and I have been conditioned to know it will meet my needs. First, I’m a history major, and I enjoy period pieces in general. Second, historical romances have established the convention of forbidden love. In most period romances, the two lovers are going to struggle to be together because of the culture of their times. They will be kept apart for various reasons. The ebb and flow of almost getting to be together and then unmercifully torn apart tugs at my heartstrings and excites my inner Sally Sparrow.

Sally Sparrow, Doctor Who (Steven Moffat)

So, if I get thirty minutes into a period romance and the couple has already gotten together, well, I’m out. I expect that struggle. I crave it. Unless the story turns, the couple falls out of love, and the heroine meets her soulmate. Perhaps she is prevented from leaving the marriage because her husband saved her family financially, or she does not have the means or access to divorce him, if it’s even permitted at the time. Maybe she married him as part of a contract or for power or… it doesn’t matter as long as it creates an obstacle the two lovers now have to overcome.

That’s a convention, and it’s what I’m needing at that moment when I search Netflix for a particular story. I miss my husband, we are prevented from being together because we don’t have a choice in our schedules thanks to seniority and chosen profession, and this helps me overcome that sadness because I see that going through hardship and isolation makes it better when we can be together. And, I see that in the characters’ struggle. It’s the will they/won’t they, the doubt, the pain when they are separated, the joy when reunited, that I want. And in my opinion, dear merciful universe, there is nothing more seductive than a secret, hidden hand touch, eyes locking in that shared expression of I know in a crowded room, simultaneously surrounded and ignored by everyone.

As Coyne says, “While a reader or viewer may not be able to pinpoint what they want in a story, they know when it is not there. Immediately.” As a writer, I know what elements of genre I am seeking, but your average reader won’t. They just know when the story doesn’t feel right.

Anyone who questions this, simply look at the popularity of fanfiction. There is a reason that the primary category in FF is romance, usually with a specific tag, like “missing moments,” “fluff, and “one shot.” (Yes, I know that in reality that 99.999998% of romance themed fanfiction is just PWP — I’m trying to make a point here.) Those categories are either trying to create scenes that incorporate the established conventions that the original work lacked, or that takes characters that fans already relate to and puts them in circumstances that make them more relatable.

For those of you reading this who are ready to smash your monitor out of frustration, screaming the F word “formulaic,” you’re correct. That’s why it works. You don’t throw out a particularly delicious recipe just because you’ve eaten it a dozen times. You just add in different ingredients.

Humans crave order and are designed to see patterns. Coyne calls it our “superpower” in an episode of the Story Grid Podcast (that I forgot to write down the name and number of and am too lazy to go back and listen to all my downloaded episodes to find… sorry not sorry). That’s why we’re able to so easily identify when an element of story is missing. Whether we like it or not, the conventions of genre have been established because readers have responded to them for centuries. They were satisfied with stories that “worked” and rejected stories that didn’t. Readers may say they want something that looks and feels different, but this only works if it’s built on the foundations of familiarity. Readers don’t want an author to reinvent the concept of story, they just don’t want to read a story they’ve already read before.

I like to think of it as the aesthetics of story and medium. When I buy my next car, I want to upgrade to a much more energy efficient model. I have driven a regular old gasoline fed, internal combustion engine car as long as I have driven. Most of us have. It gets me where I’m going, and I’m comfortable with how it operates. But, its design is antiquated — it isn’t efficient and it creates too much pollution in my opinion. I’d love to get an electric car, especially if I could charge it with solar panels on my roof. I’m not the only person craving a newer version of the car — that’s why manufacturers responded by innovating their models. I can get anything from a hybrid to a fully electric car, but no matter what I get it will still operate like a car — it will get me where I am going and I understand how it operates. We could create pneumatic tubes or a rocket packs to get people around, which might be more efficient or greener, but I want a car. I don’t want to learn how to work a new form of transportation when I can just get a better version of what I know and like.

In essence, that is what a reader wants. A better version of a story. That is paramount to understanding the importance of reader expectations. As Coyne says, “if you don’t study the conventions and obligatory scenes in your chosen genre, and don’t know how writer’s satisfied them before, how can you be sure that you’ve written anything original? You can’t innovate if you don’t understand the basics, and what the consumer wants and needs.” This is even more important for writers of blended genres to create new versions based on the classic areas. “Obviously,” Coyne argues, “the more intimately you know one particular genre, the better your chances of creating something fresh and unique by embracing elements of both.”

If you write a story that can’t be categorized, that doesn’t meet reader expectations, you may win acclaim, rewards, and shiny foil stickers that emblazon your dust jacket, extolling the enlightened and cerebral virtues of your seminal work… but that doesn’t mean readers will want to read it.

There will always be a sub-set of writers who view this mindset as plebeian. They are not writing for with the general audience in mind. It is the experimental challenge to create something new that drives them — the intrinsic motivation of proving the depths of their talents and intellectual capacity. Good for them. I respect their desire to fight against the current. But, while I am usually the first person to stand up and ask “Why do we do this?” or “How can we make this broken thing better?,” I am not one of those writers.

My brain is wired for finding patterns, and thanks to OCD, programmed for organization, routine, and anything that takes the uncertainty out of my day. That is why I appreciate this as a framework. It’s like one of my sewing patterns. When I find a skirt pattern that is flattering, I’ll make the same skirt a couple of times, but I will change the fabric. Even if I use the same type of fabric, I’ll choose different designs. But, regardless of choosing polka dots or stripes or floral, I know that the skirt if going to work as long as I base it on the pattern. If you make the skirt well, nobody is even going to notice you made the same skirt three times — they will be to busy complimenting how good it looks on you or how well you made it.

I want to innovate when I write, specifically striving to break stereotypes and write with inclusivity, but I can’t do that without understanding the limitations of stories that came before. It’s important to me that I do this well because I also read for escapism — to fill a void that otherwise will go unsatisfied. I know what a good story does for people. Because of this, I feel that I have a responsibility as a writer. I am extrinsically motivated to please readers. The type of praise I want to hear isn’t that “This story is revolutionary!,” it’s “That story was just what I needed to get me through that point in my life.” As Coyne puts it, “Stories fuel our courage and offer the cautions that we believe will help guide our own path.”

There is nothing wrong with writing for intrinsic motivation — it’s just not why I write, nor why most people write. So, as a writer who wants to satisfy reader expectations, learning to identify and modify these conventions is incredibly important to my success as an author. If you are an extrinsically motivated author, then it needs to be important for you too.

For more information about Shawn Coyne and the Story Grid process, you can check out his website at storygrid.com.

For more information about genre, conventions, obligatory scenes, and how to satisfy them, have fun falling down this rabbit hole, Alice.

Meanwhile, I’ll be diving head first into the deep end with Coyne’s book, The Story Grid.

Craft Editorials Writing Styles

Get Your Hands Dirty: Why Writing By Hand Makes You A Better Writer

Posted on November 15, 2018

Sit back and really think about this question: When was the last time you wrote something out by hand? Excluding a quick grocery list or a to-do note, when was the last time you actually sat down and wrote long hand?

Now, maybe you have an issue that makes writing difficult, like dysgraphia, and typing is the solution to that, but for those of us that have no real legitimate reason to not hand write, I have a follow up question: When did you stop writing by hand?

Think back. I’ll give you a minute…

I’m willing to bet I can pinpoint the exact moment, because it’s my moment too- my first computer. Am I right? Of course, I’m right.

When I was eleven, my family got our first computer, but when I was fourteen, I got my own computer for my birthday. It wasn’t much back then. The entire hard drive was only about 1 GB, if you can believe it. But, I still couldn’t wait to do three things: 1) Finally get AOL and join the rest of the planet, including all my friends on AIM; 2) install the original Sims (and eventually all eight expansion packs, including hundred of downloaded custom objects from the internet); 3) get writing. I had a whole collection of clear, multi-colored floppy disks with a different story on each by my next birthday. But, despite having my very own PC, I still never managed to entirely kick the habit of writing by hand.

I picked up the habit of writing in class when I was bored. This usually happened in my English and Spanish classes which were taught by the same teacher, and was also usually a result of me being bored in the middle of one of her “teachable moment” lectures. She did these from her desk and they took the place of an actual, worthwhile lesson, and was inspired by some idiotic thing one of her two idiot sons had done to get in trouble, again. The adult teacher in me loathes her for wasting time and depriving us of real educational content, but the high school student version of me appreciated getting an uninterrupted 83 minutes to write, since we were on the block system. Whenever I sensed one of these lectures coming, which could be easily be surmised based on her mood that morning, I’d flip back to the back of my 5-subject notebook, and let rip whatever idea was feeding off my brain like insect larva.

“…on average, those students who wrote by hand instead of typing wrote more, wrote faster, and more often successfully used complex sentences.”

My favorite thing about writing by hand is that you can do it anywhere, and you never have to worry about running out of battery, (which is also why my go to combat weapon against zombies is going to be a machete or my old school metal softball bat, because bats and blades don’t run out of bullets.) But wait… what if your pen runs out of ink? Well, good thing Pens are literally E’RYWHERE! Did you know some places give them out fo’ free? Grab a notebook and a pen and you can write at the library, a coffee shop, the park, in a car (not driving, people!), in a waiting room, a plane… basically anywhere with a relatively flat surface.

Yes, writing by hand has its downsides. I’ve cried over hand cramps. But, the day that I caught myself looking up to click the “undo” button while I was writing a note by hand, I knew I had a problem. For those people who are perpetual printers, handwriting may be slower for you than typing, but practice and time will fix that. The bigger thing to keep in mind is that since handwriting curricula have been removed from schools and we cut out of the Common Core standards while every school follows for learning objectives and moved over to focusing on typing skills in older students, scientists have been studying the long term effects this could have on writing, reading, and learning.

According to science, all of you writers who prefer typing… you’re doing writing wrong.

The Brain Benefits of Handwriting

The RAS

Inside our brains is a cluster of cells referred to as the RAS, the Reticular Activating System. This is just fancy talk for a part of the brain that is able to hyperfocus and filter out distractions. When we write by hand, it stimulates the RAS, which allows us to focus solely on the task itself. In other words, when we write by hand we are less distractable and able to be more efficient with our writing time, allowing us to be more productive in that time period.

Memory Recall

When I’m trying to get my students to remember a concept, I tell them to write it down. This is especially critical for my students with executive functioning issues, because that usually includes memory and recall. The physical act of writing something down forces your brain to engage with the material you are trying to learn, which means a higher chance of remembering it later without prompting.

Conceptual Thinking

My students suck at summarizing because they have been so rarely asked to do it. We’ve turned them into little copying monsters who write everything down verbatim and spit it back at us the same way.They are also the slowest writers of any generation. Notes that would take me a few minutes take then 5ever. But, when I was a kid, I got in the habit of writing my notes in my own words rather than the teacher’s (mostly, because in the case of my geography and science teachers, I thought I was better at summarizing and defining than they were). And, this is case in point for writing notes by hand. When you hand write notes, it prevents you from writing verbatim, or it slows you down. By summarizing, you’re forced to shorten them to keep u, focusing on using more purposeful words and trying to emphasize the most important points. This helps the recall, learning, and most importantly, understanding new material and the context. Writing letters by hand also improves literacy by helping you recall letters and words which strengthens reading comprehension.

Critical Thinking/Problem Solving

Long hand writing is slower for most people, which means that you also have to slow down . The benefit of this means you’re forced to slow down your thinking. This gives you time to focus on word choice, sentence structure, that funny line of dialogue you couldn’t stop laughing about

“According to science, all of you writers who prefer typing… you’re doing writing wrong.”

The Writing Benefits of Handwriting

According to a study conducted in 2009, students that wrote by hand rather than typing showed better writing skills than their peers who typed. The study was established to compare the common methods of transcription- the process of translating thoughts and ideas into writing. For reasons the scientists didn’t quite understand at the time, they discovered that on average, those students who wrote by hand instead of typing wrote more, wrote faster, and more often successfully used complex sentences.

One possible reason for this could go back to the RAS. Another study reported that when students wrote by hand, it activated the learning center of their brain. Writing by hand is much more taxing on the brain than typing because it requires the motor skills and memory recall necessary to identify and create the correct letter, and then string them together into words. This actually makes up smarter. Typing on the other hand merely trigger the muscle memory necessary to hit the correct key. I believe this is why when you are writing, especially by hand, and you get into The Zone, it’s simply that you have intensely activated your RAS, and have been able to eliminate all outside distractions to your particular task and the train of thought fueling your words.

This is the other beauty of handwriting- notebooks don’t have apps. It seems inevitable that when you are typing that at some point you will be sucked in by the black hole time suck we refer to as the internet. Sure, it starts innocently enough. One minute you’re looking up the meaning of the word or researching the background information on a topic you’re writing about, the next you’re watching YouTube because Google pulled up an Epic Rap Battle of History for the time period you were trying to research. If anyone knows how easy it is to go from background researching ancient mythologies to taking a Buzzfeed quiz to determine which badass mythical goddess I am, it’s this girl.

“…when we write by hand we are less distractable and able to be more efficient with our writing time, allowing us to be more productive in that time period.”

In general, handwriting is an exercise for strengthening cognitive ability. It keeps you sharp well into old age. It makes you more productive, producing higher word counts and better prose. Perhaps this is why famous writers such as Truman Capote (who was also a proponent of writing laying down) chose to write their first few drafts of stories long hand before typing. And, speaking of drafting, this brings us to the final writing benefit of handwriting- the process of transferring your hand written work into typed documents provides the opportunity for organic editing. Whenever I begin to type, I always manage to improve my writing by increasing word count and improving the language of the prose. Something about already having the most basic ideas out into the world on paper is freeing. Especially when I’m worried about forgetting an incredible idea and taking to time to write it all out before I can get distracted. The second time around when re-writing the material, once the pressure of getting all the “good” stuff down is gone, I’m able to go deeper into the idea and produce the “better” stuff.

At the end of the day, writing will inevitably have to be typed. No publishing house, no matter how indie, will ever accept a handwritten manuscript. But, there is strong argument for writing by hand, even if it’s just in the beginning, when you’re taking notes, plotting, or creating characters. Personally, I find it easier to hand write first and type second, which to my writing compatriots is a novelty in itself. They always comment on it, nearly shocked, always repeating the same exclamation- “You write by hand?!” Yes I do, and I always will. In the long run, does it take longer? Who knows? We all have different editing processes. But, there is just something hypnotic and methodical about the act of putting a smooth, fluid, brightly colored pen to college ruled paper that I cherish.

Links and Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/dec/16/cognitive-benefits-handwriting-decline-typing

http://mentalfloss.com/article/33508/4-benefits-writing-hand

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/science/whats-lost-as-handwriting-fades.html

https://www.pens.com/blog/the-benefits-of-handwriting-vs-typing/#.WzP15Egvy

https://lifehacker.com/5738093/why-you-learn-more-effectively-by-writing-than-typing

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/bernd-brunner/famous-author-who-wrote-l_b_4555808.html

https://www.futurity.org/for-kids-pens-mightier-than-keyboard/

Craft Creative Plotting

Scene Mapping: Using Dungeon Mastery to Plot Scenes

Posted on February 9, 2018

Growing up with OCD teaches a person to anticipate problems, which teaches them to problem solve at an early age. When most people hear the acronym OCD, they assume it is all about repetition – counting, organizing, and cleaning most famously. In actuality, that is just the typical manifestation of the the actual symptoms of OCD, the “compulsive” part of OCD. These are simply the form of rituals the person dealing with OCD is using to self-soothe their need to anticipate problems. Rituals all come down to the need to control one’s environment. The “obsessive” part of obsessive compulsive disorder is from the cycle of worry that stems from a fear of not being able to anticipate a problem.

A person with OCD may have a fear about their alarm clock not going off and being late for work. But, making sure that the alarm is set properly before they go to bed simply isn’t enough to quell that fear. What if they weren’t paying attention and accidentally set the alarm for PM instead of AM? What if they didn’t really flick the switch over all the way, and it doesn’t go off, or is set to radio, which is too quiet to wake them up? Of course, there is also the completely unavoidable problem of the power going out, which can only be solved with a backup system of generators… but even I’m not that paranoid. So, to anticipate these problems, they may check the alarm again, and again… and again and again and again, at least until they have soothed that worry enough to go to sleep.

The irony of being a writer with OCD is that even though I live my life trying anticipate problems that will trigger my anxiety, which leads to countless ways of trying to foresee how a situation with turn out, I am a particularly rigid and linear writer when plotting scenes.

“Then, I discovered the key to solving this problem simply by doing a quintessential nerd thing – playing DnD.”

When plotting out my seven major points in a story, I have no problem deciding exactly how and where I will introduce conflict and steadily working towards the resolution. The issue comes when I need to work on a smaller scale, linking the individual seven points together, or even smaller, from the beginning of a conflict within a scene to the scene’s resolution. The in-between parts are looser, more flexible, and need to contain more focus on the characters emotions. Plot occurs between the seven major points in the main story arc, but character development, which is the steering wheel for plot, meaning this is how story moves forward.

Keeping readers on their toes is incredibly important. If the story becomes predictable then readers lose interest. If they can predict what the characters are going to do, they get bored because they have already read this story. But, creating seemingly random variations in the outcome of a situation always felt like a dead end. If I knew what needed to happen at the end of a scene it felt impossible to not work towards it, even if I wasn’t convinced it was the best way to move the story forward, but was the only idea I could generate to finish the scene. And, if this was the only idea I could come up with, I found it even harder to work through the actual scene itself. I knew how a scene would start, and I had decided how I thought it needed to end, but how do I get from point A to point B in this scene without writing directly to resolve the scene. How can I work in the all important character development layers in the scene needed to feel like the plot is moving forward, even if we are just reading the internal monologue of a character dealing with the aftermath of an important plot point.

“You want to explore as many options as possible, even ones that may seem counter to your objective, because you never know the connections that will form between the ideas once your imagination takes hold.”

Then, I discovered the key to solving this problem simply by doing a quintessential nerd thing – playing DnD. Recently, I started playing Dungeons and Dragons again after a very long hiatus, creating a new group from my work friends. One of my best friends and fellow teacher, Dylan Power, joined the party as a player, but usually DMs (Dungeon Masters – the equivalent of Game Master for other tabletop RPGs). Recently, we started writing together in order to bounce ideas off each other – he plotting his campaigns while I work on my fiction, and I have discovered that he is an incredible DnD storyline writer. The reason he is a fantastic story line writer is because he has the ability to generate various outcomes of any situation he puts his player in during game play.

During one of our writing sessions, I watched him plot out his story map for the first leg of the campaign, and was stricken with envy. Much like I would have done when plotting a scene, he determined a starting point and an endpoint (conflict and resolution), but what he did in between was completely different than to my normal writing process. From the start point, he would write out a chain of events stemming from not one, but up to four ideas.

“Plot occurs between the seven major points in the main story arc, but character development, which is the steering wheel for plot, is how story moves forward.”

Begging him to teach me his dark form of idea generating magic, lamenting my situation concerning my inherent need to problem solve and plan for all contingencies, I stated how frustrating it was that I couldn’t easily do this same thing when writing scenes. And his response was so stupidly simple, I actually felt like an idiot when he pointed it out:

“Well, I have to account for people. You’re trying to account for things.”

Brick wall, meet face. It was so obvious. I was doing everything wrong… even though, he wasn’t entirely correct. Plot is driven by the actions made by characters who are constantly developing, changing, and evolving. This means that whether I am trying to plot a scene, a story arc, or the arc of a trilogy, none of this can be done without accounting for variables created by character decision making.

Using Role Playing Story Mechanics to Plot:

Try to pick a scene that you have not plotted yet. The less you have plotted the better – it prevents you from thinking too narrowly or linearly. You want to explore as many options as possible, even ones that may seem counter to your objective, because you never know the connections that will form between the ideas once your imagination takes hold. Give yourself permission to jump around and be spontaneous. Right down every possible scenario, even the ones that don’t make sense.

Steps:

Choose inciting incident and a conflict to be resolved by the end of the scene
Brainstorm as many possible causes and effects from the inciting incident, as well as obstacles created. Think specifically about the characters involved, and how they will react in the situation presented.
Continue to connect the cause and effects of the different levels of the unfolding conflict, finding ways to solve obstacles or to connect to the resolution of the conflict. (Unresolved obstacles can be used as foreshadowing or lead to other scenes.)
Once finished, pick a path from beginning to end. Once chosen, write out the sequence of events you chose in order from beginning to end.
Huzzah! Now do it again with another scene!

Note: Keep in mind that using this process might through your scene completely out of order. If this happens, it is probably for good reason. This process tends to reveal plot holes and weak spots in plotting. Don’t be afraid to add more to the beginning, the end, or even through out the middle. Also, do not be afraid to cut material out that doesn’t fit with the new idea. Hold on it for later, or write an alternative scene and see which fits better in the long run for the scene or the story arc.

Write on young savior,

Craft Creative News Research-a-torium Resources Sass Worldbuilding

What Makes a Fictional World?

Posted on June 30, 2017

The beauty of writing speculative fiction is that anything is possible. Magic. Time Travel. World peace… (is it too cynical to think that the two formers are more possible in our real world than the latter? #writerprobs #historyteacherprobs) …and, while working in a world that will be shaped by your hand means the possibilities are endless, it also means that you have to play god, and literally build a world from scratch.

How the hell do you do that? Simple. And, lo, on the seventh day, god researched!

Writers research, period. Authenticity is key, regardless of whether you are writing realistic or fantasy driven fiction. While authors writing crime drama need to understand the mechanics of police procedure and writers of historical fiction need to understand the protocols of social status and gender, they both have the luxury of using anecdotal and empirical evidence to help them write authentically. Spec writers… well, we just make shit up, right?

Wrong. Well… kinda wrong. Wrongish.

You cannot just create matter from nothing. All cells come from previous cells. As too, with speculative fiction; you don’t just create something from nothing. The facets of the real world serve as our inspiration for fantasy worlds. The conflict that develops in fantasy setting may be fueled by metaphysical, magical, or technological issues, but it all stems from issues we encounter as real world people. Any fan of Star Trek: the Original Series will tell you that what made the show so amazing was its ability to take real world, contemporary issues and work them into a science fiction context. Species were based on cultures of Earth, albeit some were done in woefully poor and racist taste. Religious, ethical, political, ecological, cultural, and economic issues were not limited to human beings — they impacted species across the universe.

If there is one universal truth, it is that sentient beings, no matter how utopian and peaceful their society is, will always have shit to fight about. And that brings me back to my point: some aspects of the real world are universal to any society. If you want to build a fictional world, you have to start with a foundation, a template, and customize from there.

“If you’ve done your due diligence when building your fictional world, it will bleed into your writing without any great effort on your part.”

So, what makes a world? Here is the basic structure of any society, regardless of time period, culture, or race.

Setting
Political & Economic system
Shared cultural beliefs
Science & Technology

Setting

The variables of setting are very important to your world, and can either structure your world, or limit the possibilities. One of the most important ways to show authenticity is to make sure that the setting reflects every other aspect of your society.

Geography — What resources are available in this region? How do the people regulate resources, and does that create conflict? Do the seasons change? Are their multiple environments in one land, or is it all the same? Do the people adapt to the environment, or do they adapt the environment to meet their needs through modification and technology? What kind of flora and fauna live in the environment, and how does that impact the people?
Time Period — What freedoms do people have, and what limitations? For lack of better words (because as a historian, my brain throws up red flags and sees these words as ethnocentric), how “barbaric” , “primitive”, “advanced”, or “civilized” are the people? What constitutes the difference between the meaning of these words in their world? Are people treated differently based on race, class, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or other minority qualifiers? What changes has your world seen over its existence? Who has power, why, and has that changed? What historical events have shaped the world currently?
Science — What is technology to your people, meaning any device that makes life simpler? Do magic/paranormal/metaphysical components exist in this world? What is the difference between science and magic and religion, and does that distinction cause conflict?

Political & Economic Systems

What kind of political system(s) exist in the world, and how are they organized? Who created them? Have they always existed? What is considered to be the responsibility of the government, and of the individual? How are children educated, if at all? What is considered a well-rounded education? What are the laws, who created them, why, and how are they enforced?

It’s easy to overlook, but a nation’s government and economy are intrinsically linked. The attitudes towards making money, public services, and other ethics about business will impact how governments make laws, protect their people, and provide services. What kind of economy exists in your world? Who controls it? What kinds of goods are made, and what kinds of services are offered? Does the environment and resources play a role in that? What jobs are available?

“If there is one universal truth, it is that sentient beings, no matter how utopian and peaceful their society is, will always have shit to fight about.”

Shared Cultural Beliefs

What unites the people of this world? What do they eat? What do they believe? How do they dress? What is sacred and blasphemous to them? What language do they speak? What are the customs and traditions in this world? What happens when parts of this culture are changed/forgotten/ignored, and does that cause conflict? Are multiple cultures fighting for resources/rights/autonomy, or do they live in harmony? How does the culture impact class, gender, age, and what expectations are held for those qualifiers? How has history played a role in the development of the culture(s)?

Science & Technology

A huge misconception modern humans have when it comes to technology is that it has to be digital, futuristic, world of tomorrow kind of stuff. But, from the historical perspective, technology is really anything that has made life easier. Many people would automatically jumped to the progress made my weapons and tools, but it gets even more simple than that. We may be spoiled with our personal pocket computers, but at one point, all those things a cell phone or tablet does, were distinct forms of technology. Printed books, brought about by the printing press, were an incredibly advanced tech in the Middle Ages. Pencils were cutting edge shit. A writing system in general changed to world, drawing the line between recorded history and pre-history, forever dividing us civilized people from those primitive savages. With this idea in mind, think about everything that makes your life safe, comfortable, and simple. Now, examine what the people in your world would need to feel the same way?

How do people communicate?
How to they move goods and people?
How do they fight?
How do they farm?
How do they learn and discover?
How do they heal?
How do they play and relax?
How do they record information?

Even if not directly important to or acknowledged in the story, these are the bare minimum elements of the world that should be addressed. The reader doesn’t need to know all of the details, especially if it will amount to endless pages of backstory and context, or if it’s irrelevant to the basic plot. But, as a writer, these are things that need to be considered to have a fleshed out understanding of how your characters will act, react, view, and function in their world. If you’ve done your due diligence when building your fictional world, it will bleed into your writing without any great effort on your part. You will be able to avoid heavy-handed exposition and your readers will appreciate the opportunity to fill in some of the blanks themselves.

“You cannot just create matter from nothing. All cells come from previous cells. As too, with speculative fiction; you don’t just create something from nothing.”

Remember too, that when you are building your world, the real world is full of inspiration for the elements you need to make it seem authentic. That requires research. Good research- not a cursory skimming of a Wiki page. All of us at IndiePen Ink know just how complex and time consuming proper research can be. Lucky for you, our strife has turned into your benefit, as it has inspired us to create a truly helpful research resource for writers unlike any other: The Research-a-Torium. A writers reference source that can guide you to online resources and services, as well as services and titles you can find at you own local library. Thanks to the tireless work of our Lady of the eLibrary, Caitlin, we expect to be opening the doors by the end of July.

COMING SOON TO AN INTERNET NEAR YOU!

Start working out those worlds now, and when you get stuck, come see Caitlin in the Research-a-Torium for a world of resources guaranteed to inspire.

Write on young savior,

Craft Writing Styles

The Five Senses, and Beyond—Using Sensory Writing to Heighten your Narrative

Posted on June 16, 2017

Close your eyes.

…

Quit whining, and do it.

What do you notice about the space you are in?

Is the TV or music on in the background? Is there a breeze coming through the window? Can you still smell the popcorn you accidentally burned in the microwave? Can you feel the lump in the old couch cushion under you, or the numbness of your butt from time sitting on that hard seat? Is there a constant drip in your bathroom, or the ticking of a clock? Is your mouth dry, or is the taste of your now cold coffee still clinging heavily to your tongue?

Were you aware of any of this things prior to this moment?

Now, what’s really going to bake your noodle…are you even awake, or are you dreaming.

Perception in writing is incredibly important to making a scene feel real. When a scene is described with complex sensory detail the readers feel immersed in the narrative, as if they were there alongside the characters, experiencing what they are experiencing. This is the key to writing the type of story that readers get lost in.

And, the key to writing good sensory details is using all five physical senses alongside with what the characters are able to perceive. Sensing something goes far beyond just sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. In a speculative fiction story, the characters may have extra-sensory abilities, which need to be established and recognized in the narrative. But, even without abilities beyond those of mere mortals, human beings are conditioned to perceive many other types of senses beyond the physical. Even the five physical senses become multifaceted when one starts to think about all the things we can see, hear, smell, taste, and feel, and how we experience those things.

The Five Senses, sensationalized.

When I was in middle school, I had a revelation … I’ll give you a moment to get out the crude jokes about self-discovery and puberty…

…

Are we good now? Fantastic. Let’s move on.

Joking aside, I do remember having one of those Ermahgerd moments in seventh grade science. One of those moments where you realize you’ve always known something, but it wasn’t apparent until someone told you it was there. Seventh grade science was biology, and we were talking about the senses. My teacher was talking about the absolute thresholds, the parameters and limitations of the human senses (fascinating and informative image included below). When talking about smell, he also mentioned something that Febreze has been marketing on for years now, though he didn’t call it this, he talked about going “noseblind” (go here, because Mental Floss)

When he described the idea behind walking out of room you’ve been in for a while, and then re-smelling an older smell when you walk back in, that idea literally blew my mind. It was one of those, I thought I was the only one who noticed that things. I realized what an important part of my childhood that concept was the next time I visited my grandparents house. The moment I stepped into their house, I always smelled a distinct smell- cigarettes and fried food. Long story short, my grandparents were not healthy people, but I digress… it was a powerful smell. It became a sense memory for me. When I smell meat being fried, I am immediately reminded of Grandma standing over a stove with a pork chop frying in the pan with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. And, I remember when I got home from my visits, I would change my clothes, because I realized that even though I had become desensitized to it over the period of time I spent at their house, my clothes reeked of grease and smoke when I stepped into my non-smoking parents home.

When we think about the senses, we usually think about their most basic functions. I look, I see a thing. I listen, I hear a sound. I pick something up, I feel the texture in my hand. But, our senses allow us to perceive so much more than just the literal thing they do.

Vision allows us to perceive variations in light and color, even when our eyes are closed (don’t pretend you didn’t play that game as a kid where you lay down in the grass, close your eyes, and stare at the sun). We can discern depth and perspective, as well as movement.

Hearing allows us to not just notice a sound, but how the sound it made and from where it is coming. Rhythm patterns, pitch, tone, and volume are all things we perceive about a sound without even thinking about it.

Taste is complex, and we can experience five different sensations- sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and savoury (some even argue more).

Touch is really thought provoking when you really examine how many things we feel, even when we are not touching something. When you make physical contact with an object, your brain identifies so much more than just “Oh, hey look! A thing!”. When we touch or hold something, we are identifying temperature, texture, moisture, and weight. But, within your own body, you can also feel things. Pain for example is a sensation of touch we experience from the inside. Our nerves are being activated internally. Same with heartbeat, muscle tension, hunger, thirst, and that horrible numb-before-it-becomes-horrible-painful-stinging feeling we get when we sit cross legged and cut off circulation to our feet.

And, smell seems simplistic and obvious… you just smell stuff right? Wrong. Even though the act of smelling doesn’t consist of much more than a simple act, experiencing smell evokes memories and emotions, as evidenced by my story above. In animals, smell is an incredibly important sense, one that could mean the difference between life and death. It’s one of the primary instincts used in mating. And, like our animal friends, we use smell when determining potential mates, even during falling in love. Experiencing a smell is to literally experience a chemical reaction in your brain. It’s directly linked to our ability to taste… (think about that next time you smell a fart!). An odor, either good or bad can alert you to danger, ruin your day, ruin your moment, wake you up, elicit hunger, make you sick, make you sneeze, turn you on. The smell of a mother can soothe a crying baby.

Going Beyond the Five Senses

Once you’ve opened your mind and really thought about what sense is, you will start to notice the other things we perceive, some things real, others invented, that we also experience as human beings.

One feeling that we are often completely unaware of is how often we are aware of things. Awareness and consciousness are things we feel, that we experience. We can clearly discern between being awake and asleep, the feeling of clarity when we understand something, and the muddled sense of confusion when we don’t. We can also imagine things, creating a false sense of awareness of things that aren’t even really there, or convince ourselves we experienced something when we did not, and make a believable memory of that event. This means not only can we perceive reality from non-reality, we can turn the latter into the former with our brains.

Another thing humans feel is emotion, which is a truly amazing feat in the fact we can turn an intangible mental experience into a physical one. We can feel physical pain when we are sad or depressed. Nausea when we are scared or nervous. Cry when we are heartbroken or when we are elated. And, as if that wasn’t magical sounding enough, we can also detect emotions in other people. Human beings are equipped with this incredible feeling called empathy that allows us to interpret the emotional state of others. Or, in some cases, such as Autism (or Republicanism), completely lack the ability, or have it greatly impaired. Even the inability to feel or interpret emotions still has a feeling of emptiness and confusion for those who experience it.

Then, there is the strangest sense of all, which is going to get very meta here, because it helps us perceive a thing that doesn’t exist at all- time. We are able to discern the passage of time to a point, as anyone who has tried to avoid looking at a clock will know. Humans aren’t particularly good at it, which is why those extra seven minutes on the snooze button felt like thirty seconds, and why waiting for the doctor to knock on the door feels like hours when it’s been less than ten minutes. But, how we perceive the passage of that time is relevant to our mood and alertness.

Being able to properly express these experiences when writing characters and scenes is vital to creating a fleshed out story. Readers want to get lost in stories by escaping into them, and without a fully dimensional world, they can’t do that. Since reading is limited to the screen of the imagination, of which some people have a hard time using to envision the world of the story, using sensory details grounds the story in reality and makes it easy to relate to and envision.

Craft Creative Editorials Inkademy Research-a-torium Sass Setting Worldbuilding

A Fantastic World Does Not A Story Make

Posted on June 14, 2017

We’ve all done it at some point – built a story to fit within the framework of a kick-ass world we’ve created. Writers get so wrapped up in playing God by designing beings, shaping geographic features, creating languages, or constructing epic histories that trace backwards through a dozen generations, that they completely forget what the hell they are supposed to being doing – telling a story. Writing isn’t about building a world, it’s about writing the story that could only happen in the world that has been built.

Crafting a story is a complex process, and building a world to serve as a rich setting is important, especially in speculative fiction. Setting is one of the five elements required in a proper story. Setting helps to understand character personality and development. It can serve as an obstacle creating conflict, or help to move the plot forward. The problem occurs when a writer focuses all their energy on creating the world, and no time focusing on the story that takes place within said world.

Back in January of 2015, on an episode of Fiction School, co-host Tommy Zurhellen discussed one of the biggest mistakes he sees made by his students. In his humorous story about “Scantron 7”, Zurhellen explains that when he asks writing students about their story, they spend several enthusiastic minutes describing their setting, their characters, elaborate government or belief system, the epic conflict that rocked the world a thousand years ago… but when asked the question, “Yeah, but what is your story actually about?” they draw a blank.

At the end of the day, no matter how epic and elaborate the setting or how fleshed out the characters, if there is no story at the core, or worse, no conflict to drive that story forward, then the writer really has nothing but a cool place with cool people.

To avoid falling into this trap, a writer must keep in mind that every addition they make to their world needs to be relevant to the story. That is, anything about the world worth mentioning. As the writer, there is nothing wrong with knowing every corner of the created world. That does not mean that the reader needs to know all those inane details. The more fleshed out the writer makes the world, the more real it will feel, but providing a millenia of history or recounting the entire text of a holy book is simply not necessary for the reader to understand the significance of a religious or historic event on the modern day.

As a writer, you can never know too much about the world within the story, because you never know what information will become useful later on, or my inspire new story lines. But, it is possible for a writer to tell their readers too much about their world. Avoid info dumps, and save that information for supplemental content (like rewards for people who support you on Patreon!) or later stories in the same world. Or, if you feel really bold, incorporate the method used by the author of Nevernight, Jay Kristoff. When the opportunity for history or cultural knowledge to came up in the story, instead of dropping a load of backstory that broke with the narrative, Kristoff simply placed an asterisk in the text, and kept moving on with the story. At the bottom of the page, he included footnotes for each symbol. This strategy worked perfectly, giving the reader the choice to break the narrative to read the footnote, or to keep reading until the end of the page or the chapter, and come back to read the backstory about a god, a cultural practice, or reference to a historical event in the history of the world.

If readers truly love the world a writer crafts, they will come back for more. The trick is leaving enough for the readers to have a reason to return. Giving away too much in the beginning does one of two things- overwhelms the reader, boring them with over-information, or satisfies them to the point there are no questions left for them to answer.

If you’d like some help training your world building muscle, sign up to beta test our Worldbuilding Workshop taking place on June 25th thru July 8th by sending an email to indiepenink@gmail.com with the word “Inkademy” in the subject line.

And, keep an eye out for announcements on the opening of the Research-a-Torium, which we hope to build into the ultimate world building resource!

Write on young savior,

Save

Craft Creative Research-a-torium Resources

The History of Storytelling: Part III: Modern Storytelling

Posted on May 4, 2017

Part III

For Part I and Part II of this series, click here and here.

Modern Storytelling

Never before in the history of storytelling have so many options been available to the average storyteller. Nor, have so many forms of storytelling even been considered actual storytelling. A story is anything that meets the requirements of having the five basic elements of story: characters, setting, plot, conflict, and theme. No matter the media, if it has all of these elements it qualifies as a story. That means that modern storytelling has a plethora of vessels for relaying a story.

Books

Books are what we classically think of when we think of “stories”. Most of the reading we do outside of work or school comes in the form of novels. Even those who read short stories typically do so by buying an anthology in book form. But, fiction can come in variety of lengths, depending on the intention of the writer. Works shorter than one thousand words can be considered micro-fiction, flash fiction, or simply a short. A short story tends to fall into a range between one-thousand and seven thousand words. A novelette is seven to twenty-thousand words, and a novella is twenty to fifty-thousand words. A story is not typically considered a novel until it makes it past the fifty-thousand word mark, and anything longer than one-hundred thousand words is considered an epic.

Because of the visual aspect used to express the story, graphic novels and comic books are not traditionally considered books. But, like traditional books, they are just as much a story. Graphic based storytelling still uses the same elements as written stories, they just rely on a visual method to express them. Character development is seen through the actions of characters and the emotional reactions on their faces. Conflict and plot are dramatized by the way the boxes are set within the panels. Tone and theme are presented in the stylization.

Audio

Thanks to the internet making digital audio and video files accessible to everyone, a storytelling method from the early days of radio is making a comeback – the audio drama. Audio books have been around for a long time, easing the pain of long commutes and long hours of data entry by allowing busy people to listen to readings of popular books when they have the time. Along with the rise of Satellite Radio in the early 2000s, as internet speeds increased, and switched from relying on phone lines to fiber optic cables, podcasts became the new pirate radio shows. Suddenly, anyone could have a blog and a show, and both exploded during the 2000s. As podcasts became more available, with shows ranging into all areas of human interest, and downloads and listeners increased, storytellers realized that once again, audio was a format that would allow them to share their stories. Shows such as Welcome to Nightvale have made it possible for entire series to exist, serialized much like modern day soap operas, one episode at a time.

This is perhaps the closest thing we have today to the oral tradition that served as the function for the root of storytelling itself- passing information from one generation to the next by sharing a story verbally.

Video

When people first saw Train Pulling Into a Station by the Lumière brothers in a theater in 1896, they thought they were witnessing magic. Ever since, cinema has become one of the biggest and most popular ways that we share stories. Allowing for the chance to actually witness the story in front of you, it adds a whole new dimension to what can be done with the imagination. Filmmakers take stories from pen to paper and paint it fully with the help of production design, sound engineering and musical scores, and the thing that makes us connect with them most—actual people. With films and television shows, characters are no longer imaginary figures in our minds. They become tangible before us, which while sometimes can be disappointing when it comes to adaptations, is largely something that makes people love and connect with films so much. It evolves story “telling” into story “showing”.

As MTV taught us so well, video certainly did kill the radio star, but YouTube isn’t killing podcasting in any way, especially when streaming a podcast takes less data than watching a video. But, YouTube is allowing for a Renaissance of independent film. Filmmakers are creating entirely new content, like Broad City, which went on to get picked up as a half hour scripted comedy by Comedy Central. Others, like The Lizzie Bennet Diaries by the folks of Pemberly Digital, or Hamlet the Dame by Remarkable, Singular, Curious Productions and ParaFable, are making names for themselves by adapting well beloved stories into vlog style web shows. StarKid Productions, famously known for their musicals, such as the Very Potter Musical series, have been able to capitalize on YouTube and help them find an audience by filming their productions and posting them online. The creation of Vine (before it was dropped by Twitter) was the visual version of flash fiction—a snippet of a story told visually, usually in the form of a song or a joke.

With cameras on every phone it is now easier than ever to tell a story through film. And, there are more venues to display your visual art every day. Streaming services are a dime a dozen these days, and they are all climbing over each other to produce original content, hoping for the next “it” show.

Gaming

Despite being a huge industry, and a huge art of the modern creative arts community, video games have never really been given the credit they are due. With the inclusion of voice acting and intricately designed cut scenes, some video games have the production value of movies, and have character voiced by celebrities from the A List to those with cult following. The story lines have to be even more complex than the average story because most video games offer the player multiple endings based on choices made at turning points in the game. Games such as the Fable Series and Dishonored build their entire story around the choices, actions, and leveling options the player makes during gameplay. A player may have to play a video game like this several times, changing their choices from the last game, to fully experience the totality of the story options.

One of the best, yet completely underrated forms of storytelling, is roleplaying games. Anyone who has played a tabletop RPG (roleplaying game), classics such as Dungeons and Dragons or Vampire: The Masquerade, will know just how much storytelling, character development, and exposition goes into a game. Game Masters will spend weeks creating a story arc, plotting obstacles to throw in the characters way, forcing their characters to use their traits, skills, resources, and cunning to overcome them. Characters may fight monsters, solve puzzles, or seek treasure, but they can only use the predetermined elements in their character that were designed at the beginning of the game. An RPG is probably the purest form of storytelling, and the closest we have to the original roots of storytelling—a group of people gathered around to listen to a tale of adventure.

Virtual Reality

The coolest thing about modern storytelling is that it is evolving before our very eyes, with advanced new technologies like virtual reality. Already being incorporated into gaming systems thanks to the advent of devices like the Oculus Rift, there’s so much as-yet undiscovered potential in this technology to do as others have before it. Only time will tell if this will actually become the next big thing, but it certainly gives hope to those of escapists who’ve always said things like, “I wish I could be in the story I’m reading!”

Virtually experiencing the Red Wedding from Game of Thrones like…

And So Much More

From street theater to ballet to scrapbooking and back again, there are now so many forms of storytelling that it’s hard to keep count. And that’s a wonderful thing! We here at IndiePen Ink would love to hear what forms of storytelling you enjoy, so please share your favorites in the comments!

Write on young saviors,

Craft Creative Research-a-torium Resources

The History of Storytelling: Part II: Traditional Storytelling

Posted on May 3, 2017

Part II- Traditional Storytelling

For Part I of this articles series, click here.

Stories were not originally intended for entertainment- they were the best method our oldest ancestors had to mass educate the people of the tribe or clan. It was only by making the stories entertaining that the messages stuck. Thanks to the inventiveness of the earliest African griots, our ancestors avoided the dangers of the environment around them, and survived to leave the continent, spreading farther and farther with each changing generation, until eventually they spread across the entire world. And, with each generation, another story keeper memorized, told, and added new tales to the collective consciousness of mankind.

Stories can be self-fulfilling prophecies. All the evidence you need to understand that idea is to look at the impact something as seemingly whimsical and insignificant as Star Trek: The Original Series. A science fiction television show that barely lasted three seasons ended up having a profound impact on 20th century society. Some viewers were inspired by the imaginary technology of the future and turned it into the real life technology you are probably reading this post on, while others were inspired by the social messages the themes advocated to take a stand in a time of social and cultural strife.

Fables, legends, and myths of the earliest humans eventually became those of the ancients, then the middle ages, the ages of trade, exploration, industry, and now the modern digital age. Much like a game of telephone, over the years parts of the original stories have been changed for cultural reasons or skewed in translation for one language to another (and, yes people, this even includes the bible). As a result, some cultures have different versions of the same story, or the story ends differently based on the lesson that the specific society wanted to emphasize.

Mythology

As mentioned in the first article of this series, the cultures of Mesopotamia are the first credited with the writing down of stories. These tales of mortals and gods were referred to as epics, and within these stories, we find the beginning of one of the most important elements of storytelling that has become a staple of fantasy and science fiction through today- the hero’s journey. This is the tale of an average, and yet remarkable, person who goes on a quest, usually with the help of a mentor and a ragtag group of people, to complete a task for the betterment or himself or his people. There is also a separate heroine’s journey, and just like sexism intended, they are both different based on the gender, and one is considered to to be intrinsically better than the other (which you can read about here and here.)

Images lovingly stolen with respect from sources that talk about this way better than we do- Joseph Cambell and Mythcreants.com.

The earliest hero’s journey stories were written in long form poetry. Examples range from Epic of Gilgamesh, Mahabharata, Beowulf, and the related stories of the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid. The hero in each story is forced to make choices and conquer obstacles, often put in their way by angry gods, on the way to their objective. The mythology and beliefs of the culture played an important role in these epic stories, and that is because mythology was an extremely important aspect of daily life in the ancient world. Before human beings began to understand enough science to explain the mysteries of our world and universe, mythology served to answer the big questions about human existence, nature, and creation. Every time a child asked “Why?” mythology was there with an answer. Prometheus stole fire from the gods to give to man, creating the birth of civilization. Maui caught the sun and hung it in the sky for the mortals to have light. The Great thunderbirds of the Americas were the source of the fierce storms that hit the United States every spring. Before humans had enough technology to understand the science behind the forces of the universe, everything was attributed to magic.

In these stories men and women often crossed the gods, or were lusted after by gods, or got tricked by gods… and then, cursed by gods. How they hell was the moral of these stories not “DO NOT TRUST THESE BATSHIT GODS”? (Then again, I’m kinda coming from the bias end of the pool here, as I write a story about angry gods and their human playthings.) But again, the point of these stories was to provide an explanation for things human beings had not figured out yet.

Legends

While myths recount the stories of the gods and their human playthings, legends are more specifically written about the heroes themselves. These stories are not full-fledged epics, but they are adventure stories that take a partial truth and exaggerated it to grandiose proportions. The exploits of real-life figures may have been the initial inspiration for these stories, but the figures they were written about were rarely anything like the caricatures they became.

Legendary figures exist in every culture, and every era. As an American, and a history teacher, this was an issue I dealt with constantly. One of the reasons I loathe teaching American History is because I have to wade through the bullshit. The hardest part of teaching US history is the reteaching I have to do. By the time students get to their junior year (age 16-17), which is when US history is traditionally taught in high school, they have been indoctrinated by these legends which are regarded as fact. The worst part is that they have already been through a watered-down version of US history in their 8th grade year (age 13-14) of middle school, and yet many of these bullshit, propaganda stories aren’t questioned or corrected.

Presidents like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, the Roosevelts, JFK, and Reagan have become larger than life figures. The amount of elevation given to the Founding Fathers (note the lack of recognition to any mothers) is nearly vomit inducing, especially when you actually read about their personal exploits. Alas, every society needs heroic figures, despite how counterproductive they tend to be.

Folk Tales

These are the closest to the original oral traditions of storytelling. Theses stories were passed from generation to generation, shared among the community until they became a part of the culture. Once these cultures integrated writing, they wrote the stories down. In some cases, the folk tales have never been written down, and remain oral histories or stories relayed to the community or to children from the storytellers.

These stories were meant to teach a lesson, and that is why they are often attributed to children. The lessons were meant relate to real life, even if the content of the story was fantastic, to impress upon the people the importance of choice and consequences. These folk tales became the roots for the fairy tales and fables that defined our childhood.

Although, the difference between the original stories and the Disney-fied versions, is that the fairy tales and fables that were inspired by these cultural folk tales were much more gruesome. Karma was quite the bitch in these original stories. Cinderella’s step sisters chopped their own feet to fit into the shoes. Mulan is haunted by PTSD, and kills herself. Mermaids were vicious predators who preyed on sailors, not save them.

The Appeal of Lore

As a history teacher, this is my biggest pet peeve with the way the social studies are taught. When we teach history as memorized facts, and not as stories passed from one generation to the next, the context disappears. When history becomes legend, and the origins are lost, we gain a heroic figure, but we lose the gruesome, violent, or dark truth of its inspiration. This is why despite the cliched anecdote that “those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it” we ironically never learn from history. It isn’t the fact we need to learn and pass on, it is the message and the meaning behind the story in which we find the fact.

Storytelling in the root of culture. It is where the foundation on which a culture is built and from where its traditions stem. Every religion has a holy text filled with parables used to teach the scriptures associated with their teachings. The practice of storytelling was our first form of history. Prior to written language, oral storytelling was the only way to pass on information from one generation to the next. Humans have come to depend on storytelling, not only as a form of entertainment, but as the purest form of passing on knowledge. Without storytelling, we would not have history. We not would have a past to learn from.

Write on young savior,

Craft Creative Research-a-torium Resources Sass

The History of Storytelling: Part I: The Invention of Story

Posted on May 2, 2017

As modern humans, convenienced by information available at our fingertips, we take for granted a time when communication and access to knowledge was not instantaneous. The knowledge of history, technology, food and medicinal resources, was once proudly guarded information, determined to be the property of a privileged few.

According to a recent study by Marshall Poe, a professor of the history at the University of Iowa, the history of human communication can be divided into six stages. These stages of development are organized as: oral (speech), manuscript (handwriting), print (presses), audiovisual (recordings, radio, film), internet (hosting, posting), and digital (pdf).

Using these six stages, we can examine each of the unique ways that humans have ever interacted. Each one has become a integral in the way humans pass information along to others, or most importantly, to the next generation. This has always been the most effective way of ensuring survival of future generations. But, while Poe’s categories neatly summarize all stages of communication throughout our history, human beings have been telling stories long before most of his stages came into existence..

“Without a single word, this ancient artist who painted the walls of Lascaux was able to record one of the first stories of the human experience, and with every generation that has passed since, we have never stopped.”

Early Storytelling

The caves of Lascaux, France are one of the most significant archeological finds ever to be uncovered. They are not, however, open to public view. If exposed to the elements, these irreplaceable works of art would be destroyed very quickly. That is why they have been sealed off, made accessible only to the scientists and historians that are allowed to study them. Discovered in 1940, the ceiling and walls of the cave interior are painted with immense portraits of ancient animals that once roamed Europe alongside our ancestors. The incredible thing about these paintings is that they are sophisticated. The artist drew them in such a way that represents movement and dimensions. Many of the animal drawings feature shading and have been depicted with multiple legs, representing the motion of the animals as they ran, and their three-dimensionality. In addition to the archaeological significance that this find represents by providing evidence for our ancestors’ intelligence, it also represents their need to record and preserve their daily lives. Whether this was just an early attempt at expression, or an early attempt to record history to pass on to later generations, it serves as one of the earliest examples of storytelling.

The boss-ness that is the Lascaux cave art.

Without a single word, this ancient artist who painted the walls of Lascaux was able to record one of the first stories of the human experience, and with every generation that has passed since, we have never stopped. These original stories may not be as complex as we modern humans are used to, with all our fancy story elements, and our literal and figurative language, but they served the most important function of a story. This image was able to explain what a day in the life of an ancient Europeans looked like. This moment in history represents a greater monument in human development, providing evidence of one of the first moments in which humans began to demonstrate critical and analytical skills beyond those needed for survival. This is evidence of the earliest moments of human consciousness.

” The history and beliefs of a culture became legends, the trial and error of generations became lessons, and the technological advancements led to surplus, riches, and war, which were recorded as history.”

Human beings may have been telling stories long before language and writing, but the inception of both led to an explosion of culture. Pre-civilization societies determined record keeping to be one of the most important jobs. This meant that they held their cultural history and knowledge in as high a regard as collecting food. This makes sense, being that the sharing of the collective history of their people was tantamount to survival. By passing on the knowledge of animal migrations, dangerous areas, medical practices, and the crafting of technology, they increased the chances of survival of their children, their people, and their culture as a whole. Storytelling was the ultimate form of self-preservation.

Often, a select few individuals were tasked with the responsibility of learning, memorizing, and retelling the stories of the tribe or clan. This was vital in places like Sub-Saharan Africa, the birthplace of humanity, where geography was known to play a huge role in isolating groups of people within miles of each other (which is why Africa has the most genetic diversity on the face of the planet). According to Reference.com, over three-thousand distinct tribes are known to inhabit Africa, speaking two-thousand known languages. And those are just the ones we know about, since much the inner continent is still very remote, and may still keep hidden people, languages, and stories that we have yet to uncover. That means, that since the birth of vocal communication, just in Africa alone, storytellers, known in these cultures as griots, were memorizing thousands of collective histories in thousands of languages.

A modern day griot recites a story to the children of the village.

Over time, pictures became pictographs. Pictographs became symbols. Symbols began to represent words, and not ideas. Then eventually, sounds and not words.

Indus script that probably tells the sickest, most epic story we’ll never know.

Crossing the Red Sea, much like our ancestors did when they left Africa, through the Arabian Peninsula, we come to South-Central Asia, where the birth of writing occurred. The earliest archeological evidence of writing can be found in Uruk on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in modern Iraq, and in Mohenjo-Daro on the Indus River in modern India. Cuneiform, the famous wedge-shaped writing system that is the first known in history, was deciphered by George Smith and Henry Rawlinson. The Indus script on the other hand, remains completely unknown to us since no codex has been discovered that would allow the translation of the symbols into another known language, as was the case with hieroglyphics in Coptic and Greek by using the Rosetta Stone. Once translated, scholars were able to read the earliest literature ever written, the great Mesopotamian works: Atrahasis, The Descent of Inanna, The Myth of Etana, The Enuma Elish, and the famous Epic of Gilgamesh.

Cuneiform text, probably a receipt for goats.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is particularly fascinating as a story, since it is one of the best known examples of a story archetype that is shared by nearly all the great societies and civilizations of Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas: an epic flood story in which the gods wash clean the earth to start again. The truly awe-inspiring aspect of the flood story mystery is how these cultures, who have no historical evidence of contact until the last few thousand years, not only share the same base story idea, but also share them with cultures in the Americas, that at the earliest evidence we can find, did not have consistent contact with Europe or Asia until after 1000 CE.

**“…since the birth of vocal communication, just in Africa alone, storytellers, known in these cultures as griots, were memorizing thousands of collective histories in thousands of languages.”**

While these incredible, larger than life stories discuss the cultural beliefs of the earliest civilizations, other written artifacts from this time serve a purpose more like the paintings of Lascaux. Most of the written documents of this time were not for public circulation. These stories were recorded for posterity, but for most common people of the Mesopotamian region, they would have still be told orally. Literacy has only been commonplace for the last few centuries. But, whether the everyday merchant class of the Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, or Nineveh knew it or not, they were preserving snippets of the story of the everyday life of ancient Mesopotamians through record-keeping. Granted, most of the documents preserved from the first known civilization are basically contracts and receipts … for like…. goats (Seriously, there is an inordinate amount of livestock transactions in Sumeria), but like the cave paintings, they give us a glimpse of the story of ancient life.

The Presentation of the heart of the dead by Horus,Thoth, and Anubis to Isis and Osiris for judgment on entering the afterlife. (FYI, if you were bad, that croc-hippo-cat gets to eat yo’ heart.)

Whether images, symbols, or letters, these written marks began to grace the walls of public spaces, the surface of burial monuments, and scrolls of vellum and paper. The history and beliefs of a culture became legends, the trial and error of generations became lessons, and the technological advancements led to surplus, riches, and war, which were recorded as history.

Read on young saviors,

Older Posts