Writing Blog #8 tapestry narratives

September 1, 2010 · Posted in Stories MJG, Writing Blog · 2 Comments 

I`m a fan of convoluted narrative styles. I like stories that are chopped up and remixed, especially those chopped and remixed on the basis of character. LOST did this over 6 seasons, Magnolia did it in a 3-hour movie, Orson Scott Card did it between Ender`s Game and Ender`s shadow, David Gemmell did it across fantasy eras.

The effect is always epic. We begin to see the threads that make up not just one person`s life, but the whole tapestry. We glimpse the arc of the world of these characters, and while we`re with them we get to see the whole in a way we never can in life.

Here`s a breakdown of how it`s been done.

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Writing Blog #7 the engine of fiction

August 24, 2010 · Posted in Writing Blog · 3 Comments 

Everybody knows, it`s about conflict. Without conflict a story has no reason to be, it`s just a pretty picture, a post-card.

I think about this a lot with regard to the Dawn book I`m working on. I went to a writing group on Sunday and took along three different potential opening scenes. They each belong to three separate drafts, and are different ways of presenting the beginning of the tale. I asked the 5 other members in the group to let me know which one got their attention the most, and why.

Of course I would hoping they`d choose the most recent draft as the best. I wrote it last week, and it syncs well with the new material I`ve been writing for the beginning of the book. And did they?

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Writing Blog #6 building the maze

August 16, 2010 · Posted in Writing Blog · Comment 

I was writing several scenes (of my first Dawn book) set in a graveyard recently, trying to get across the wealth and variety of gravestone types within it, but not really succeeding. I got frustrated and disappointed. If I couldn`t show-case the bizarre variety of an ancient and storied graveyard, how could I expect to sell people on a whole fantasy world?

In the past I`ve got over that stumbling block by entering a kind of trance-like state (which I`ve dubbed a flashbang writing style) where I make up words, over adjectivize, pile clauses on top of each other, and turn the paragraph into a boggy maze.

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Writing Blog #5 make them real

August 5, 2010 · Posted in Writing Blog · 2 Comments 

I just saw the movie Kickass, and loved it. Of all the superhero movies out there, it was the one that most made me actually get up on the edge of my seat as the main guy goes into battle. He seems real, and it seems like he could get hurt. He of course does, quite a lot.

At the same time, you`ve got Hit Girl bouncing around like your traditional super hero, just about impervious to damage, killing dudes in their slews. The film-makers get to have their cake and eat it too.

How is it done?

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Writing Blog #4 flashbang

July 28, 2010 · Posted in Stories MJG, Writing Blog · 7 Comments 

I’ve been told I sometimes write in a flashbang style. This has manifested itself in several kinds of feedback-

- I can’t read for more than 10 minutes at a time. It’s exhausting.

- Some of the sequences left me really feeling the pain the main character felt.

- Stop hurting him and give him some happy times.

So what is flashbang? I can think of two corollaries. One- Michael Bay. *shudders*. Two- an overexcited American teenage girl delivering just a little content with a lot of verby enthusiasm- ‘so like, there was us two guys, and oh my gosh, it was amazing, like, you guys, it was sooo freakin awesome, you know, and like…’

I write like that?

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Writing Blog #3 bad guy motives

July 22, 2010 · Posted in Stories MJG, Writing Blog · Comment 

Last week I talked about character motivation- filling in the gaps between what characters want and why. It`s a fundamental part of story architecture- that the good guy wants something and will fight to get it. But probably more important than what the good guy wants is what the bad guy wants.

That`s what I was thinking about when I started this latest round of Dawn redrafts *. What do bad guys want? It`s the keystone of story architecture, because the bad guy-

- drives the story

- creates the conflict

- causes the wrongs the good guy has to right.

If we don`t believe in them, the whole endeavour is damaged. Sherlock Holmes without Moriarty is still a great detective, but a shallow one. To be truly great, we need the push-pull of an antagonistic relationship. The good guy and the bad guy make each other greater.

So I thought about motives. I made a list of some of the villains I most like, and tried to draw a line through them to some common threads. Here`s what I came up with:

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