Sometimes writers are clever. Really, really clever.
There’s a character named Frangit in the Shard of Elan series, because his purpose is to break. In one scene Shianan argues fiercely that something has never, ever happened, and he believes it, but the careful reader will note that in his emotion he’s deceived himself, as we often do. I take great pride in slipping absolutely-true-but-also-misleading statements into the mouths of kitsune and Fae.
Of Names and Nuance
Me: “Hey, I’ve always wanted to do a Joseph retelling. Maybe I should think about that, now that I’m making such good progress on my final installment rewrites.”
Brain: “Yeah, you’re doing pretty well on those. Just trying to weave all those subplots together into a satisfying ending.”
Me: “Yep. It’s complicated, but I’m going to get there.”
Brain: “You sure will. And on that note….”
Let’s talk about human nature, and how we let it boss us around.
Last year I entered the NYC Midnight Short Story Contest, my first try. There are three rounds of competition with a final prize of $5,000 for the winner and still-significant cash for the top ten.
I won my heat in the first round, with a story I love.
I got second place in my heat in the second round, making it into the final 75 — out of thousands of entrants — for the final round.
And then I tanked in the final round, turning in a story I knew was insufficient but just couldn’t fix by deadline. No placement. It was frustrating because I wasn’t just beaten by an excellent story (although I’m sure it was!), which I would have been fine with, but because I didn’t produce a competitive story, and I knew it even as I turned it in.
Creative Artist, Get Over Yourself (I’m Talking To Me)
Today marks the beginning of Inktober, an annual art challenge. I explained in 2017 why I, a writer and a truly terrible pencil/ink artist, would try this, and how it is good for me. This year I’m doing it again.
Today’s prompt was “poisonous,” so I drew a cute little snake. I was actually pretty happy with my pencil sketch; Inktober and Sketchtember really did a lot for me.It’s #Inktober again!
Today I’m going to talk about manuscript formatting and how you can use it to become a favorite writer among editors and their layout minions.
I’m kind of breaking one of my rules here, which is that I don’t generally advertise that I do layout. My time is limited and I am rarely looking for additional work. However, it occurs to me that explaining how to provide cleaner files for layout might actually save me time and effort, and it can certainly save other people time and effort, designers and editors and writers, and that’s good all around.
Note: I am writing this specifically for files I receive for anthology layout, but this manuscript formatting advice is good for market submissions, too. Sending a clean file to an editor makes a better impression than one that looks messy, even if the writing is the same.
So here are some simple guidelines to making your editor and layout designer like you a lot!Manuscript Formatting: How To Keep From Making Your Layout Person Cry
Two days ago I got the notification that the NYC Midnight Short Story contest final results were up. I delayed opening the email, because I knew my third round story had not been as strong as my first two and I didn’t expect to do well. I finally clicked through, scanned just enough to confirm that there had not been a miracle, and I closed the page. Another email came with my feedback — every story in the contest gets feedback from multiple judges — and I didn’t even open it. I was busy, it wasn’t going anywhere, and I already knew there were problems with my story.
Yesterday morning, I opened the feedback email. Their feedback format is to collate the positive notes first, followed by the collated critical notes. I read the first couple of sentences on what the judges liked, then read down — and I realized that I was barely skimming, skipping over all the nice compliments to look for the coming negatives on what the judges felt needed work.The Disproportionate View of the Negative
I haven’t handwritten stories since… elementary school, I think. /thinks back/ Oops, no, there was some terrible self-insertion fanfic I wrote during pre-algebra back in middle school, before I knew that even had a name (because we didn’t have public internet yet, for which I thank God, or I might have posted it). Anyway, I adopted typing for storytelling early on, as soon as we had a Tandy computer from Radio Shack.
I do know some writing friends who handwrite their first drafts, however, and quite a lot who handwrite their outlines and notes. And there is evidence that writing by hand helps you retain more, if taking notes, or be more creative, if inventing.
I resisted. But eventually I found a pen I loved, in an elegant metal form which feels so classy, which can be refilled so it’s environmentally responsible, and I discovered that I actually don’t dislike writing by hand nearly so much as I dislike writing with lame pens. A quality instrument made all the difference. I got a notebook, and then another, and I filled them with plot notes, lines to be tucked into dialogue, ideas, etc.
By now you’ve probably seen the predictive text Harry Potter, but here’s a slightly different take, using a writing algorithm for structural and editorial guidance.
No argument, making the words can be hard. Since we have computer-assisted everything these days, algorithms helping me to research, to navigate heavy traffic, to drive safely, why not computer-assisted writing to write efficiently and beautifully? It’s a reasonable question.
Fifty notable classic and modern science-fiction stories were fed into the computer, which analyzed them for common elements of subject, theme, and style. Then it produced a set of rules for producing a new great story, and parameters for writing it.Writing Algorithm: Will Software Put Writers Out of a Job?
I love good fight scenes. In a story, I want to feel the action. In a film, I want tightly choreographed combat. It’s fine if it’s realistic (the long tension of Sanjuro‘s final duel, and we’ll just ignore the period blood effects), fake realistic (the bloody impact of Logan), crazy physics-defying martial arts (the alternate-world movement of The Matrix), or just plain fun (Captain America kicking Nazi tail). But lame action, the writer glossing over it or the director trying to fake it with shaky cam, makes me feel cheated.
So I try to write good action scenes. And most of the time I feel I do an okay job.
But I’ve been really struggling with one scene. It’s very short, an attempted bar fight which is over in under three seconds. But because it’s so fast, it’s hard to write; I don’t want to lose flow or add length with a lot of explanation, yet the physical actions are fairly complex. I’d been frustrated by this for an embarrassingly long time. So I called in an expert, Carla Hoch.
Write Fights Right!
If you follow my social media, you might have noticed that I’ve been posting ink drawings for #Inktober, and that they’re generally awful. You might have asked yourself why I would do that. Do I know how bad they are, or do I see my work through a blissfully ignorant filter? Is it some sort of prank?
So here’s what’s up with Inktober.
First, in case you aren’t familiar with it, #Inktober is a month for doing one drawing — in ink — and sharing it per day. You can find the brief background and this year’s optional prompt list from the creator Jake Parker. It’s something like National Novel Writing Month, but for visual artists.
Now, let’s recognize that I’m bad at drawing. No, I’m really bad at drawing. The local catchphrase for referring to truly hideous visual design is, “It looks like Laura drew it.” (Don’t feel bad. I’m often the one saying it. It’s not wrong to acknowledge my skills are in other sets.) So why on earth would I do Inktober, which unlike NaNoWriMo specifically requires publicly sharing one’s work?
I’m doing Inktober for several reasons:What is up with #Inktober?
