Lessons I've Learned: No. 3

Developing Your Story

Alright. You've decided you're a writer. You've accepted that perfection doesn't exist. You've picked out a story idea you want to work on. What now?

Now we carefully cultivate that idea into a story. Even if you're the type of writer that likes to dive in head first by just writing and seeing where the story takes you, you still need to have the basis of the story outlined. You need to know who your characters are, what the conflict is and what your story is about. Once you have that, you can write until your hands fall off. And if you're like me, you want to have things nailed down right away.

Where to start?

Most people tell you to start with your main character, also known as the lead.  I believe that's generally pretty sound advise, except in one instance.  If you are writing a story about a completely foreign world, a world that your reader is unfamiliar with and must have explained to them, it is usually easier to start with constructing the world around your character first.  What does the world look like? Are there vast amounts of poverty and inequality? Is it a technologically advanced or a primitive world? What type, if any, of government is there? What do people do everyday, for work and for fun?

This is particularly useful for fantasy or futuristic Sci-fi worlds (and maybe historical fiction too, I'm not sure because I've never written any) because your lead will be a product of the world around them.  For example, Spock from Star Trek shouldn't be overly emotional since he's a Vulcan and Vulcan's are almost strictly logical. Or I should say, he should be overly emotional without an explanation.  They is no reason why your lead can't break the mold. Maybe the fact that he's half human makes it harder for Spock to control his emotions than is it for other Vulcans.  Either way, developing the world first will help you decide what the norms are for society. From there you can decide if your character strays form the norm, and why.

Now to be clear, you should develop both your main character and the world around them in the early stages of your story. My suggestion is just about which one you should do first.  In addition to the questions above, you should also ask what make your world unique. Even if the world you are writing about is the world outside your own window, figure out how you will make it come to life for the reader. And in the same way, you should strive to make your main character a full fledged being with desires and fears and motivations. Here are some areas to consider that will help you create a substantial, relatable lead:

• Background - Where is your character from and what have they done
• Personality - Are they witty or dim, hot headed or even-tempered
• Speech patterns - What words to they use or don't use, how do they talk
• Appearance - Physical appearance
• Habits - Conscious or subconscious habits
• Strengths and Weaknesses - What is he/she good and bad at
• Flaws - Creating major or minor character flaws in your lead (like over-confidence or spitefulness) makes them seem more realistic, more human and more relatable

Conflict, Conflict, Conflict

So now you have the most interest, well-developed characters and the most beautifully described world ever.  Time to start writing right? Well there's one more thing you should consider first. Conflict. Without a substantial conflict, your story won't be very interesting.  Who would want to read Harry Potter if no one wanted to kill Harry, everyone got along, there were no mysteries to solve and there was no such thing as the dark arts? Sounds like a snooze fest to me.

The conflict is one of the most important parts of your story. It's what hooks the reader; they'll want to know how your lead gets out of the impossible situation they find themselves in.  How your characters meet the challenge will help define their personalities. And the best conflicts are hard to solve, filled with obstacles and unavoidable.

When creating the conflict of your story, shoot for an all consuming conflict: your character shouldn't be able to go on with life as usual because of the conflict. Putting their life in danger is the easiest way to accomplish that, but it can also be something as simple as a woman who is unable to resume her normal life in society because she is ostracized  (a la The Scarlet Letter). Once you have the conflict for your story, make it bigger. Limit your character's time.  A bomb that will detonate in the next hour is far more interesting than a bomb that will go off sometime next week.  Increase the stakes by making it personal. Put the bomb within a block of your lead's kid's school.  Throw in obstacles.  Let's say the bomb is behind a locked door and only one woman knows the code. If you need some ideas, Janice Hardy has some great tips for forcing conflict into your story on her blog. In the end, the conflict is the entire point of the story. Don't shoot yourself in the foot by creating a story with a weak conflict.

Where does it end?

At this point, those of you that enjoy jumping into writing and letting the chips fall where they may probably have enough of the basics down to start. You'll obviously need to go back and fill in some other pieces as you go along, but you have set yourself up well to explore your story with a purpose. But you (and people who like to have things planned out ahead of time like me) may benefit from spending some time brainstorming where your story will end.

Now by that I don't mean that you should necessarily know exactly how the story ends before you start. Sometimes after you spend enough time with your characters you will realize the way that they would resolve the conflict, and it might be different than how you might. But you do want to know if your character should end in a better or a worse position than when your story started.  If she started out in the slums, is she now the Queen? Or is she still in the slums? This will dictate what type of character arc you will use, and understanding the basis of that character arc will help you develop your character (K.M Weiland does a great job of explaining character arcs and story structures here).

If your story has any moral to it (i.e. don't discriminate), you should plan it out now to make sure that it carries throughout the rest of the story. If you are planning a sequel or a series, make sure you plan out any important events or changes that need to happen by the end of your current story. I am currently fleshing out the idea for a 2-book set (the one about the bad-ass that I posted about earlier), and I know that by the end of the first book my lead should be jaded and bitter so that she can realize the error in her ways in the second book. That means I need to throw in some stuff in the first book that will make her upset and mistrustful of people.


But by far, the most important thing is not to be afraid to let your story evolve.  You will probably change the conflict, the plot, the characters and everything else about your story multiple times. But that's a good thing.  That's how you take your idea and turn it into a story. 

Lessons I've Learned: No. 2

Fail Faster

This is an excellent concept that Extra Credits explains perfectly in this video.  The idea is simple and you can apply it to your whole life: No one is perfect. No panting, movie, or novel, is ever perfect. There is no perfect plan, no fool proof method to get ahead, and no path to happiness that's bump free. You'll probably fail multiple times on your journey to success. So it doesn't make any more sense to wait until it's perfect to show people your work of art than it does to wait until it's perfect to try out a new idea. It never will be and it doesn't have to be.

To me, this means two things. First, perfection should not be the bar we set because perfect doesn't exist.  My example, of course, is writing.  It's much better to forget the idea of "perfection" and shoot for the obtainable goal of writing an effective story: a story that leaves the reader feeling a certain way, captures into words exactly how you think the story should be, etc.  There are plenty of books that are flawed in some manner but are great because of the story they tell or the way they make us feel. It's better to write a book that is flawed but enticing to your audience than to write a book that's "perfect" but boring. So don't think of constructive criticism as a bad thing. Accept that your work is not perfect and that any good criticism someone provides you helps you to make your story more effective.

And second, this means that the best and most efficient way to create a great book (or to change careers or whatever) is to attack it head on. Being afraid to make mistakes will leave you immobilized in fear of a misstep. Being bogged down in fear will stifle your creativity and will require much longer to get to where you want to be.  If you allow your mind to run free, allow yourself to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes, your end result will be better and will come faster.

Let's go back to the writing example: imagine one day you have your story completely done. All i's dotted, all t's crossed. So you decide it's FINALLY good enough for someone else to read. You give it to your writing partner, confident she'll be blown away by it. But when she brings it back to you, she points out several shortcomings you didn't even realize were there. Ouch. You will have so much emotionally invested in your story at that point any criticism will most likely seem more like an attack than help.  At that point, it becomes far more work to fix the mistakes, and thus you are far less likely to want to even try.  This is exactly the same thing that will happen with any other aspect of your life if you require perfection before taking action.

So take chances and try new things. If you're a writer, get your work out there for others to see. Don't be afraid to fail. If you are working on a story, the best thing you can do is get your work into the hands of someone that you trust that can give you good, constructive feedback.  If you get feedback often you can make small adjustments during your process rather than trying to do an overhaul at the end.

And that's the point of all of this.  We need to fail to get better. In order to make your story better, you need constructive criticism. So why not get it early and often, rather than be heartbroken when someone critiques what you thought was perfect? The end goal is to create the best story (or plan, or career) that you can, right? Well don't let your ego get in the way. Fail faster.

Lessons I've Learned: No. 1

Getting Started

I've been writing for almost 2 years now. Over the past 6 months or so I've been taking it more seriously, reading books on writing, subscribing to author blogs, and taking classes at an amazing literary arts center here in Minnesota called The Loft. I have 2 books ideas that are a little ways from being completed (one is being written and the other is being researched). I am still learning of course, but I would like to offer a take on the lessons I've learned so far in hopes that it may help someone else.

The Writer Swag

The very first thing I think you should do if you really want to write is to call yourself a writer. Being a writer is about what's on the inside, not going to coffee shops or bringing your laptop everywhere. I've referenced this in earlier posts because it's an excellent way to get you into the right mindset.  Initially many people have a problem with this.  They feel like since they haven't completed a book or story yet, they don't deserve to call themselves "writers".  This simply isn't true though. There is a difference between being a writer, and being a published author.  A writer is a person who writes. Simple as that.  If you write and are passionate about writing, you are a writer. There's nothing that says you can't call yourself a writer just because you have yet to have anything published.

My second suggestion about identifying yourself as a writer is if you're goal is to write for publication, don't shy away from that. A lot of people will say it's difficult to publish a book (although it is becoming somewhat easier with e-Books and self-publishing. More on that in later posts).  But look at it this way: it's also difficult to become a doctor, but it doesn't make any sense for a medical school student to say, "Well, I'm going to med school, but I don't know if I'll ever become a doctor."  Writing is the same way; if you want to publish, say that you want to publish. Don't listen to anyone that says you have to toil away writing with no ambitions in order to write successfully.

Please don't misunderstand me about that.  If you truly are just writing for yourself and you really don't care one way another if it gets published, that's great because you will be fulfilled simply by the writing, not what comes out of it. I'm not saying everyone should try to get published. But if you are someone who is saying that just because you don't want people to criticize your decision or to keep yourself from getting own hopes up, that's not helping you.

Creating Your Story

You may be like me and have a story line already in mind when you decide to write.  Or you may have no idea what to write about but know you want to write.  Either way, come up with ideas.  If you don't have a story line in mind, think up random scenarios. Things you would like to read about, things you wish would happen, things that have happened, think of worlds you would like to live or would not like to live in.  If you have a story idea already, think of different slants on the story, a different setting, different endings or different plot points. The more ideas you come up with, the better the one you ultimately write about will be.

After that, identify what makes your story unique.  After a minute of developing a story idea, you may realize it is somewhat similar to another story.  Don't immediately throw it away.  Take that basic story and add your own spin on it.  Make it unique and fresh, something that you (and by extension, your audience) would want to read.  If you're looking for a guide, "The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing" by Evan Marshall does a great job of walking you through how to choose a good story idea that is also interesting to read.

You may have heard the old motto, "write what you know." I really prefer to think of it more as "write what you enjoy."  If you really dislike romance novels, don't write a romance novel.  But don't limit yourself either.  There's nothing that says you can't write a sci-fi novel with a heavy romantic story line. Writing about things you aren't familiar with can be fun and can really help you develop as a writer. If you've the polite quiet type, try writing about a bully. Familiarity does not make a story good, but your passion and interest in it will. Besides, all you have to do to deal with something unfamiliar is a little research.

Research

Research is useful for just about any story that you may write.  It can be anything from researching a period of time for a historical book to reading books or watching movies that have a main character that is similar to your own for inspiration.  It can help you enter the mind of your characters, making them more complex and realistic. It can make the world you create for the reader seem more complete, thought out and realistic.

But don't over research. Adam Rico talks about this on the "Goins, Writer" blog.  There is a plethora of information out there.  You should find what helps you and ignore what doesn't.  In the end, lack of information is not the reason most people don't put their story ideas down on paper.  Instead you should also find resources that will help you with organizing, staying focused, plotting, etc.

Trust Yourself

From there, it's time to jump into the world of writing. You will have to find your own way, but it will be worth it.  Come up with ideas. Write about them. Throw away the ones you don't like. Consider it practice. Do research. Look for tips.  Disregard what doesn't resonate with you, keep what does. Talk to people about what you're writing.  Their feedback might surprise you. Trust yourself. You'll know what to do. After all, you're a writer.