writing

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Tony’s Thinking…Making a World from Scratch

Whenever I write a story – any story, short or otherwise – the first thing I have to do is make a world for the characters to live in. It’s perhaps the easiest part of the process, but still one which needs some thinking over before you put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard).

For a start, it’s important to think logically and sensibly about the world your character is going to find themselves in, and to adapt either your characters or your world to suit your story. If your character is in a wheelchair for example, you’re going to need some way of getting them upstairs without breaking up the story, or else confine them to one floor.

Let’s take a solid example: The haunted house. And by that, I also mean the haunted town (See Stephen King’s IT for example) or even the haunted spaceship (which is essentially the plot of Alien).

Let’s walk through those examples and see what we can do with the worlds they need.

So your character – let’s call him Joe – has found themselves in your haunted house. You want Joe to stay there, at least until the story is finished…or until Joe is…

First question about this world: Why doesn’t Joe simply leave?

I know if I was in a haunted house, logically, sensibly, I’d head for a door. But I need some walls for the story…can’t have Joe wandering off without finishing what I’ve got him here for!

The door is locked? Fine. What about a window? Bars across them?

Hmm…okay. Now I’ve got Joe looking round the little haunted house I’ve just made and interacting with it.

Can he smash the glass and shout through the window for help? No, the house is on an island. Now I’m expanding the house to the local area around it.

Can he use his cell phone to call for help? Flat battery. No signal.

The point is, whatever Joe chooses to do at this point, the little world I’ve made won’t let him until he finishes the story. Joe is going to get increasingly desperate to get out, and at some point in his wandering through the haunted house, he’s going to meet the bogeyman and one of them won’t make it out alive.

In Stephen King’s IT, he has the main characters trapped by the fact that they’re children, and only children can see the Big Bad. Where else could they go? They can’t leave exactly leave town at the age of twelve. In Alien, the crew of the spaceship are trapped inside a literal vacuum of space while the monster stalks them.

And walls don’t always have to be physical. Joe could hear his little sister screaming upstairs, and there’s no way he’s going to walk away from that. Even if he gets out of the house, he’s going to go right back in there and rescue her like a good brother.

This is a simple example, but you can hopefully see how the world has adapted as I’ve needed it to. A character who can easily walk out of a story isn’t going to make an interesting read.

So when you create a story, think about how the world you create will shape that story, and think – logically and sensibly, no matter what the genre – how you can keep your characters there until the end. Keep bouncing them against the walls you’ve made for them until they break through.

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Tony’s Thinking…Starting a work in progress

I finished my fourth novel, Eight Mile Island, back in June 2012, but what with holidays and a trip to the USA this summer and feeling pretty burned out, I took a break before I started something new. I think you have to do that, give yourself a chance to recover and give your imagination a chance to reset.

I started thinking about Book Five (No title yet!) just about as I was finishing Eight Mile, and I was working on ending the world in grey-goo nanotechnology (I was going to ramp up the pacing so it happened in maybe a week…). I did a little research around nanotech, some background reading…but I kept bumping into nothing when I started writing. Nothing was coming out and screaming, “Write me!”

For a few weeks, I had only a first chapter that wasn’t going anywhere…a good first chapter, with some interesting characters, but nothing else.

Let me tell you, writers block is bad; writers block before you start is even worse. I was going nowhere.

I’m a regular subscriber to a science and technology magazine, and the August 2012 edition had an article about a company (Project Blue Seed, if you want to Google it), planning to build a business community offshore of the coast of California in 2014. There was some speculative artwork about building whole cities, maybe whole nations out there in the deep seas…

…and bang, new idea for Book Five! Something that definitely screamed “Write me!” It’s Waterworld, I thought, except it won’t be when I’m finished with it…

About a week later, I was dozing in the back garden on a Saturday afternoon, thinking about not much, when Muse threw up an image of a girl on a jet ski heading towards one of those cities, and then a dozen more ideas followed, then more and more. Suddenly, everything started to feel right, and I started to feel like this is a book I should write next.

So Book Five is off and running now, and I thought I’d share some early thought processes with y’all.

I’ve read a few books on writing novels, the ones that tell you to plan every chapter and every scene, create every character and describe them in detail, but my head doesn’t work like that; I like to be surprised by my characters and I think visually anyway. Starting with Eight Mile Island, I use a mind map, brainstorm, spider diagram, whatever they’re calling them this week.

I stick pictures I snag off the internet next to the ideas I have flying around, then post them to my work in progress board in my ‘office’ where I write.

Here’s the apparently messy result:

Thought Board

First thing to note is there are a LOT of things going on there, and not all of these ideas will end up in the final story, but it’s a place to start.

My WIP board is something I walk past at least twice a day (I keep my work ties on the back of the door in the same room), so I catch the images and words peripherally and let my subconscious work on them, ready for writing when I’ve finished the Day Job. I’ve found it’s a way for me to think about the story all day without working on it consciously.

The quote in the top left is from SF author James Blish. “Who does it hurt? That’s who the story is about.” It might seem obvious, but it’s a fundamental aspect of probably every story you’ve ever read, and every story you should write as well. The designs in the top right are what got me started, a concept for a “lily pad” floating city. I’m thinking of having a deserted London in there, that’s bottom left, and middle and bottom right are concepts for the inside of some of the cities and my “superboat” that’s an integral part of the story.

So that’s the start of my journey into Book Five. It’s going to be interesting to see how many ideas survive and how many die out by the time I finish and get everything edited!

If you think that might work for you, and you have room and a spare wall, having one of these boards might be for you – this one is magnetic and a whiteboard, so it’s twice the fun for half the price. For a size reference, the piece of paper in the middle is A3 (420 x 297mm, 16.5 x 11.7 in).

Have fun!

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Guest Post…Making Memorable Villains

Making Memorable Villains

We said “mean – really mean” and from that you heard “green and lilac lycra”?

Back in April I participated in the A to Z Blog Challenge—it was a 30-day challenge in April and where your blog topic has to correspond to each letter in the alphabet. I wanted to have a lil fun with the idea so I started talking about the villains we all know and love and what we can learn about them. Well 50 villains later, I’ve learned a thing or two about the darker side of the villains that stick with us.

Villains Have a Clear Purpose

You ever watch a James Bond movie? Some of those villains you really remember, like Blofeld, and some of them you end up wondering what in the world was going on, right? That’s because their purpose wasn’t clear. The alien in Alien taught me about this—that animal, for all its disgusting attributes, just wanted to survive. It did what it was always meant to do. The unfortunate souls on the Nostromo happened to be in the way.

Villains Are Mean—Like Really Mean

OK so this is tougher than it sounds. Sure all villains are mean but Cruella DeVille told us that we have to take things up a notch to be memorable. You don’t remember the two guys in the movie with her, do you? But you remember that this chick wanted to kill puppies to turn them into high fashion. Think about the Evil Queen from Snow White: “I should kill my stepdaughter because she’s prettier than me”? There is a line villains must cross to be ranked in the pantheon of the greats—the truly memorable ones dance across that line and leave it in the dust.

Villains Have Focus

A villain without clear focus on that singular purpose we talked about above gets lost in the shuffle. Look at Voldemort. This cat murdered a bunch of people so he could split his soul, store it in seven horcruxes, all so he could live forever. And he figured this out in high school. At his age I was trying to figure out how to ditch English. And even in his “death” people were too scared to say his name. Focus, man, focus.

Villains Take Matters Into their Own Hands

Darth Vader taught me this lesson.  My man was first in the room ALWAYS, killed his homeboy with the lightsaber, tried to kill his own kid—three times, took two shots from Han Solo, and had the best battlefield promotion plan in history. You can’t say he was ever afraid to get his hands dirty. The villain that delegates is a villain we forget.

Villains Commit

You can’t buy a villain whose not committed to their cause hook, line and sinker. Once they start, there is no going back. The ghosts in Poltergeist took Carol Ann, tried to eat the boy, and eventually ate the entire house. Khan sacrificed his entire crew and himself for revenge in Star Trek II. The Coyote routinely risks life and limb trying to catch the Roadrunner. If your villain isn’t committed, there isn’t much conflict and the hero is never really in danger. That equals BORING!

Villains Have A Real Rationale For Their Actions

We don’t have to agree but the villains whose plans make sense tend to stick with us. If we can understand why they might want to do something, we automatically sympathize, even if we detest their methods. Magneto is a fantastic example of this: he’s trying to avoid a holocaust against mutants. That’s a noble, even virtuous sentiment. His methods, though, well, they leave a lot to be desired.

Villains Make It Personal

The best villains have a personal connection to the hero. Darth Vader was Luke’s dad. Clubber Lang killed Rocky’s father-figure manager. Voldemort handled Harry’s parents. Scar killed his brother and traumatized his nephew—on the same day. Villains who make it personal for the hero are the villains we can never let go. They, in essence, make it personal with us.

Think about the villains that have stuck with you—do you agree? Disagree? And join the conversation over at christophercstarr.net.

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About the Author: Christopher C. Starr is the founder of Sanford House Press, an indie publishing house. The Road to Hell is his first novel and the launch of the HEAVEN FALLS series. Chris lives in the Seattle area with his wife, two kids and his huskies, Rocky the Wonder Dog and his colorful sidekick, Leylah Redd. Check him out on the web at christophercstarr.net

Want to know more? Check out the links! 

Blog: http://www.christophercstarr.net

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/author/christophercstarr

Facebook Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/christophercstarr

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/SuperStarr73

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Tony’s Thinking…On Losing a Story

A few months ago, I’d just finished writing another novel, and was wondering (maybe dreaming would be a better word) what would happen if I was suddenly granted my wish…to be a full time writer and at that a famous full time writer. Kind of suddenly discovered like JK Rowling, people everywhere reading one of my books.

What would my life be like? Imagine that…never having to leave for work in the morning and never having to drive through snow or rain or rush hour traffic. To sit at my desk all day and (to quote Steven Spielberg) ‘to dream for a living’.

But it wouldn’t be all regular royalty cheques and a quiet home. I know I’d get easily distracted, sitting there in an empty house. I’d be forever checking my Goodreads reviews, my Facebook friends. There would be constant pressure to Tweet my every move. Not to mention the endless meetings and flying to Hollywood to meet with Mr Spielberg for the movie deal, and the endless parties and other things I’m sure I’d hate. Would be tough, I’m sure, having to fly to the Caribbean and lie on a beach.

I digress into my fantasy there, but thinking about how my life would change set me thinking about a story, as such things do. I imagined a housewife, bored with her life. She has everything she ever wanted: beautiful home, devoted husband and adorable kids. But still she’s bored. She’s always defined by how other people see how she relates to her family. She’s always a wife, or a mother…never just her.
Finally, she starts writing one day, just to slay the boredom and the incipient feeling that life has more to offer her. She writes, and she writes, telling no one – this is something just for her. Eventually she writes a novel and sends it to an agent, and they accept it, but still she tells no one what she’s doing.

Which is where the story starts: she’s sitting at her kitchen table, looking at an advance from an agent and a publication deal that would free her from her domestic life forever. All she has to do is cash the cheque and make it to the airport, and her life is her own. The story is about how trapped she feels, and whether she’d be more free if she was suddenly flung into the spotlight.

I loved that story. I really felt for that woman and what she was going through. It might have been realistic if she just told her family what she was doing when they came home, but I wasn’t interested in that; I wanted to go through what she was going through.

But here’s the really terrible thing: I lost that story.
I thought I had it saved on at least ONE of the computers I use, or the memory sticks that hold my work, but I can’t find it. I must have saved it somewhere because (being the tech guy I am) I always hit save before I print. And I printed two copies: one for me and one for a writing friend.
I can’t find my printed copy, and I NEVER throw my work away. I have hopes my writing friend can find it and I can re-type it. I’ve even tried a file recovery…but nothing.

Why not recreate it? You might ask. That’s a hard one to explain…stories are ephemeral, flighty things, gone with a breeze. If I re-write it, it won’t be the same story. I know I won’t be able to recreate the same…intimacy…with the woman in the story, I won’t get into her head the way I did when I wrote it on a whim. I won’t know who she is as well as I did before.

I’ve never lost a story before, and it’s gone as though it never existed. And I feel bereft. I’ve lost a story and it feels like I lost a friend as well, and they’re such hard things to grasp at the best of times. I know all the arguments: hit save, hit save, then hit save again. I did. I do.
But this time it wasn’t enough. Farewell, lonely housewife.

I’ll miss you.

(Stop Press 18th June 2012: My writing friend found my story! Thanks Portia! You can read it here)

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Tony’s Thinking…Watch your language

I once saw a quote that said, “Every age has a language of its own”, and that’s especially true of YA writing. Writing contemporary YA has a peculiar wrinkle to it that I think is unique in any genre: slang.

What about, for instance, the evolution of the word gay.

Happy? Homosexual?

Or by dipping into the wonderful Urban Dictionary, you also come up with “…hilariously immature way of calling something bad.”

So let’s try bad.

Evil? Not good?

How about, “describes someone sexy”

See what I mean?

The words you put into your characters mouths to make them sound contemporary and up to date will do exactly the opposite in a few years time. Are there a lot of YA readers out there who still think something is groovy? Any of them say, Swell, daddy-o?

No. Didn’t think so.

And presumably, you want your story to be around for a while before you retire it to the Great Kindle in the Sky. You don’t want to cause a riot of laughter when your characters are trying to do something serious.

The only exception I can see to this rule seems to be the word cool, which has been around since the 1950s and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.

Steer clear of the latest celebrities as well. Stay away from saying Someone Bent it like Beckham, or Had a Kardashian. (Being a Star Trek fan, I think you’re talking about are the lizard guys with the spoon rests on their heads – the Cardassians – anyway.)

One of my hobbies is reading Victorian literature – Dickens and Wilkie Collins for instance, and the references they drop in to contemporary characters all need a footnote now.

Think about that for a minute…If you write, ‘Oprah was on the tube’, (that’s a real example, by the way) in a hundred years from now, that’s going to have a little number after it and someone has to explain what you meant at the back of the book. You have to bounce someone out of your story while they figure out what you’re talking about.

And remember your characters voices are always going to be secondary to the story anyway. Show a reader how they act and interact, and their voices are going to be less important. I won’t care if they think something is bad because it’s sexy or gay because it’s bad.

An interesting way of getting round this problem is to invent your own slang and language – even make up your own celebrities. Have a character come up with the profanities as well. This worked so well in the Red Dwarf TV series, they could happily have a character say, ‘Oh Smeg! What the smeggin’ smeg’s he smeggin’ done?!’

Now that’s bad.

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Guest Post…My Pen is Lethargic

Interesting post from the blog of author Karen Payze on why it’s hard to get going with your writing sometimes.

Karen's avatarDrawing Room Days

You may be wondering why it is that I started a blog.  It all came about because of  a desire to reignite my creative writing flame.  I have been a bit stuck since completing my novel.  I have been asking myself for some time now why it is that I cannot seem to get myself to write a second novel.

I have come to realise that it is a combination of things rather than just one specific thing – like writers block.  In fact, I know that it is not writers block.  How do I know this?  Well, I have a million stories floating around my head, and more are added every hour of every day.  They just need organising.  So, writers block – not an issue.

When thinking about my reasons for not writing, the first thing that springs to mind is my previous book.  In the world…

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A cheeky reblog of my cover reveal from today – well if I can’t share it here, where can I? 🙂

Mel x

mel's avatarMel Cusick-Jones

I’m very excited to reveal the cover art for The Rainbow Maker’s Tale – Book 2 in The Ambrosia Sequence, which is due for release in summer 2012… This is the partner story to Hope’s Daughter – let me know what you think! 🙂

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Guest Post…Is it Really Inspiration? by Stephen Graff

I’ve read a few passages about what has inspired some of the great novels.  Three famous horror novelists share a common thread: that their books were inspired by disturbing dreams.

Two years ago, I started writing a dystopian suspense novel called RIVER DAWN after a series of strange, recurring dreams set in an abandoned shore town.  In this town, the hotels are all empty, but reservation clerks are on duty waiting for vacationers that never show up.  I am there, with suitcase in hand.  Sometimes I am there with my wife and daughter, sometimes alone.  But we manage to secure a room for the night, and all night long, as we try to sleep, the ocean is pounding the shore with relentless fury. There is some comfort in being near the sea, but also a sense of impending doom.

For the book, I imagined a family on a journey in a future, flooded world where darkness reigns and the sea is always a force to be reckoned with.

But was it really inspiration in the traditional sense? According to one account, Mary Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN was inspired by a strange, eerie dream involving corpses.  Nightmares also inspired Steven King with his novel MISERY and Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic horror novel DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE. But it’s difficult to think of these famous authors having to find time to write in the midst of mundane schedules. Like most of the writers who venture forth into the universe of self-publishing, I struggle to find the time to write, and inspiration has to reveal itself rather quickly because I have to go run some errands, finish my tax return, take my daughter to school, walk the dog, mow the lawn, or keep a dentist’s appointment.

Perhaps we over-romanticize the writers we admire.  Robert Louis Stevenson spent much of his younger life in poor health, in bed and unable to participate in the normal pursuits.  Much of his early inspiration rose out of boredom.

Today, there are many thousands of part-time novelists; writers juggling jobs, family, and schedules.  What we end up with is the result of fleeting dreams that have to be captured and revealed quickly, between the challenges of everyday life.  I’d call it inspiration on the fly.

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Stephen Graff is the author of the dystopian novel River Dawn, available now at Amazon.

Link to

Stephen has been a teacher non-stop for 27 years, starting out in Philadelphia at a number of proprietary schools.  For the past 9 years, he’s worked as an elementary school teacher full-time, a musician/performer part-time, a free-lance writer and fledgling beekeeper in his spare time.  He lives in Woodbury, NJ with his wife and daughter. He is the author of the dystopian novel RIVER DAWN.

Want to know more? http://www.sgraffwriter.com

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Mel’s Thinking…It’s Not That Easy Talking About Yourself

“Are you animal — vegetable — or mineral?” the lion asked Alice.
Who am I? It probably sounds like a weird question, but as soon as you start doing interviews or telling people about yourself and why you wrote a book, it definitely needs some thought. And it’s not that easy to answer.
I’m sure potential readers don’t want to know that I prefer dogs to cats, drink tea not coffee, can tidy but not clean…or maybe they do? Perhaps it would give some perfect insight into my writing. Then I have to decide on whether to go with *serious face* professional author interview or something lighter…am I funny, or is that only in my own head?
You can see from the number of questions I have – I’m really not sure who I am when it comes to writing about myself. I think everyone has so many personality facets it’s hard to decide which ones are relevant when you’re asked to write about yourself. It gets even harder when you’re used to focusing on what characters do and how they behave, rather than yourself. I’m sure of my characters, less so of myself it seems.
Is it just me – or do other authors find this pretty hard too?
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Guest Post…With Help from Mysteries by Elisabeth Foley

Whenever I read a good mystery, it makes me want to write one.

Reading is one of the best things a writer can do to stimulate their creativity, and I really believe that reading mysteries has a particularly potent effect on mine. I nearly always come away from a good mystery with a mind full of new ideas—none of them directly from the story I just read, but the process of trying to solve the mystery, and then looking back over how it was constructed after the solution is revealed, seem to set the wheels spinning in my brain. Even if I’m not writing a mystery at the time, if I find my inspiration for a project running dry, I’ll often pick up a good whodunit to refresh myself.

This past week I’ve been reading Lost Man’s Lane by Anna Katharine Green, an early American pioneer of detective fiction. She published her acclaimed debut novel The Leavenworth Case in 1878, and continued writing up through the 1920s. Lost Man’s Lane is the second book featuring one of her most entertaining characters, Miss Amelia Butterworth—a spinster lady of great propriety and determination, who is often regarded as a forerunner of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and other spinster detectives. Miss Butterworth assisted Green’s most frequently recurring character, the detective Ebenezer Gryce, in three books—That Affair Next Door (1897), Lost Man’s Lane (1898) and The Circular Study(1900). Miss Butterworth, who opens her narration of That Affair Next Door with the memorable words, “I am not an inquisitive woman…” is always careful to assure her readers that her “interference” in detective matters is prompted entirely by a sense of duty, though she shows a keen interest and relish in all her sleuthing.

One of my recent projects has been the creation of my own middle-aged lady detective, in the style of Miss Butterworth and Miss Marple, but with certain elements all her own. She is a widow, not a spinster. She’s not quite as forceful a personality as Miss Butterworth; she’s a kind-hearted woman who frequently employs her detective skills to help people in trouble. Though a romantic at heart, she also has a sense of humor and is eminently practical. The setting for her adventures is Colorado, shortly after the turn of the 20th century, which allows me to combine some of the drama and sophistication of Anna Katharine Green’s Victorian and Edwardian-era mysteries with the more rural setting to which I’m accustomed from writing Western stories. I can’t say positively when she’ll make her first appearance in print, but it will probably be sometime this year.

One thing I am sure of, though—if I get stuck working on one of her stories, I’ll be heading back to the bookshelf to find fresh inspiration from another mystery.

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Today’s guest post is by Elisabeth Foley, author of The Ranch Next Door and Other Stories, a collection of Western short stories that go beyond the standard action and adventure of the genre to focus on character and conflict. In the award-winning “Disturbing the Peace,” honorable mention in the 2010 Rope and Wire short story competition, a sheriff experiences a revelation about himself and his relationship with the people of his town, while in “The Outlaw’s Wife,” a country doctor worries that his young friend is falling for a married woman whose husband is rumored to be a wanted criminal. From the suspenseful “Cross My Heart” to the comedic romp of “A Rangeland Renaissance,” to a Western twist on star-crossed romance in the title story, “The Ranch Next Door,” these stories will appeal to a variety of readers, as well as established fans of the traditional Western.
Want to know more? Check out the links!
The Ranch Next Door and Other Stories available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords