WORLD-BUILDING
I’ve discussed bits and pieces of this subject before but I know many of you have no intention of scrolling through all 189 of my posts, as much as I’d love to have you do that! In any event, since I’m working on rolling out Meleena’s Adventures – Treasure Of The Umbrunna, I’ll pass on a comprehensive version of how to build your world, and how I did mine, as an example.
MAKE IT REAL FOR YOUR GENRE
Whatever you do, make your story real for your genre. If you’re going to bend rules, then bend them consistently, but be wary of stretching them too far so you don’t alienate your audience. Gentle, versus overt usually works best.
Though there’s a certain amount of world-building involved with any genre, when it comes to reality-based ones, in other words, those that are not fantasy or far-out science fiction, that world-building is minimal because most of the work is already done for you. What it amounts to is basically research of real locations, history and science.
On the other hand, with fantasy and far-out science fiction, normal rules don’t apply. It’s up to you to make up the locations, history and science.
ENCYCLOPEDIA
A smart writer will develop an encyclopedia as they create. This file, which may eventually become a glossary in the book, or books (if it’s a series), can be broken down into sections. What I’m not including, which should be a part of any story for consistency, are places and characters. Below are examples of things to consider when building your world.
GEOGRAPHY
The geography is the physical layout of the world where the story takes place. It’s a continent, planet, solar system, maybe just restricted to a forest or dale somewhere. That place needs to be set up and you need to build it from the ground up. It may be one climate, one terrain, or have a range. If you create the setting beforehand, you can refer to it as you write the story. Or, like me, I write the story first and add the details to the description in the encyclopedia. Then when the need arises, I refer to the encyclopedia to keep me straight later on. In the case of Meleena’s Adventures, her continent is Gallin and she starts out in Bug Flat. Her adventures take her all over, and I have a crude map drawn that may or may not get a full artistic treatment later. People love maps, so that’s a consideration.
FLORA
No world can go without some form of plant life. Even the most lifeless world would be completely boring for the reader without some form of trees, bushes or whatever. Sure, in a sci-fi story, there can be lifeless moon settings, but the story would be quite dull if that was the main world, unless the story took place inside a habitat. Then, inside the habitat, there would be something, hydroponic gardens or whatever. Of course, there are exceptions. Meleena’s world is full of many plants found on Earth, but just as numerous are species that are way out there. They defy physics, or any botanical principles. They’re my rules.
FAUNA (ICKY BUGS)
This is where you populate your world with animals and/or monsters, or as I call them, icky bugs. You can have just plain normal critters, slightly modified animals, or completely alien beasts and anything in-between. These creatures can either comply with real physics or you can break all the rules. Keep in mind that if you break all the rules, be consistent. Don’t try to get too technical with explaining why because that will get you in trouble with the people that know better!
The icky bugs in Meleena’s Adventures are all over the map. Many are inspired by the D&D creatures of the 80’s, but many I just pulled out of the air. Some are even inspired by the old B-movies from the 50’s. The last thing I’d try to do is apply real physics or biology to them and I don’t try to explain the physics behind them. I know better. THIS IS MELEENA’S WORLD!
PEOPLE
I use that term loosely, because that not only includes the indigenous populations of your world, but the characters. Most characters in stories either have to be human, humanoid, or at least some form that we humans can relate to. Your hero can be a four armed Slurg from Zot as long as she can relate to us as humans, with feelings and emotions. Meleena’s characters are a mix of races including Dwarves, Elves, humans, half-bugs, half-rats and other humanoids of races I leave deliberately vague, just to keep things intriguing. This world is meant to be that way. Your world should be also, but it can be based on reality as well, with just a touch of the fantastical.
CLIMATE
Day doesn’t turn into night on a world with nothing else happening. What about wind, rain, fog, snow, sleet, thunder, the Weather Channel? Your world needs weather just like everywhere else. Should it be unique or just plain weird? Will that weirdness get in the way of the story? Will it be part of what makes the story unique? Will it be part of the plot? Meleena’s world is like any other, with its share of good and bad weather. However, it’s not so much a factor in the first book, except for one every important event.
MEASUREMENT
The last article where I talked about Meleena’s world, I addressed measurement. This is a very important part of your world-building. You need to set standards. Are you going to go for simplicity and keep all measurement the same as in our world? Or, are you going to make your world more immersive and create your own unique system of measurement? How complicated, how simple?
I chose crude and simple, which at times made for some rather tricky writing. I already went over it once so I won’t repeat it again. You need to list your measurement system in your encyclopedia and refer to it often as you write your story. Time, distance, height, etc.
LANGUAGES
How many languages are there in your world? Is there a common tongue either for simplicity or because of some other reason? Be careful quoting alien languages. Don’t use long passages because most reader’s eyes will glaze over after a few sentences. However, naming these tongues and who speaks them is okay. Meleena, as I’ve outlined before, has a rather scary and unique gift to be able to speak, read, write and comprehend the true meaning of every language in her world. At first, she couldn’t understand the context because of her age, but as she grew, she became wiser and learned. How do you handle encountering those who don’t speak the common tongue in your world? You can use language barriers for all kinds of fun!
RELIGION
No world is complete without religion. Maybe to alien races, religion is a uniquely human trait, but since we’re all human and the ones reading and creating these stories, a world without religion, isn’t a truly realistic world. You need to create religion of some kind. It doesn’t have to be predominant to the story. It just has to be there for at least coloring in the background, at least. Meleena’s world has many Pagan religions but the only one mentioned so far is Esveen which is tied to the Gods Of The Blue Mountains. Your story can be completely devoid of religion. It’s not a mandatory element, but adds a deeper color of realism to most stories, especially fantasy.
CURRENCY AND TRADE
Every world runs on some form of exchange. Munny (as in “hunny” Winnie tha’ Pooh) rules. Of course, there are exceptions, but come on. For that extra touch of realism, how do your characters buy things, with gold, silver, diamonds or something you invented? What about shops, stores, the proprietors? In Meleena’s world, it’s a little bit of everything, though I don’t emphasize any particular currency, like a “national dollar” or some such thing. I deliberately leave it vague. One day, for story sake, I may bring up a particular currency but that’s to be seen. How about you? Is that something to add to your encyclopedia?
ARCHITECHTURE
The way your world is built is as much a function of the geography as it is the architecture. If it’s a fantasy world, are the buildings medieval? Are they something else? For science fiction, how wild is your imagination? Just keep in mind you have to describe these structures so your reader can understand them. Then, you must keep consistent for each setting. If not consistent, there must be a reason that structure is not normal and not just random. In Meleena’s Adventures, I have a mix of mostly medieval, but with alien structures all of my own invention. It’s my world, with my purpose.
ON AND ON
Here’s where the world details can go on forever. The more details you throw in, the more realistic, or I should say, immersive your world will be. Be careful though. Don’t bog the reader down in endless details. Maybe you want to be known as the guy or gal that goes for those little things, but at the same time, you don’t want to lose the story mired in useless trivia. Balance is the key.
Happy writing!
I HATE BEING PREACHED TO
My avid reading is a font of inspiration, no doubt. Case in point is the book I just read. While I won’t go into specifics, I will revisit a subject I’ve talked about numerous times.
PREACHING
What to I mean by preaching? Instead of telling (or showing) a story, say a thriller or mystery, the story is a thinly disguised attempt to sell an agenda. This agenda can be about any subject, whether it be religious, political or about an environmental cause. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the tone and the heavy-handedness of the prose. It’s whatever gets in the way of the reader’s enjoyment of the genre.
To some people, especially if they righteously agree with said preaching, they don’t mind. In fact, they may not even notice. However, I think the majority of us would rather just read a good story without agendas getting in the way.
THE UGLY OLD AGENDA AGAIN
Lots of us, as authors, have biases, whether consciously or unconsciously. We can’t help that our feelings color our writing. However, there can be a fine line between where your biases show through and where you’re simply telling a story that has nothing to do with it.
It’s when we go over the line and turn what starts out as a benign story into something else that an agenda shines through. Say, you write a mystery but you’re all fired up about a current political subject. Before you know it, the mystery takes on the tone of that political subject, and when you finish the story, it ends up looking like a propaganda sheet thinly disguised as a mystery novel. Maybe you did it unconsciously, maybe deliberately. Whatever the case, it’s an agenda.
ALIENATING AUDENCES
Okay, now I’m going to preach. I’ve said this over and over again. When you write to a specific agenda, you polarize. Once you take a side on a subject, you’ve automatically pissed off half the crowd. What’s going to happen? You’re going to lose half your audience! Why do that? Why not write mystery, thrillers, romance, westerns, whatever genre for everyone! Why not keep your audience wide?
When you write to a specific audience, sure, you get a bunch of people that will love it and agree with you, but wait a moment. They love it and agree with you, but you’re not getting any converts. You are preaching to the choir! You are simply getting them to go “Yeah!”
So what?
Sure, you may get a few into buying your books, thinking what you say makes sense, so you may earn some converts, but more than likely, your readers are going to already agree with you because word of mouth and reviews will get around and you will attract that audience: Half the crowd. If you’re okay with that, fine.
SHOULD BE SEPARATE GENRES
I’m a firm believer that Barnes & Noble and Hastings should create new categories at their stores for biased fiction. That is, fiction with an agenda. Whether it be political, cause or religion, these books should be separated from the regular genres so that we who like to read without being preached to don’t waste our money. One can only dream!
SUMMARY
I’m very careful to keep political, religious and sexual views to myself, or at least not open and public. I’m a writer of fiction. Sure, I have views on things, but I have no intention of alienating my audience and I don’t feel it’s my duty or obligation to espouse my views to anyone else. I’m not a politician or activist. I’ll leave it for them. I’m an author that wants as many people to enjoy my books as possible without them having to worry about me trying to push a political, religious, environmental or sexual agenda on them. How about you?
Happy writing!
MELEENA’S WORLD – TREASURE OF THE UMBRUNNA
Meleena’s world is a fantasy setting in a galaxy far far… fugeddaboudit. Let’s just say it’s different, which is the whole point of a fantasy world. It breaks all the rules… well, not all of them.
For the scientifically minded, you might as well get off your high horses. You’re probably going to hate the story. Remember, this is a fantastical setting. Real-world physics don’t apply, at least to a point. The world has its own set of rules that bend and flex for not only story purposes but for my own satisfaction. Deal with it.
GEOGRAPHY
The continent of Gallin in which Treasure of the Umbrunna is set is not clearly defined in the first novel. In fact, Gallin isn’t even named. It may be on a map if I ever get around to including one on a future book. I can say that the continent takes up a vast area, roughly the surface equivalent of Asia on Earth. However, the climate is quite different. For the purposes of the first novel, the area around Bug Flat is rolling hills with near and distant forests. In the far distance is the vast area known as the Blue Mountains. This forbidden and blocked off enclosed space is the realm of the Gods of the Blue Mountains, which also happens to be the title of book two.
BUG FLAT
Bug Flat is the small city where Meleena hangs. It’s the only home she knows and is her base of operations. She’s spent most of her life making trouble there. While venturing out of town occasionally, she’s always come back. Bug Flat is the capitol of a kingdom now run by Queen Rona, who reigns from Sivrisinek Castle, the edifice that dominates the skyline in a sharp bend of the Otraph river. The castle is quite old with an elaborate myriad of dungeons and tunnels below. Meleena is quite familiar with many of them.
PIG SPLAT
The Pig Splat is her home. It’s a bar started by her best friend Chit Chit. It was originally an Esveen chapel, abandoned until he grabbed it and fixed it up. It has flourished ever since.
RELIGION
Though there are many gods and Pagan beliefs throughout the many kingdoms and societies in Meleena’s world, the only one I introduce, so far, is Esveen. Esveenians worship the Gods of the Blue Mountains. They’re run by a fanatic that isn’t addressed until the second novel.
MAGICK
Note the spelling. Magick in Meleena’s world plays a big part in the daily lives of many citizens. Here, magick is spelled that way because like in our real world, magic is illusion, what a magician/illusionist does on stage, slight-of-hand. Magick, on the other hand is when Pagans perform rituals and spells, akin to Judeo Christians praying, but with a bit more elaborate oomph. In this fantasy world, magick is spells performed by a magick user.
A wizard is not a magick user. A wizard is a phony, an insult to the profession. It’s the same thing as a warlock isn’t a male Witch in our real world. A warlock is an oath-breaker or traitor. In Meleena’s world, a wizard is a fake magick user, someone who pretends to know the craft, but uses slight-of-hand to fool people into thinking he or she can do spells. That’s especially inane in this world because almost anyone can perform magick if they have the right ingredients and can learn the correct phrases. The issue is the consequences.
In Meleena’s world, magick can be performed at will, and there are no limits to the number of spells one can produce, given the proper ingredients and spell knowledge. The problem comes with mental capacity. The more spells cast, and especially the more powerful the spell is, the more it diminishes mental capacity. Depending on your species and race, you could perform many simple spells with little issue, but big ones would turn you into a raving lunatic. This is especially bad in the heat of battle. Elves have a better tolerance that most for casting spells as well as a race called the Rammanuta. Snorgs, on the other hand, can barely perform an itch spell without going nuts for an entire sun cycle.
MEASUREMENT
Measurement in Meleena’s world is completely different from ours. It takes some getting used to. There are no seconds, minutes or hours. There are only moments. Sixty moments is approximately an hour but that’s a close as it gets. Days are sun cycles. Years are season cycles. There are no months. Decades are ten season cycles and centuries are one hundred season cycles, millennia one thousand season cycles just like years.
Distances are paces. There are no inches, millimeters or whatever. Ten feet is about ten paces, but of course, that’s not quite right because there are multiple races and creatures, so a pace means something different to a Dwarf than it does to a human or a giant. As for height, a storey is about the same height as it would be in our world. Then again, we’re looking at it from a human perspective and through Meleena’s eyes because she’s human, so for the purposes of this story, a “storey” is the same as in both worlds. For other measurements of height or measurement, the term is hand-span. That would be a human hand-span. In this case, it’s assumed the same size even by Dwarves and Elves who often have large hands.
FLORA AND FAUNA (ANOTHER TERM FOR ICKY BUGS)
Meleena’s world is filled with normal as well as fantastical and horrible monstrosities. Not only will you find deer, beavers, dogs, cats, lions, elephants as well as seals and earth-like animals, but normalized fantastical beasts like Dwarves, Elves, Umbrunna and many surprises. To complicate matters, because of a battle between magick users a millennia ago, they created a myriad of monstrosities to sic on each other and those creatures survived, flourished and spread. That plague of beasts became ingrained into the fabric of Gallin.
The flora includes species of trees that one would find in any nursery from pine to ash, maple to poplar and flowers too numerous to list. However, there are many exotic and quite deadly species already natural to the world, now mixed with mutations created during that battle of the magick users. They, too, have spread throughout the continent.
What’s more is that Gallin is only a microcosm of the rest of the planet. What will Meleena find when her adventures take her to much more distant places?
Happy writing!
CAST OF CHARACTERS – TREASURE OF THE UMBRUNNA
At first I worried about revealing plot twists by describing the characters in this article but realized that Treasure Of The Umbrunna isn’t that type of adventure. It’s pretty clear, up front, who’s who, though there are surprises.
There can’t be a fantasy adventure story without more than a single character, even if the story is told almost entirely from Meleena’s point of view. For Treasure Of The Umbrunna, a significant point is that she must learn to work with others. Besides that, what about conflict? That means characters.
I’ll now describe the main cast of characters, as they appear in Treasure Of The Umbrunna. Many of them you’ll see again in further adventures, where there descriptions may contain significant updates. The Adventures are just getting started!
QUEELAN LODAR
Queelan is good with a sword and has been around the block. He appears to be in his late thirties but his real age is indeterminate at this point. Meleena is immediately attracted to him, but only as a conquest, and for no other reason. She realizes there’s something not quite right about her attraction, but isn’t quite sure why, but why let that stop her?
He’s tall, muscular and favors chain mail.
LEETH VESSLAW
Leeth is crude, rude and brash toward women. At first, Meleena wants to put a knife to his throat, until she learns his big secret.
He’s built like a wrestler, has bushy eyebrows with bald head surrounded by frizzy dark halo of hair. His greatest talents come from tracking and healing. He can also swing a mean mace.
WIZ CLARRAVA
Despite the name Wiz, he isn’t named that because he’s a magick user. It’s a family name, carried down through several generations as well as cousins. In this world, being called a “wizard” is an insult.
He just happens to be a magick user. Wiz, an Elf, hails from Fillinia, a city in the high foothills of Gallin. He’s quite good at his craft and is able to cast spells with less mental breakdown than other races. A problem with magick is that the more powerful the spell, the more it temporarily decreases the spell-caster’s intellect. That can cause severe complications in the heat of battle. Elves are better suited to magick because of this.
Wiz is small, thin, with pointed ears and almond shaped eyes.
BALDAR BANE
Baldar is the dry-witted, grumpy Dwarf. Decked out in studded armor, his rosy-cheeked face is buried in gray-white hair, even though he’s still a young adult for a Dwarf. At nine-hundred season cycles though, he’s been around.
He drives Meleena nuts with his ever-present pipe. That pipe is an ongoing mystery throughout the series.
GREL NIK
People call him Grelnik, which drives him nuts. Grel Nik is a washed-up magick user, banished to the dungeons under Sivrisinek Castle in Bug Flat. Tall, with four eyes and glasses to match, he sports a beard separated into three braids. He sometimes plays the part of a magick user with flashy garb including a tall hat covered in mysterious symbols and an elaborate purple robe. Most of the time, one is likely to find him puttering in his lab in blacksmith garb.
Meleena has to go to Grel, his preferred moniker, for help. She gets the feeling he knows more about her than he lets on.
CHIT CHIT
Her friend, her brother, this half bug, half human settled in Bug Flat and converted an old Esveen chapel into the Pig Splat bar. He took Meleena under his wing (in more than the literal sense).
Like Grel, he also has four eyes, but that’s as close as the comparison goes. His skin is lime-green, his mouth is surrounded by a set of mandibles and his back is covered with a pair of delicate multi-hued wings.
A light-hearted, friendly sort, he makes a good bartender, and a great foil for Meleena. While she rarely listens to him, he’s been there too many times to tell her he told her so.
VAAAVEN
This half rat, half human is a shifty-eyed little thief. His role is small but significant. He and Meleena go way back, and he’s her eyes and ears in the street, though she can’t trust him any more than he trusts her.
He looks pretty much like you’d picture a half rat, half human. Beady eyes, pointy nose, coarse whiskers and buck teeth. However, there’s more to him than meets the eye.
OBRIGAN
Obrigan is the current royal magick user and Grel’s replacement. He’s Grel’s nemesis and chief thorn in his side. It’s widely suspected that Obrigan controls the Queen. His hands are quite dirty.
DAWG
This flop-eared puppy, is actually a full-grown dog of indeterminate breed, somewhat between a beagle, a lab and a golden retriever He mysteriously shows up one day, seems innocent enough and annoying enough to be just a plain old dawg, which inspires Meleena’s name for him. Is he? Time will tell.
SUMMARY
That isn’t every character, but should be a good introduction to some of the key and interesting characters you’ll meet in Treasure Of The Umbrunna.
Happy writing!
WHO’S MELEENA?
I originally posted this article in February, 2012, when I thought Meleena’s Adventures – Treasure Of The Umbrunna was going to be published by my former publisher. A lot of time has passed and I’m now signed with Inkwell Publications. With the manuscript well into the editorial process, I feel more confident than ever that it’s going to be available to the public soon, so it’s time to rekindle my introduction to Meleena’s world. No better place to start than to introduce the main character herself.
INTRODUCTION
This first installment in my sword and sorcery fantasy series is told entirely in her point of view (with the exception of one small spot at the very end). It takes place on the continent of Gallin and starts in the town of Bug Flat.
A BRAT
To put it bluntly, Meleena’s a brat. At twenty-three years old, she lives by her quick wits, and quicker fingers. She begins the story with no moral compass. She’s bedded more men than she can count and has an aversion to attachment. They’re simply tools to satisfy a need.
She’s the type of person that’ll drop a hornet’s nest in a crowd, run for cover and watch the mayhem with glee. It’s not unusual for her to start a fight between two or more people (or creatures), step back and watch the fun.
EARLY LIFE
Her earliest memories are fuzzy. She wandered the streets where she eventually ended up at the home of her “Aunt” Leena. Leena gave her the name Meleena, or “my Leena”. She has no idea if Leena was a true blood relation.
Early on, Leena realized the young girl had unusual abilities. With her brown eyes centered with silver pupils, she seemed to be able to read people’s minds. What Meleena could really do was speak any language, even if she wasn’t old enough to understand the context of the words. That “mind reading” stare Leena noticed was Meleena translating different languages in her head. Her only limitation was her vocal cords. Once Leena figured this out, she realized her young niece was very special, and in an extremely dangerous position.
One of the few pieces of advice Meleena listened to was Leena’s warnings about keeping her abilities with languages to herself, especially when she discovered she could also read and write any language.
When she was ten, Leena tried to get her interested in school. By then, Meleena had read hundreds of books on her own, some from curiosity, but often as not, to research an angle for a con. She couldn’t help but learn things along the way. As a result, she found what the teachers offered simple and boring. Meleena had a lot more fun causing trouble. During the one school session she “sort-of” attended, she met some boys almost instigated a war between Bug Flat and a local tribe of Snorgs, a race of half-pig half-gorillas.
Fed up with her young ward’s shenanigans, Leena called in a woman to try and turn Meleena into a regular lady. When Meleena overheard the conversation, she packed her meager belongings and hit the streets (see my short story Don’t Mess With A Snorg on the Fantasy page).
BAD TIMES
Two years later, she was captured, raped and imprisoned. That unpleasant experience never jaded her toward men, but taught her how to kill when she finally escaped and found her rapist. Killing someone never bothered her one way or the other. It was a task that had to be done, in this case to right a wrong.
CHIT CHIT AND THE PIG SPLAT
One day, she found the Pig Splat, a former Esveen chapel (the local religion), converted into a bar. The owner, Chit Chit, was a half human, half insect with four eyes, mandibles, green skin, thin wings, an otherwise human face, hands and feet. He became like a brother and best friend. The Pig Splat became her base of operations. Chit Chit was always there for her, no matter what.
THE ADVENTURE BEGINS
The story starts with Meleena coasting right along, partying and causing mayhem until she hears about this extremely valuable pearl that could bring her fame and fortune… well, at least fortune. When she decides to go after it, being a loner isn’t going to work. Reluctantly she has to accept the help of others. Along the way, she’s going to have to make a moral decision that will change the course of her life. Will she do the right thing? Will she change her ways? Meleena’s Adventures – Treasure Of The Umbrunna takes you on a wild adventure to find out.
Later on I’ll detail more about Meleena’s world and some of the other characters and creatures in it.
Happy writing!
CAST OFCHARACTERS
It’s essential for every story to have a cast of characters. There’s always the main character, or to be more technical, the main protagonist. Then there are the sidekicks, followed by peripheral characters and then chance encounters.
On the other side there’s the bad guy or technically the antagonist. Depending on the story, there may be more than one. The story may break down into the same bad guy sidekicks, followed by peripheral and chance bad guys.
As a writer, and depending on the genre, to create conflict which is what makes your story a story in the first place, you need a bit of both sides. How you break it down is entirely up to you, though certain genres usually abide by certain tropes to be categorized as that genre.
PROTAGONIST (GOOD GUY?)
Though this is slanted toward fiction, this can also apply toward autobiographies. After all, real life is full of good guys (you), sidekicks (your friends), lots of peripheral characters and of course, plenty of “bad” guys (the drama in your life). However I’ll be speaking mainly in terms of fiction so you non-fiction writers will have to adapt. Just keep in mind that an autobiography would be pretty dry without drama!
The premise of any story is the good guy, the driver of the story. This is the figure that the story is based upon, the purpose and center of the plot. Does this mean the person has to be good? Not at all. The “hero” can actually be a bad guy, someone despicable. That’s not the point. The point is, the character has to be the focus and the one you, the author, has to make sympathetic (or not so) for the reader. You might make them a real hero, a flawed hero, or someone despicable, but with some redeeming trait that the reader will care about so they continue reading. You have to give the reader a reason to root for (or against) the protagonist or there’s no point in the story, unless the whole point of the story is to set up the protagonist to fail in the first place. There are stories like that. I personally hate them, but that’s neither here nor there. It’s your story, and the protagonist is the focus of the plot, so good guy or not, that character is the reason for being there.
This person requires the most description and time devoted to character development. I wouldn’t dedicate whole chapters their inner feelings or past without action, but parse it out in palatable doses so not to bore the reader, unless the whole point of the story is a literary character study, a genre in itself. The past, such as flashbacks, can be done successfully in full chapters if there’s action involved, though as I’ve stated many times before, I’m not a big fan of long flashback scenes. Some people are, so if that’s your thing, it’s your call.
SIDEKICKS
The sidekicks can be semi-main characters or just the guys or gals the protagonist kicks around and uses to move the plot along. It’s up to you. They usually get a lot of page time and help coalesce key plot elements.
They should get a decent description and modest character development. Whole chapters dedicated to their character development is a bit much, so keep that in mind (except the literary character study).
PERIPHERAL CHARACTERS
These are the chance encounters we run into every day. They require no further development than a basic description, maybe a name if you feel like it. That’s it. Case closed.
ANTAGONIST (BAD GUY?)
The bad guy (gal), or antagonist, is the other half of the equation. The bad guy or gal may not show up until halfway through the story, or even later, by name or physical presence, but his or her presence must felt right from the beginning. There has to be a reason for the story to take place.
Some authors spend a lot of real estate going into the bad guy’s head, either to justify why the bad guy is bad, or just because they’re literary and the hidden or overt premise of the book is a character study. If that’s your thing, fine. Whichever way you go, you need to justify what, where when why and how for the reader. Just make it interesting and believable. Try not to make the character cartoonish, unless that’s the purpose of the story. Too many times I’ve seen adventure and thriller stories portray the bad guy (or gal) as an extreme exaggeration, to the point of ridicule rather than simple “bigger is better.” Be sure not to skew the balance of description either by dedicating too much time to the bad guy and not enough to the good guy.
Some stories have more than one main bad guy, such as with sub-plots and red herrings. Just keep in mind not to go off on tangents.
As for bad guy sidekicks, they deserve as much attention as the good guy sidekicks. The same rules apply to peripheral bad guys as peripheral good guys.
TOO MANY CHARACTERS SPOIL THE PLOT
This is a common flaw of the omniscient point of view. These stories tend to have a cast of thousands like the Lord Of The Rings. Keep in mind that too many characters on either side leaves a muddled mess. By the end of the story, or even halfway through, the reader won’t be able to tell the difference between them and they lose their impact. While LOR was considered a classic, there were many who didn’t like it for that very reason. They couldn’t tell the difference between names and if it weren’t for the movies decades later and with the different faces and actors, they still wouldn’t know the difference.
I’ve read several thriller series of late that have that issue. They’re pseudo omniscient and have a huge cast, loosely held together by several main characters. The problem is that it’s hard to get invested in any one of them. While the story is fun to some degree, there’s no central character I really care about. I’m not invested in them.
THE CHOICE IS YOURS
Characters drive your story. The fewer and more memorable they are, the more likely your readers are going to want for more.
Just something to keep in mind.
Happy writing!
AVOID FLAT EMOTIONLESS PROSE
There are many advantages to being an avid reader. Case in point is the story I just finished. It’s a novel by a British author that’s part of a ghost hunting series. It’s full of that dry Brit humor, which I actually get, after living in Europe for a decade and being exposed to Benny Hill and Mr. Bean. Having that ancestry helps also. However, that stuff can’t carry a book. There has to be more.
EXCLAMATION MARKS DON’T MAKE EMOTION
My mentor, Carol Davis Luce, once told me to kill the exclamation marks. In my writing, especially with personal messages, I tend to use lots of exclamation marks. In fact, whenever I write a personal message, I always have to edit and clean up the exclamation marks. I used to do that in my fiction prose. As she says, they scream melodrama and also, after a while, they lose their impact. In other words, if you’re trying to convey emotion, after a while they become ineffective. In addition as one would say in the movies, they show overacting.
In this particular story, the author uses them in almost every dialogue scene, and there’s a LOT of dialogue. While I love dialogue, these exclamation marks have become like periods to me. They have no meaning at all. Because of that, I don’t see any emotion either.
OMNISCIENT DOESN’T HELP
Though some may disagree, when the viewpoint is third-person omniscient, that leads to a head-hopping free-for-all. With that, the author jumps from one head to the next, and never gives each character a chance to flesh out their feelings in a coherent way. Just as you’re starting to get into the character’s feelings about something, another character says or does something that interrupts the flow. You switch to that other character’s head for a bit then shifts either back to the original character or to someone else. That doesn’t lend to much emotional impact.
FLAT REACTIONS – NO ANGST
Okay, I’m the last person to want a character experience something and then have to suffer through page after page of angst and turmoil over it. However, what I do want and expect is a paragraph or two, or even a sentence or two of significant emotional reaction to give life to a character. This is especially important when these events are severe, or key to the story (or character).
Joe wins the grand prize at the fair for the largest pumpkin after struggling his whole life and never being able to grow a single plant. His dying father’s last words were “I’m proud of you.”
Joe feels good and moves on.
That’s it? That’s all you got? Are you kidding me?
You could write a book about that reaction (ha ha), a sentence, a paragraph or a chapter, something with emotion and significance, not just “Joe feels good and moves on.”
I’ve seen members of our writer’s group come up with the virtually the same thing. Our members have pointed it out time and time again, yet some people just don’t get it.
IF THERE’S NO EMOTIONAL IMPACT – IT SHOULDN’T BE THERE
That’s kind of a loaded statement because there is a time and place for unemotional – flat emotionless reactions. However, they need to be highlighted in the prose. The point is that they should be the exception, not the norm.
The story can’t be that way or it leaves the reader flat and wondering why they’re even bothering. You don’t want to do that.
As for the story I just read, well… What kept me there was that I wanted to see what happened. The plot, not the characters was what I held out for. I wanted to see how it ended. The characters were just there. I’m more plot-driven anyway, so I can probably tolerate something like this more than the literary crowd. However, in the end, there was only a little emotional impact that leaked through this omniscient story. The dry Brit humor was okay but… The ending partially redeemed the rest of it… partially.
EVERYTHING ISN’T EASY – DOESN’T FALL INTO PLACE
When too much of your story is easy, the bad times just seen too trivial. I’ve seen stories in our writer’s group and in print where there’s a character that rises from dire circumstances but then everything just goes perfectly. Say what? That’s just not the way the real world works. When you do that, the dire circumstances lose their impact. It’s not realistic.
That’s another way of being flat and emotionless. A leads to B with no real complications because life becomes too perfect – too simple. There can’t be drama in A and smooth sailing in B or people will lose interest, especially if B is two-thirds of the story!
It’s up to you to add life to your creation.
Happy writing!
FINDING THE RIGHT WRITER’S GROUP
I know I’ve talked about this subject until I’m blue in the face, but after a recent meeting, it really struck home. You see, as a writer I’m also an observer and a listener. Okay, certain family members would say a selective listener, but let’s not pick at straws here, and I don’t care if it’s a cliché. The point is that when I listen, I pick up on things, like subjects for my articles! Collectively, even though I’ve covered it before, I’ve gathered another head of steam about writer’s groups because I’ve been hearing stuff, inspiring stuff, not in any spiritual sense, but in it’s time to discuss it with my readers inspiring stuff.
First let’s define what I mean by a writer’s group.
THE GOOD
A writer’s group to me is one where you can read your work and have it critiqued. In other words, it’s a critiquing writer’s group. That, to me, is what I consider a good writer’s group. It’s one where you get your hands dirty, where you actually dive in, present your work, get it critiqued by your peers and also critique others. In this way, you actually learn the craft of writing and practice it.
THE BAD
A writer’s group that is basically just a club that talks about writing, maybe has speakers that come in a talk about writing is to me, something that barely touches the surface. You can listen to people until you’re blue in the face (and once again, I don’t care if it’s a cliché). You’ll end up with a whole lot of knowledge, but if you try to put it into practice, if you don’t have a support system and second sets of eyes to look it over, you could still be writing crap. There will be nobody to see the forest through the trees, no matter how many talks you attend, how many books you read and how many discussions you have. After all, do you take a course in writing, just listen to the instructor and never turn in any work to be graded?
A club is a club. Just because the subject and interest matter happens to be about writing doesn’t make it effective or beneficial to you unless there is a way for you to present your work. Someone, in fact many people should see it!
However, I want to make it clear that I’m not condemning writer’s clubs. They do serve a purpose, for general knowledge. They’re a great way to supplement your understanding of writing. However, they should not be your sole way of gaining your chops. If you had a choice between a good critique group and a writing club, chose the critique group. If you can dedicate the time to both, go for it. If it’s your only choice, take what you can get, but consider starting your own critique group.
THE UGLY
The writer’s group from hell is out there. There are many faces to this type organization in all of their mean facets. They have agendas, allow blood on the floor, and when you leave a meeting, often you’re either pissed off, embarrassed, or depressed.
Sorry folks. That’s not productive!
Vibe is everything!
As an adult instructor with an education background, I can tell you that a hostile learning environment is counterproductive. Not only that, as a writer chasing his muse, inspiration and joy can be sucked right out of your life in a hostile and intimidating environment.
When you engage in a group that gives you this feeling, I don’t care the circumstances, run, don’t walk away! If that means seeking out a new group, starting your own, or just having to go solo, it’s better than putting up with that kind of bull.
GAINING YOUR CHOPS
Practical experience is the only way to gain your chops. With a critique group, you read samples of your work and people tell you what they think. You get a broad spectrum. This not only gives you different viewpoints, but it toughens you up to be able to take criticism. Keep in mind that this should be about the work and not you. It should be constructive and positive.
If you want to be a writer, don’t be a wallflower.
There will often be conflicting views of what you should do. Then, you need to take what the most experienced voices say, look it up, or go with your gut. As you gain experience, you will learn which way to go.
I’ve covered much of this several times in the past but the subject keeps coming up in my encounters, so I know it’s always a hot topic amongst writers.
WHAT I HEAR
We had a new person show up. He went to an alternative group (a writer’s club) in town. They told him that if he wanted a serious writer’s group, he needed to contact our group.
A member came back from a trip to another state and he visited a writer’s group there. He noticed an instant vibe the moment he walked through the door. Hostility. The room was filled with people with agendas, cliques and factions. They grouped into hostile camps. He couldn’t believe it.
At the conference last year, I talked to several people from out of town. I do a poll every year. Some were in writer’s groups similar to ours, while others were from small towns where they had nobody with which to form a group. Some were in clubs instead of critique groups and wished they had critique groups. Others were in hostile critique groups. One quit his group because he was in a writer’s group from hell.
A few weeks ago I talked to one of our members who used to be in the same writer’s group from hell I was in here in Las Vegas when I first arrived in 2002. He said it was still going until the Borders store closed a few years ago. I’m surprised it lasted so long. He still doesn’t know why he stayed as long as he did. He didn’t say how much he got out of it, but he was relieved to learn of our group.
I’ll probably continue to redo this same article in various forms because I’m a strong advocate for writer’s critique groups. Mine has helped me so much I can’t begin to say, and I know it’s helped many of our other writers.
Happy writing!
A SHORT INTERVIEW WITH MYSELF
Every author needs a publicity packet. As part of that packet, a good component is the quick interview to let potential customers know a bit about you. You don’t want to tell them every irrelevant detail in a fifty question diary that’s a hundred pages long, just a quick-and-dirty few questions to pique their interest. The following might or might not be the final result of what’s going to be in my packet. It’s an example of what you might consider for your own self-interview one day.
WHY DID YOU START WRITING?
I was in Clarence Ruth Elementary School in Lompoc, Calee’fornia when my English teacher was talking about nuclear war. He said that if all the energy were released from our English book at once, that was enough power to destroy the world. From that point on, until I graduated from high school, I hated English. Yet, I loved to tell stories, loved to read, and my imagination had no bounds. Various essays in school, despite my aversion to English, showed I had a talent for writing (though I didn’t realize it at the time). However, my first attempt at fiction didn’t come until I started a Star Trek satire in Spain, in 1971 on a manual typewriter. I made ¾ of a page and realized it was hard! I quit and never tried again until I actually learned to write the “Nazi method” by my Air Force boss. He forced me to learn to write proper for performance reports, since I was a supervisor. After a while, I realized I had a knack for it, and took on a different outlook to that nuclear analogy from Clarence Ruth toward English. Then, in 1995, when I realized I was never going to make it as a musician, I needed a creative outlet. Things just came forth and I found magic in words.
FROM WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR INSPIRATION?
I’ve always had an active imagination, from when I used to tell the kids at kindergarten during show and tell that my sister went down the drain after bath time, to being part of a crew on a sailing ship in junior high school. However, I can sum up the shining example one day coming home from kindergarten in Lakewood Calee’fornia. I used to walk home through the end of a cul-de sac to our house. All the neighborhood women would be out waiting for me to tell them what I did at school that day. One day, I had this drawing. The ladies gathered around and asked me what it was. I thought about it a moment, then it just popped into my head. “It’s a Polka-dot Sewer.” My mom heard them all laughing and came down to see what the uproar was about, and that was history.
That pretty much sums up my inspiration. It just comes out of the air. I can’t explain it any better than that.
WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST NOVEL- HOW DID YOU GET STARTED?
I was on my waning years in the Air Force, working on college, yet I somehow found time to follow my muse – chase my polka-dot sewer. I had an idea for a bunch of friends to find a cave with alien artifacts inside. I wrote that first novel, The Cave, a science-fiction adventure and actually completed it. That story will never see print, but it was a start. Right then, I knew I could do it. I had so much fun, despite full-time classes on the weekends and lots of homework that I went right into my next novel, my first icky bug (horror), The Greenhouse.
WHAT GENRES DO YOU WRITE AND WHY?
I’ll say right up front that I follow my muse. Because of that, I write in multiple genres, which I’ve already alluded to above. So far, I’ve written science fiction, icky bug (horror), adventure thrillers and fantasy.
Something I need to impress upon you is that despite the broad genres, some things are common to all of them. They’re all still adventures, and they all have humor. That’s something I strongly believe is part of me, and I can’t help it be part of my writing. Will that ever change? Who knows, but as it stands right now, that’s the way it is.
WHY DID YOU CHOOSE FANTASY?
Funny story about that. I never had any intention on writing a fantasy, frankly because I haven’t enjoyed a fantasy novel since reading Andre Norton back in the seventies. To tell the truth, besides some similarities you may notice in Meleena’s Adventures to Lord Of The Rings, I didn’t actually like the trilogy all that well. I tackled it in Palmdale Calee’fornia in 1969 while watering a golf course at night for a summer job. I read between sprinkler runs and had to keep my feet off the floor to avoid the scorpions running around on the floor. I had to struggle through the three novels, and didn’t understand why until I recently tried to read one again. They’re written in the omniscient point of view. Yuck! Besides that, the novels were too wordy. I’ve suffered through other fantasy tomes because my wife is into fantasy. I didn’t like them, mainly because of wordiness and because they were based mostly on intrigue rather than adventure and action.
My wife is the reason I decided to write fantasy. She talked me into it. My inspiration came from playing Dungeons and Dragons in the 80’s, not Lord of the Rings. The story is then again, an adventure set in a fantasy world, thus the main title, Meleena’s Adventures. I make no bones about that. I wrote it the way I’d want a fantasy to be. I’m hoping my readers will feel the same way.
SUMMARY
Folks, there you have it. I could go on and on with questions, but much more and a reader’s eyes will glaze over. Maybe not, but I’ll leave it up to someone else to think of more questions. Happy writing!
CONTENT EDITING – THE RESULTS
For those of you that have never reached this point yet, I have, so I thought I’d give you a blow-by-blow, of sorts.
Last night, Saturday (as I write this), I finished my all-out effort to get this thing done. What might take some authors weeks or even months to complete, I did in a weekend and a half. I wanted to hit it on the weeknights, but I’ve been working overtime so haven’t had a chance to touch it during the week.
THE SOONER THE BETTER
I’ve always had the philosophy that if you’re going to sit around and whine, nothing is going to get done.
I’ve also always had the philosophy that editing is fun, at least most of the time. In this case, while it presented some challenges, I still enjoyed those creative hurdles and rose to them.
Finally, if I ever had a realistic dream of getting this novel published any time soon, it would never happen if I didn’t do my part by getting my work done in a timely manner. The sooner the better!
WHAT DID I GET?
When I received the content edit, I received an e-mail with two files. A clear caveat here: My experience might be entirely different from yours, so don’t expect it to be exactly the same! This is just a possible example!
The first file was the manuscript with all the edits and comments on the side. This was the working file.
The second file was overall comments from the editor, with feelings and suggestions to make the story better.
HOW TO TACKLE IT
As I said in my last article, I had to find a way to organize it so I wasn’t tackling it willy-nilly. As it turned out, by simply following the edits and comments on the main manuscript, it was already organized enough that I was able to follow along with the other comments on the separate file.
Included with the big picture, the editor found the occasional line edit items. I’d make the correction, then highlight it in green and make a comment in the comment box on the side and also highlight that in green. That way, when they’d get it back, they’d know exactly what I did, and why. Of course, that takes time, which can be tedious, the more there is to edit.
Also, as I made those minor corrections, I found other things on my own that I corrected. When I did, I highlighted them in green then added a comment box and of course, highlighted the text in green, even though that comment box often changed color (sometimes red, sometimes blue).
I didn’t necessarily have to do it this way, but I wanted to make it clear to the editor what I’d done. You could do it any way you want, just make sure it’s clear and trackable for the editors.
During the course of the edit, I found a few consistencies they didn’t find. I have certain time and measurement standards that evolved as I went along. I made massive changes to the whole manuscript and used the above technique to highlight those changes. With dozens of them, that took some time!
Now, for the biggies. When I came to issues like believability of the value of the McGuffin (so not to give away the plot), when I came to those major spots, I consulted the notes on the pages of the manuscript plus the comments in the other file. This is where my creativity really came into play. For some of you, it can appear like a daunting task and might seem like a major rewrite. However, by thinking and with only some minor tweaks, I resolved these issues. The thing is that I not only had to tweak at that spot, I also had to follow up with tweaks in several spots later in the story, which meant searching for those places. Sometimes the editor had already found them, but in a couple of cases, it took some scanning and speed reading to find those locations as simple word search wasn’t good enough.
In other cases, there were areas where a section of dialogue needed to be moved to a previous chapter and the current chapter needed to have the first part cut so it could start after the dialogue (one example). By doing this, that meant also tweaking the surrounding narrative or dialogue to make it fit right.
WELL WORTH IT
Is this a lot of work? For me it was a weekend and a half and about 24 hours of actual computer time. For you it might be more or less, depending on what your editor finds. Sure, it’s a lot of work, but I think the story is much better for it, and despite some tedium, I had a lot of fun doing it. I’m quite happy with the result.
What now?
What I expect is another read-through and maybe another set of tweaks before it goes to the line-editor. After making these changes I just did, the content editor may see a few more flaws that weren’t readily visible on first blush. If not, it will go to the line-editor which might mean lots of red ink! Then again, since we caught a lot of that already, it might not be that bad. We’ll see.
I hope this gives you a little insight on what you’ll go through after you sign that contract and actually start the publication process. There’s lots more to go.
Happy writing!
The Worlds Of Fred Rayworth 