The Confabulator Cafe

Author: slundberg

  • Who’s Driving this Plot?

    A plot without characters

    If you want to start an argument between writers, just ask what is more important to a story: characters or plot. It’s the politics or religion debate of the writing world. It’s a subject in which you will never be able to change a writer’s mind once he or she has decided, and what is at the core of our writing styles.

    The safe answer – the one that most of us commit to – is that both are important. It’s true. For a good story you need both plot and characters. But as for which is more important, I will side with characters every time.

    If you look at the craft of storytelling, I think it’s important to focus on your characters in such a way that readers don’t think about the plot. The concept of plot is a technical aspect of writing. It’s not something I want my readers focusing on. All I want my readers worrying about what is going to happen next and how the characters that they have hopefully become attached are going to deal with whatever horrible things I do to them (or at least despise to the point where they want to make sure the character gets what he or she deserves) .

    My other argument for characters over plot is that if you have strong, interesting characters, eventually they will insist that something happen, or they will go looking for trouble. Plots are driven by what the characters want, and the obstacles they encounter as they try to reach their goals. I could throw the same drastic obstacles at any set of characters, and the plot of the story would be different based on the character’s personality. If you have boring, flat characters – even if you throw the most interesting conflicts at them – readers won’t care how they react if they don’t like them or can’t relate to them.

    There is an extreme side of characters vs. plot. If you have interesting characters that just sit around having witty conversation, but they don’t actually ever do anything or change in any significant way, you don’t have a story. Things need to happen.

    However, if all you do is have things happen to your characters, and all they do is react, it doesn’t make a good story. Plots must be character driven. If I’ve learned anything in my several years of writing, it is that characters must be proactive. They must do things, not just react to what is happening to them.

  • Reverse Psychology in Literature

    There will always be taboos in society and culture, even in literature. And because there will always be taboos, people will always try to challenge them. Sometimes I wonder if taboos aren’t created just so there can be radicals to toe that line.

    What is considered taboo today, I have no idea, but I’m sure writers do whatever they can to push that. I think it’s healthy. Signifies growth. Keeps us from becoming stagnant in our ideas. We might never have had a Renaissance otherwise.

    So perhaps that is why the tastemakers matter. So there will always be someone to thumb their noses at them. Turn standards on their heads and do the complete opposite of what is accepted in order to keep humans evolving mentally.

    Although I feel sometimes that we are de-evolving by allowing the tastemakers to censor literature and whatnot in the name of safety. Protection. Censorship is a slippery slope. Once you start saying no, there’s the question of where to draw that line. And who gets to decide that? I think each person should define their own boundaries, or the boundaries of their children. Also, perhaps, public areas where parents relinquish their control over their child temporarily.

    That’s not to say I don’t have my own personal boundaries, or things I consider taboo in my own writing. There are certain lines I won’t cross.

    Although I won’t say never. I have to continue to challenging myself, as well, so maybe sometimes I need to write what makes me uncomfortable. I wrote a novel where one of the main characters was a serial killer. I never thought I’d write gratuitous sex and violence, but the story took me there, and I am a better writer for it.

    So I think my final answer is that of course there are taboos, but that’s a good thing, the tastemakers matter because in their restriction they cause us to flourish, and that books should never be banned, only monitored around those not old enough to set their own boundaries who are away from their parental units.

    Is that all just semantics? Am I actually pro censorship? Do the reasons you support an issue matter in the end?

  • Action!

    I hate writing action scenes. I’m abysmal at it. I write and re-write my action scenes, and even when I’m done I’m not quite sure I got them right. I’d rather just say “and then they had an epic fight” instead of describing the action, blow by blow.

    I skim over the action scenes so I don’t have to explain them. Explaining is hard!

    But it’s not just the action scenes. I have a tendency to want to summarize all of important scenes so I don’t have to delve into the detail.

    I fight with myself constantly to be sure I’m showing, not telling. It’s poor, lazy writing when writers tell instead of show. I think it shows more about the character of the writer, not the character in the story – the amount of telling instead of showing in a novel.

    Telling is heavy handed. It forces your readers to think what you want them to think without any art.

    Showing allows your readers to think for themselves, and apply their own emotions and interpretations.

    But, I’m telling you why showing is better than telling. Allow me to give you an example to “show” what I mean about showing vs. telling.

    Telling: Jasmine was really sad and frustrated.
    Showing: Hot tears coursed down Jasmine’s cheeks and she slammed her fists down on the table.

    I also like to use dialog to show rather than tell. It’s easier than showing by describing.

    Telling: Emma was skeptical of her friend’s claim.
    Showing: Emma frowned. “You really expect me to believe that?”

    Which do you find more engaging? More interesting? Better writing? Do you like it when the writer tells you what to think, or do you like drawing your own conclusions?

    I know which I prefer, which is why I fight with myself so hard to be the writer I like to read.

  • Input/Output

    Just as writers get ideas from all around us, we also are influenced by everything we come into contact with. I dedicated a portion of my own personal blog entries to this phenomenon, which I affectionately call the Input/Output modes. Anything we take in inevitably affects what comes out.

    As a writer, I talk a lot about other writers and books that influence me, but sometimes I forget how much the other categories of art inspire me, as well.

    Music is a powerful one. When I listen to instrumental music, new worlds unfold inside my mind, and I envision scenes to fit with that music. When I was a kid, I used to lie in bed listening to my favorite movie soundtracks and make up new stories to go with them. Hell, I still do that sometimes. For some novels, I’ll create a Pandora station based around certain songs or bands for a certain mood. For others, I will pick one specific instrumental movie soundtrack and listen to it over and over, which shapes my story quite a bit, inspiring scenes I wouldn’t have otherwise fathomed.

    Visual arts – paintings, drawings, sculptures, and photographs – also trigger stories in me. I have always struggled with setting and description. I have a vague idea of what a person or place looks like, but the details are usually missing in my writing. Visual representations help me really consider the details.  Sometimes a picture will really speak to me and I’ll be driven to write a story that fits the scene. I’ll want to tell the story of how that domed city on the cliff came to be, or why the sky has inexplicable green miasma in it, or where that dragon got all of those books. Then characters will start to wander around inside the images to answer all of these questions for me.

    The arts aren’t the only other medium that influence my writing, however.

    (more…)

  • Unusual Bedroom

    I'm sure there's an explanation for this…

    Almost all of my stories start with a character. Even when I only have the vaguest idea of what the story is about, or where it takes place, some loudmouthed character starts telling me what’s up. “This is my story. This is what happens to me. You’re gonna tell it right now.”

    Why do my characters always have an attitude?

    Before I start a new story, I have a variety of character worksheets I like to fill out. It helps me nail down the particulars of my protagonist. This character is a person with a whole life from birth to present, and I’m only telling a small section of it. Knowing that person’s history, even if it never makes it into the story, helps turn a character into a real person.

    When I’m actually writing a story, it’s a whole different experience, the way characters develop. They tend to crop up out of nowhere. Some character my protagonist meets in passing – a barista, a cop at a crime scene, a random coworker – ends up turning into an important supporting character. I never worry about developing them too much. They know their place in the story better than I do, since I didn’t expect them in the first place. I learn about them in how they interact with my protagonist (or antagonist), and they reveal their own backstory as I write them.

    As far as the reader? They don’t get to know everything. They get to know what I tell them. What I let them see. I get to pick and choose what traits best portray my character. They do get a firsthand look into the character’s mind, and everything that is going on from the time the story starts til when it ends, but as the writer, I have to put that character in context without writing the character’s entire life story. I try not to get too bogged down in character details in the telling of their story.

    The reader wants to know what happens next, not what the protagonist’s bedroom looks like.

    Unless it is somehow significant to the plot. Or unless it’s an unusual bedroom which illustrates something important about the character’s personality.

    Besides, I think I am obligated to uphold something like a doctor/patient confidentiality agreement. Author/character confidentiality. Some stuff my characters tell me in confidence.

  • Make Millions or Mistakes

    When I began my quest to become a published writer, I set myself the goal to have a novel published, available for purchase, within ten years. I gave myself ten years because I know I will have to work hard, suffer rejection and the inevitable bouts of crippling self doubt, but also because the book market is in flux. It’s changing. Traditional publishing is changing.

    People are actually self-publishing now. And actually making some money doing it.

    Just look at Amanda Hocking. Millions?

    So it is possible.

    But her story is probably the exception to the rule. I think to actually have success self-publishing, there is a lot more work involved than writing a book and putting it up for sale on Amazon.

    The biggest con of self-publishing is probably the lack of a brand. There is a huge stigma attached to those who put books out themselves instead of going through a big publishing house. There’s no guarantee for quality control. I think for self-publishing to be taken seriously, you need a reliable editor.

    That was my problem with Ms. Hocking. I read some of her early stuff, and now I am too jaded to read any of her newer stuff. It had potential, but really needed an editor. Her books were born too early, and as writers, it’s difficult to be objective about our own work.

    There are definite pros, though: money, of course. No middle man to take a cut. Although in the long run, if you count labor, publicity, and printing/production costs (if you’re not doing ebook), and time is money, you might actually be losing it trying to do it all yourself.

    Of course, the biggest pro is you don’t have to be validated by some pretentious publishing house, or wait a year or more for contracts and book covers and all of that to be approved. You can just do it.

    So, if I near the end of my 10 years and haven’t had any luck, I will take matters into my own hands and self-publish.

    As long as I find myself a good editor first!

  • Right Minded Wilderness

    How do I decide how to set up scenes, how much description to use, and what needs to be told versus shown? I don’t have a good answer.

    I really don’t decide. Not consciously.

    I write by the seat of my pants, flow of consciousness style. Sometimes, to appease my OCD left brain, I sit down beforehand and outline scenes and fill out character worksheets, but when it comes to the actual story writing, I am a creature of pure instinct and impulse.

    When I’m writing, I migrate over to the right side of my brain. It’s a wild, uncharted wilderness over there. It’s chaos. When I’m there, I become that creature of instinct and impulse, relying on the untamed side of myself to do what is needed, what’s best, for a particular scene.

    It’s a non-linear place. I have to let go of my inhibitions, trusting the right brain creature to avoid plot holes and navigate the bog of doom in that lies in wait in middle of the book. I have to trust that when I emerge from the right minded wilderness – wild-eyed and exhausted – my left brain creature will be able to make order out of the chaos. It has the raw materials mined from the right brain, and has to make notes on how to refine those stones into polished gems.

    If the right brain is a wild animal, the left brain is definitely the ringmaster. You can try to tame the creature, but you never know when a lion is suddenly going to turn on you.

    Sometimes my left brain has no idea what to do with what my right brain dug up. The left brain often needs more material from the right brain, which it refuses to give. And sometimes, when the left brain needs to destroy something the right brain is attached to, it shrieks and rattles its chains as if in pain.

    My left brain is still trying to figure out how to control my right. It doesn’t dare venture into the right brain wilderness, so it has to wait for the right brain to show its face. Although it has found ways to coax it out of hiding. The partnership is a tenuous work in progress.

    To be honest, my left brain is still learning how to craft the raw materials mined from the right brain into a finished product.

    I’m still trying to figure out how to decide. How much do I leave to the OCD mind, and how much do I leave to the right minded wilderness?

  • The Sarastory Quilt

    Quilted chaos

    Someone told me once that my writing is very Terry Brooks-ish. I suppose that makes sense, since one of my very first epic fantasy novels (after J.R.R Tolkien, of course) was The Sword of Shannara. When I try to write high fantasy, that’s what it comes out sounding like.

    I used to unapologetically write like my favorite authors. Whatever I was reading leaked into what I was writing. I’ve stolen style from brilliant TV writers like Joss Whedon and Jane Espenson. I’ve imitated the dialog in the Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich. I’ve tried to mimic fantasy worlds of some of the great epic fantasy writers like Brooks and Tolkien and mood from some of the more recent urban fantasy writers like Cassandra Clare and Laurel K. Hamilton. I’ve also borrowed attitude from my unpublished writer friends.

    It’s taken me years to develop my own voice as a writer. I had to try on a few other authors’ styles before finding my own. I’ve been compiling and tweaking what I’ve borrowed, keeping what worked for me and ditching what didn’t. Even now my writing continues to evolve, shaped by what I read and what feedback I get from my fellow writers. My writing style is like a patchwork quilt that I keep adding squares to. Sometimes patches go over the top of other worn out pieces. When I get tired of a certain pattern, I rip it off the quilt or patch over it.

    But even though the quilt changes over time, it’s always the same quilt. My quilt. Even in my attempts to mimic other writers, my voice is still my own, decidedly distinct from those I’ve borrowed from. For better or worse, my writing is in my voice. I might write different genres or story lengths, but you can still find more of me in there than you can of other authors. Even my Doctor Who fanfic is written in my voice, although the characters and the world are stolen.

    So as you read something I’ve written, you may feel that the mood could have been from a Clive Barker novel, or that a quip could have come from Buffy herself, a sex scene might be reminiscent of Karen Marie Moning, or a plot twist worthy of Steven Moffat, but you would still know it was a Sara story. My voice always sounds like me.

  • You’d Know Better than I Would

    Hahahahaha. You’re joking, right? You assume that I know when an idea is good or needs to be abandoned.

    That’s what I count on my readers for.

    I’ve thought certain ideas were the most brilliant things since Harry Potter and been informed that they’re more ridiculous than Twilight.

    And I’ve also thought some ideas were absolute garbage that my writing group has told me are worth trying to get published.

    I think writers are too close to their ideas to be able to accurately judge. It’s what we need each other for. We have love/hate relationships with all of our writing and we can’t be trusted to make the decision whether an idea is good or needs to be abandoned.

    I also tend to be a bit like a pit bull when it comes to ideas. Good or bad, I can’t let go. Never give up, never surrender type mentality. Even when I’ve been told an idea sucks, or even if I know it myself, I still tinker with it in the back corner of my mind, trying to figure out how I can fix it up, rearrange it, give it a different coat of paint so that it is useable after all.

    And that is how I develop ideas. I take bits and pieces and try to fit them together, or take them apart and use different pieces in different places. Save some pieces for later if I can’t find a spot for them. Maybe I’m an idea hoarder. Ideas stacked in my mind like leaning piles of decades-old newspapers in an old lady’s house.

    Mostly, I develop my ideas by writing them out. Sometimes it’ll be an outline of events or character arcs, but sometimes it’ll just be a scene, and the story grows up around it. The more I write the better feel I get for whether an idea is solid enough to see through to the end.

    Ok, I might have lied a little bit. I do sometimes know when I’ve got a good idea. It’ll just hit me. Like lightning. An idea. And I think “Yeah, that would make a good story.” There’s usually bouncing up and down on my toes, pacing, and sometimes even hysterical laughter, and that’s when I know I’ve got something good. How could I abandon something like that?

  • It’s me, with the blue laptop, in the coffee shop

    I may or may not have bought it just because it's blue

    I write with Professor Plum in the drawing room with the candlestick.

    Erm. Wait. That’s Clue. We’re talking about writing.

    Most of my writing happens on some computer or another. The only time I write by hand anymore is when I am jolted out of a dead sleep with a story idea and I’m too dazed to figure out how to work a computer. Sometimes I’ll turn on a lamp, but usually I use the flashlight and notepad I keep by my bed for just such occasions.

    I have a behemoth of a Dell desktop computer that sits steadfastly in my apartment and allows me to write when I’m home. I also have a pretty blue Dell laptop for write-ins and coffee shop visits. This particular laptop was purchased not for its memory, processing power, graphics card, or storage (all sub-par to a computer geek) but because it had the most comfortable keyboard. I bought and returned two different laptops before settling on this one because it was the only one I liked to type on. And did I mention it’s blue?

    I suffer from severe beverage abuse when I write. If I’m writing at a coffee shop, I’ve more than likely consumed at least one espresso drink (or possibly a magnificent chai latte from our favorite real-life café: Mirth). In the evenings at home, I am never without a glass of red wine by my side. It loosens the inhibitions enough for me to let go and just write.

    I mostly write at night. I have to. My creative juices never seem to start flowing until after the sun goes down. But it also has to do with my day job. Oh yes, the dreaded day job that most writers have to have. I work all day, do my extra curriculars after I get off work, come home and eat dinner, and then I have a small window of time before sleep in which to write. Sometimes two hours. Sometimes only one if I want to read before bed.

    It’s not enough, but I work with what I’ve got and make up for it on inspired weekends.

    With all of these various elements, perhaps one should invent a writer’s version of Clue in which the player discovers where, when, and with what the author is writing.

    It was Stephen King in the Library with the AlphaSmart.

    Hmm. Nope. Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. I think I’ll stick to writing and leave the game invention to the experts.