The Confabulator Cafe

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  • Other People’s Muses

    “Art is either plagiarism or revolution.” – Paul Gauguin

    Art is a dangerous thing.  It is a key that can open many doorways.  However, you don’t know what will be on the other side until you have already crossed the threshold.  For an artist, art unlocks perceptions and inspiration you might not have otherwise found.

    I have always been a fan of using art as inspiration for my own art, especially writing.  Writing is about perspectives, about being able to shift between your perspective and the perspective of sometimes imaginary people who are nothing like you.  Allowing another artist’s work to move you can be a good shortcut.

    Art is always an expression of self.  By letting others express themselves, you can get out of your own way.  I’ve found inspiration and writing material in the art of many other mediums.

    I’ve never been one to wait around for ideas.  There aren’t little inspiration fairies floating around my head offering to sprinkle me with creativity dust, at least not that I have seen.

    If I need an idea, I go looking for it.  I’ve mentioned finding inspiration in lines of poetry in a past blog.  But I have also found inspiration from works of art in other mediums.  My novel, Kill Creek Road, began as an idea taken from the song lyrics for “Water’s Edge” by the alternative band Seven Mary Three.  The concept grew away from that initial idea, leaving it behind, but the lyrics got me through the initial planning.

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  • Other Media Influences (Week of 27 February 2012)

    We’ve talked about our writing influences and heroes quite a bit here at the cafe. We do that because they’re important to us, they shape us and how we write. Being a confabulator of any kind means being the sum total of everything that one has read, watched, heard, touched and tasted. Have you read a passage about a meal that made you want to go out to eat? Are there songs that make you happy or sad for no apparent reason? Movies that make anxious to go home and write something?

    The team here this week is talking about the other media that inspires us or fires our imagination. When you take your seat at the Cafe this week and get that mocha in front of you, savor the heat of the milk, the aroma of the espresso, the sweetness of the chocolate on your tongue. We’ll tell you everything you’d ever want to know (and probably a little more) about how those things fit into our stories.

  • Tell Us About Your Current Work

    Every week we take a gander into the Confabulators’ worlds to see what they’re thinking. This week we’re asking what they’re working on because, well – we’re writers and we should be writing things. As usual, you get an interesting range of answers from the specific to the vague.

    Sara Lundberg:

    I start. I stop. I despair. I try again. I beat my fists upon the keyboard. I scream. I fling pages of notes across the room. I stare blankly at the pixilated words on my computer screen. Are my eyes watering from fatigue or anguish? Will I ever write again? Will these words strung together with my blood, sweat, and tears ever become a book? How can I call myself a writer? I despair.

    I try again.

    Jack Campbell, Jr.:

    I am working on an idea tentatively titled The Dream Catcher. The owner of a hotel is plagued by a sort of psychic ability. When he sleeps, he picks up the dreams of those around him as if he is an antennae picking up radio waves, the dreams of those physically closer to him are stronger. Because of this, he works nights, choosing to sleep during the day when everyone else is awake. One night, after two days of lack of sleep due to the stress of his wife leaving him, he falls asleep at the desk. He picks up a horrific dream, but unlike most nightmares, this one gives it dreamer great pleasure. Our hero find himself in the middle of the sinister cravings of a sociopath, whom no one else can find.

    Paul Swearingen:

    My current work in progress has been in progress since about 1980. Or actually it was stalled for about 30 years until I pulled it out of the drawer, literally, and started back to work on it.

    It’s a post-apoctalyptic young adult novel (please don’t ask me to say that aloud!) set in SE Kansas. All but a few people in North America have been killed by neutron bomb explosions, and a 16-year-old boy, who had his own problems before everything went down, now has to apply his farm-boy living techniques to be able to survive.

    So far I’ve managed to come up with an ending to the story, after about 73K words and reviving two characters whom I’d killed off, and I’m about halfway through the first total-book revision, but I’m not sure that the current chapters leading up to the ending will survive.

    Kevin Wohler:

    I’m sorry. [Insert Name Here] has been unable to work on his novel. Lately he has been spending his spare time:

    • A) Preparing for the upcoming Mayan apocalypse
    • B) Fearing a man-made “Big Bang” created at the Large Hadron Collider
    • C) Trying to broker a Middle East peace accord
    • D) Debating with UFOROSWELL47 the location of Area 51
    • E) Spending too much time coming up with this list

    Larry Jenkins:

    Imagine Elmore Leonard, Christopher Moore, and the Coen brothers met at some seedy, roadside motel and got their ménage on.  I’d like to think my book is what would come out of that most holy of unions.  It’s got rednecks, racists (is that redundant?), and buried treasure.  There’s a floating strip club named The Love Butt, a sheriff’s deputy who thinks he’s the second coming of John Wayne, and a couple of friends who are in desperate need of change of venue.  A little found money may just be what the doctor ordered, provided they can survive the week.

    Jason Arnett:

    I just finished a story that should be published sooner rather than later (announcement soon, I hope) and I’m working on a sequel to Evolver: Apex Predator that’s nearly done. I’m also deep in revisions on my novel, The Cold Distance, which is a science fiction about about two thieves who are unwittingly hired to steal elements of a machine that, when assembled, will destroy the universe as we know it. She’s an orphaned girl filled with a sense of betrayal and he’s a quantum-computer Artificial Intelligence and they’re chased by galactic law enforcers who have no sense of humor whatsoever.

    Ted Boone:

    I’m trying to recover from the post-NaNo blues and get my current manuscript completed. It’s at around 66%, which is a common stalling point for me. After getting the zero draft complete, I’ll vet it with my regular readers and then start the hacking and chopping phase.

    Muriel Green:

    I am still working on my National Novel Writing Month novel from 2011. It is a young adult hard sci-fi story. I think it’s time that more hard sci-fi for young adults came out. Hard sci-fi sparked my imagination when I was in middle and high school, and I think it appeals to a lot of adolescents who aren’t interested in reading novels about dating.

    R.L. Naquin:

    Right now I’m working on revisions for the second book of my Zoey series. Book three is already coming together in my head at the same time, since the parts need to fit together. I should have book two submitted by mid-March, so I’ll start writing book three in a few weeks.

    Amanda Jaquays:

    It’s not a “work in progress” so much as a “story mired in severe procrastination,” but I’m currently working (procrastinating) on editing a young adult novel. The story follows a girl as she grows up in an Academy for the gifted. However, she can’t seem to figure out why she is supposed to be there and rather than trying to fit in and make friends, she strives to be the girl nobody knows exists. Fate has other plans in store for her, though, and while she doesn’t have to save the world, she has to decide if saving the life of the crown prince is worth giving up her anonymity.

    My goal is that by the time any of you read this, I’ll have actually figured out what dusty corner of my room I threw my notes in and have begun working on editing it again. If I haven’t, somebody please give me a swift kick in the pants!

  • Am I Supposed to Have a Character, or Be One?

    This week’s question: How do you develop your characters?

    I would like to object to the form of the question in that it involves facts not in evidence: to wit, that I am a fiction writer.

    Yes, I have on occasion committed fiction. Each November I do Nanowrimo, stringing together some 50,000 words of original— well, dreck is not too harsh— and there are a few instances of fanfic in my past (I was young and naive, all the cool kids were doing it, I didn’t inhale…). Every once in a while a stray plot bunny hops into my yard to die of neglect. But my bread and butter, quite literally, lie in non-fiction writing.
    When I write fiction, it is entirely an exploratory exercise. I’m building a world, manipulating my characters, applying my hard-won wisdom to their travails (also inflicted by myself). Sometimes it’s glorious. Often it’s a disaster. I don’t care either way, because I’m far more interested in the experience of creation than the end product.

    When klutzy, unathletic me was involved in sports, I always enjoyed learning the skills, but I never cared to compete. Other athletes couldn’t understand this at all, “What’s the point if you don’t want to be a champion?” they would wail, utterly befuddled. The point, of course, was the inward journey, the acquisition of skills, strengthening and using my body—never the score. In fact, I found scores and rankings the complete opposite of motivational. Who wants to see their name constantly at the bottom of the list?

    The same is true for having others read my fiction. I have friends who are published, and congratulations to them all. But I have no desire whatsoever to follow in their footsteps, to seek notoriety, glory, or acclaim for my work. There are those who ask, “What’s the point if you’ve not going to becomes a Big Name Author?” I have no answer except for the inside journey. I don’t need to seek anyone’s approval to keep writing. I don’t even want their approval. It would ruin the fun.

  • Character development

    In the past – say around Dickens’ time – often writers would employ the clunky technique of establishing characters by stopping the story and then describing a character in detail: clothing, shape of brow, past indiscretions, jaw shape, blemishes, the whole bit. Characters were doomed to their roles from the start by birthmarks, the shape of their heads, club feet, curly hair, a “laughing mouth” – both negative and positive visual descriptors chosen by authors to pre-dispose their characters.

    Of course, that method was passé when Hemingway started his writing career in the 1920’s and thoroughly obsolete within another ten years as authors realized that stories should be developed by characters who reacted to forces around them and revealed their true natures as the story progressed.

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  • Where the Character Leads, I’ll Shine a Flashlight

    Thinking about how I develop characters is tricky, because I’ve never given it tons of thought. My only truly conscious choice is that I don’t particularly care for giving characters physical descriptions. As a reader I tend to apply my own biases to envisioning the character. For instance, I read Pride & Prejudice while envisioning the actors from Bridget Jones’ Diary. So I try not to bother beyond broad strokes.

    But that’s not the important part, is it? Everything else is And honestly, I don’t need to know most of the meat of a character I start: just a name and a general idea of who they are. I find that the more time I spend penning back story, the less likely I am to write the actual story.

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  • People Watching

    Found on the web at: http://www.worldsstrangest.com/neatorama/stained-glass-d20/

    We were sitting on the steps leading down to Centennial Park from the parking lot of the old burger joint one night, drinking cheap beer advertised on TV and talking about girls. My friend was older than me, maybe five or six years older, maybe a little more, but he was wise and full of insight to my eighteen year-old self. If I think back, a lot of things my friend told me have stuck. I’ve lost touch with him in the intervening years, but I can hear his voice if I think hard enough.

    I tell you that story to tell you this: there’s no secret to developing characters. Anyone can do it. Some writers run their people through a kind of boot camp by interviewing them and knowing all sorts of details that may or may not be revealed in the course of a story. Others take a more organic approach and allow plot to reveal character through action. In the business we call this ‘pantsing’ for ‘flying by the seat of my pants’.

    I fall somewhere in the middle. I need to know more than just a little bit about my characters in order to write about them and often their actions determine the path of the plot. This happens when I ask the question: “What would (character name) do in this situation?” If the answer isn’t dramatic enough, I change the situation to suit the character. The one thing I need to know is whether the character will zig or zag in a given situation.

    Dictionary.com defines Character as “the aggregate of features and traits that form the individual nature of some person or thing”. The same site goes on later to define a character as “(of a part or role) representing a personality type, especially by emphasizing distinctive traits, as language, mannerisms, physical makeup, etc.” Some writers – as I said above – need more than others. When we’re talking about aggregate features and traits that represent a personality type, we’re talking about people. That’s not a secret, either, but I think it’s something that’s often forgotten by writers of all stripes.

    There are two sides to “Write What You Know”. First, yes – write what you know about, share your expertise and be passionate about the stories you want to tell. Second, don’t limit yourself – find out what you don’t know and expand your base of knowledge. Then you can more authoritatively “Write What You Know” because you just learned it. When I don’t know characters that I think will be essential to the telling of a story, I have to find out more about personality types. I consult books, watch films, read interviews with real people who I think are like the character I want to create. Sometimes I go places to people watch. Sometimes riding public transportation will inform a character.

    I’ve used all kinds of character sheets as I’ve been learning about writing. Everything from a basic D&D character sheet to Nancy Kress’ character interviews have been helpful in determining all sorts of things I need to know or don’t. I don’t necessarily need to know everything about the characters’ childhoods, but I do need to know things like one important event that occurred in their past. The one thing that they hold on to, that shapes them and drives them to be the person they are. Where and when it happened, how old the person was when it happened, who was involved, how it affected him. Everyone’s got a story that’s painful. If I know that one story about any of my characters, they’re easier to write.

    My day job allows me to interact and observe hundreds of people each day. I roll the dice every time I’m out among them as to which things I will absorb, which traits and features will be filed for later use. A lot of times it’s as simple as getting someone to tell me a story about their day or something that they’re passionate about. A lot of people like to talk. It’s listening that’s the secret.

  • Warped Characters?

    In the very first draft of my very first novel, I struggled with character a lot–I didn’t have any bad ones.  Nope, all my characters were well-meaning, with great heart and minor, excusable flaws.  Even the person who burned down the church had a perfectly good reason for doing it–not a justification, exactly, but certainly enough rationale to make him a sympathetic character.

    Readers commented that my characters were all just too unbelievably well-behaved and pleasant.  So, in my next novel attempt, I did try to make some more believable bad guys. Really. There were some guys in a lab, there were some military guys, there were some guys who just wanted to protect their own ill-gotten power. But then it turned out they all had interests in the situations, and that in some circumstances they were wonderful supporters of all that was good and right, and only in certain other circumstances did they release their inner villain.  Of course, this time, the person who burned down the church had absolutely iron-clad reasons for why he had to do it, and he was a hero, not a villain.

    In my third novel, I think I finally managed to make some bad guys–actually some people with anti-social interests sitting in a room plotting to wreak havoc on the lives of those around them by taking away their health insurance and jobs, or something like that.  Truly bad guys, the sort that wanted to return rampant inequality and hierarchical authority to the world.  And then, people got to yell at them for a long time about how much they wanted to hurt them.  At least I got through that book without any new arsonists!

    Writing heroes and heroines is relatively easy for me.  I can invent past lives, ambitions, dreams, quirks, and speech patterns.  I can describe days in the lives of, their homes, their companions.  But writing characters who intentionally do evil things is a struggle.  At those times, I tend to go to stock characters and stereotypes.  I need to work on building characters who are human, who do bad things, who might feel bad about doing those bad things but still are not totally redeemed at the end of the day.  Like Alec in Tess of the D’Urbervilles, who is totally a villain and totally understandable and mostly redeemed and still experiences poetic justice.  Writing a villain like Alec would be the  crowning achievement of my writing career!

  • Hulk Smash!

    This one’s going to be a short one, folks, because my methods for developing characters are reasonably simple, albeit brutal:

    1. Take a Ken/Barbie Doll. This is your character template.
    2. Smash it multiple times with a hammer. This is your new and improved character template.
    3. Describe the physical/emotional damage you have inflicted.
    4. Explore how Ken/Barbie tries to put themselves back together.
    5. Throw still-mostly-broken Ken/Barbie down the stairs, then set them on fire.
    6. Rinse and repeat.

    The End

    Well, no, not really. I am a writer. I can elaborate just a little bit more than that, I guess.

    Physical Characteristics

    Much like my approach to scenes, I believe that less is more when it comes to describing my characters. Physical characteristics are generally ignored unless they’re particularly distinct (ala the result of a hammer smash) or affect the action in a scene. For instance, I may have a meek character huddling in the corner hiding her face behind her long hair. Or perhaps my brash protagonist brandishes his livid facial scars as he stares down the bad guys. The only details I provide for my reader are the ones that differentiate a character from the generic norm. Everything else is left for the reader’s mind to fill in for themselves.

    Behavioral Characteristics

    The key word here is “Damage.” It’s even more important when tackling behavioral characteristics than addressing physical features. Flaws are interesting. The more glaring the flaw, the more interesting the character. I tend to overemphasize key personality defects and play them up. I like my characters to fit recognizable archetypes, at least initially. Readers can then easily frame the characters in their mind and feel like they know them and what to expect from them.

    This, of course, is merely a lure. A clever ruse. The truly interesting character is one that surprises the reader without acting completely out of context. An interesting character possesses a deeper layer, running cross-hatched to the shallow surface behaviors that were originally presented. The blending of the stereotypical with the unpredictable makes for memorable, believable characters. The trick is making sure both layers still play out in a believable way.

    Progression

    Every character should have the opportunity to change during the story. The main characters should be forced to change, whether for better or worse. It’s their journey that propels the reader through the story. So in addition to crosshatching shallow archetypes with deeper troubles, I try my best to interject a strong counter-current for each main character, forcing them to reevaluate their worldview during the story and adjust accordingly. Sometimes the counter-current is simple, like unrequited love. Sometimes it’s bigger, like, “You just invented a technology that’s going to destroy mankind. Good luck with the guilt.” Usually it’s somewhere in the middle. It’s my hammer, and I wield it with brutal efficiency.

    Final Thoughts

    When in doubt as to how to make a character more interesting for the audience, think “Hulk Smash!” You can’t go wrong.

  • Who are you and what do you want?: Developing characters and finishing what I start

    Back when I never finished anything, I used to just give my characters a name and a situation and watch the ‘fun’.

    But it wasn’t enough, I cannot be pantsless (See Confabulator Ted Boone’s Pants are optional. Plans are not. | Confabulator Cafe.) and I never finished anything! And it wasn’t all that fun, either.  Not that it was their fault. Among other things, I found through this process that I needed to know these people extremely well to have a grasp on how they might act, or react, to other characters and the situations I put them in, and, come to think of it, what the situations might be that they’d be in in the first place.  Is this making sense?  Hello?

    Writers need limits, or this one does anyway, to circumscribe the possibilities, to give boundaries to work in, to pressure the work to make it go.  Willy nilly is too chaotic for me, too many choices (like those giant @&#% menus at chain restaurants) made me a worse writer, and I NEVER FINISHED ANYTHING. Did I mention that?

    Now I use character worksheets to help me think about what these people look like, their backgrounds, relationships, desires; I use screenwriting techniques; I brainstorm with people about what might work; I practice with my characters in situations other than the story I think they want to tell.  I think hard about them:  What do they want to say? What do they want more than anything in the world? What’s to stop them? Then what? Go from the inside out. I’ve ‘finished’ some things, but it doesn’t end there–I’m still trying to make them better in revision, and I find getting down to the base motivations of my characters is a big part of that making that process better, too.

    As for the reader, oh yeah, I do not want to insult the reader with boring, cliché, two dimensional characters, the actions need to flow coherently from who these people are and if they don’t, well, I hope you do shut your laptop or throw down the pages in disgust. I’m lucky to have your attention in the first place.  And that’s a pretty good motivator…