lecture 1

Writing is NOT (a) inspiration (b) ideas (c)(getting published is not about) luc
k.
Writing is about skill.
Editors can judge writing skills in one page like most people can judge a
pianist in 30 seconds.
Skill is developed by practice.
Novel xor short stories.
great ideas make great book -wrong.
certain quality is important but a good writer can make a good book of a bad ide
a.
Ideas *should* be cheap, disposable etc.
'the book I worked on for ten years is a millstone, I should shelve it and go
learn to write'
'writing is mystical, the muse strikes you and something pops out blah ' - wron
g
'moments of rapture, but lots more moments like chopping wood.
readers can't see the difference'
Jim Butcher's 'pokemon + lost legion' = successful fantasy series
50,000 words - NaNoWriMo size. class assignment. key: turn off internal editor.
Get an expert to critique your first 2000 words.
Gardener vs Architects - discovery writers vs outliners.
lesson 1 - it is about skill. lesson 2 : it is about tools.
Tools == methods of writing.
discovery writers work best without lots of structure. work badly when using
outlining. GRRM is an example. - 'gardener' - those who tend to grow
their stories.
outliners/architects use structure, and build small components to create a
specific story with a specific effect. They know what their goal is and break it
into pieces. Their books come together very well.
outline = sequence of books. e.g: Orson Scott Card - spends months outlining,
then writes the stories in a few weeks.
take one week to make an outline.
discovery writers tend to rewrite a lot. write a chapter, then rewrite twice,
then write a second chapter, discover something, then rewrite chapter one.
disc writers need to learn to keep going.
disc writers have problems ending. therefore they need to learn how to write
endings.
Outliners have problems because they spend twenty years building a world and
then never write a story in it.
outliners also have problems revising. they want to move on to the next thing.
finish one thing. then immediately move on.
mixture: - outline background. disc write characters. needs going back and forth
on outline because characters do 'crazy' things.
discovery writers should nail down the end point.
outliners need to leave wriggle room here and there.
discovery writers have the problem with 'gee wouldn't it be cool if' syndrome in
writing groups.
submit 1000 words. - take notes when reading material. don't just say
'it is good' . take notes on what you liked.
'this character is engaging and I want to see where they go, this other
character is kind of vague' is excellent.
'had fun here'. 'was bored here'.
be specific.
be descriptive, not proscriptive. describe your reaction to X.
Not 'this is what is wrong with X'.
"I was bored here. this character is boring' is good.
'make this more exciting' is bad.
Ignore little things - spelt this word wrong. use the word 'x' too much.
focus on the big things - plot setting characters, not sentence structure etc.
one big rule : if you are being workshopped, you cannot speak. NOT ONE WORD.
try to give feed back to what the book is trying to be, vs what *you* want it to
be.
Chapter 2:
several tricks to jumpstart 'ideas'
good conflict intersect with good story telling
book is an intersection of three things - character, setting, plot. conflict
drives all these.
plot - here story concept - the one sentence pitch.
LOTR: there is this terrible ring that can crush the world and the one person
who can destroy it is a furry footed hobbit.
LOTR plot: Frodo traverses the dangerous lands between the shire and Mordor.
Mistborn: A gang of thieves try to rob the Dark Lord.
This is an interesting plot, but it has to intersect with another vertex of the
triangle, say characters - who are these thieves, what is in it for them?
This intersection is where the story takes off.
if you are good at world building, create characters and plot around points of
conflict in that world building.
put characters as close to the conflict.
Rookie mistake: make an inactive protagonist.
don't have characters wander into town, and fix all the seen problems,
without the character having a personal attachment. don't have characters
observing the story, not participating in it.
a main viewpoint character *observing* the story.
villains act more than heroes who react. hence they are more interesting. hence,
have characters have their own goals and action within the setting, even if
they are being manipulated.
we love active protagonists - indiana jones1 shows IJ doing cool things. then
take it away due to action of the bad guys.
starting plot is easy. start brainstorming your setting. find conflict points,
place characterse, especially protagonist, close to the conflict.
If you have an interesting religion in your world, have your character be
directly in conflict with it, or have your character be part of the religion and
in conflict with someone else.
doing this starts a story.
another good way: read history books -which have a lot of interesting situations
.
e.g: hannibal elephants alps, beckett's martyrdoms.
take core idea, and put it into another setting. adapt.
another idea: take stories you really loved reading. what did you really really
like? boil down to the core. NB: get to the core, not the superficial.
don't say 'i loved elves and dwarves'
the real core of LOTR is the depth of world building, the songs and lore and
languages. it could be seed. or even 'common man struggling against terrible odd
s'
take seed and go in a completely different direction.
e.g: mistborn - heist story in a medieval world. then intersect with 'world
where the dark lord won'
conflict = not necessarily opposition, friction/rubbing points is enough.
Sanderson generates stories by looking for interesting visuals, setting elements
etc and plugging it into settings. not necessarily about conflict. over time
combine ideas.
book guide: plot, setting, character,
then add points under each
setting:- ash falling from sky, mists flowing, pull from 'cool things that need
to be used somewhere' book.
characters:- gentlemen thief using robbery as a cover for toppling Dark Lord
one or two lines on everyone with their main passions and goals.
BS plot backwords, and writes forward.
BS makes awesome stuff and then fits into the plot.
settings two types - physical/ cultural
starting a book
don't overdo world building. do enough to support the book's needs. build
*parts* deeply.
BS builds outline 'backward'. start with big plot/character/scene moments, and
work backwards "what needs to have happened - list of occurrences
before this big moment can happen awesomely/that make these moments shine"
points on a map philosophy - start point, end point, points-to-visit-on-the-way
defined. Then fill in the rest of the path, points etc.
'lots of ideas' is good, but they need to work together cohesively.
'everything and kitchen sink' == 4 books simultaneously. But 7 of 10 times,
writers don't put in enough ideas. fine balance between streamlined/cohesive +
having enough ideas.
most of the time,BS works alone.
BS writes very quick (given size of book) first drafts. because of extensive
plot/bg work, only chapter level problems, not large scale problems.
Balancing writing and researching - BS keeps research to a minimum,till first
draft is finished. e.g: characters need to be a field medic. in first draft, say
things like 'he makes it better' then at rewrite time, give it to an expert to
fix better.
BS (at any one moment in time)- write one book, revise one book, plan a third.
other methods of building stories.
- number of viewpoints magnifies complexity. 3 or 4 should be the maximum for a
beginner writer. this can be a good book. elantris is a good book even though
only a few viewpoints - one direct plotline, no time jumps, two or three
setpiece scenes, small n number of locations.
- assemble a bunch of 'cool scenes' by a brainstorming session, including
silly/random elements. 'tell a story with all these elements and oh it has to be
funny'
- create a character - what do they want the most and why can't they have it?
- a piece of music and work to make it part of a scene
- scott lynch on how he makes characters
I try to create a description for them that goes beyond visuals and gives an
idea of how they affect the world and the people around them. We are
instinctive, judgmental creatures, and I think so many authors miss out on the
essence of true human description when they stick to things like height,
clothing, and eye color. From my notion of how each important character exerts
this gravity on their environment, for lack of a better term, I tend to draw my
finer details.
Nature of Genre = understanding the audience
talk in wordcounts, not in page counts.
genre is important to consider because it (a) helps you market (b) helps you
write the book. BUT there are no rules. BUT know the rules, break them wisely.
e.g: thrillers - needs 'feeling' of tearing through the book, larger margins,
large font etc.
as a new writer shoot for 120 - 150 k words.
In practice, choose either First Person, or Third Person Limited
FP
allows you to cheat on infodumps, and unreliable narrator.
(really challenging to convey details of world etc). In FP, easy to infodump,
especially if character stays in character.
limitations:
untrustworthy narrator == is this person telling/does he know the truth?
Voices of the characters are very important to distinguish them.
we know the character gets through whatever 'dangers' they face.
TPL
you are in person's head in a given scene and don't show what they can't see.
Be VERY careful of viewpoint errors. 'turn to see who came through the door'
vs 'jean came through the door'
allows large cast of characters.
setting a scene is easier.
epic scope.
best for hiding stuff.
allows a throwaway viewpoint to build cool scenes.
easier to kill off characters.
better immersion - "I" confuses the character with the reader in FP.
description = how a character sees the world. ideal: character jumps off the
page, by how the character sees the world/by the simple things they do.
*when it works* it is majestically beautiful, editors will love you.
each sentence comes filtered through the characters eyes.
How to do description well.
Description is easy to overdo in a story, and you need to learn how to not over
do it. Specficially be briefer, be more concrete, focus descriptions on things
that do more than one thing. Reminder: we have five senses, use more than just
sight.
brevity/concreteness/prose doing more than one thing/multiple senses.
short is better because you can move on to the next awesome thing.
learning curve - when you pick up a book you have a learning curve - names of
characters, places, incidents. - higher in SF/Fantasy Books - otoh readers of
SF/Fantasy *like* learning curves.
Key: How you manage your learning curve determines how good a writer you are.
*Usually* shallower the LC the better, but some excellent books throw you in the
middle.
In media res - always steepen the LC.
Making descriptions shorter/more concrete etc flattens the LC.
'watching character' - a character who is actually confused - ' I don't
understand wtf is going on, but i need to run over there and climb that wall' -
matches reader confusion, and eases the reader in.
description = setting = expose info in brief relevant bits.
pyramid of abstraction = if you build a large foundation of concrete bits, then
when thinking of abstract issues, the reader believes that a character is

thinking it, vs author lecturing.
e.g:
concrete - a dog
love - abstract
*in a sense* because you need more words to describe what love feels like etc
vs a dog, but otoh
since multiple readers imagine different dogs for 'a dog', and the same emotion
for 'love' , 'love' can be more concrete than 'a dog'
BUT

each word added to word makes it more concrete - a small black dog.
but, your skill as writer is to get the concreteness effect without adding so
many words, OR making the 'concreteness adding words' in the sentence, do more
work, convey tone, something about character seeing the dog, give some setting.
etc.
e.g: a wooden bed
'a log bed' conveys some of the setting into it. 'four post oaken bed' -
'pure gold wine pitcher standing on a marble stand with fine mahogany trim' -
you can 'get' the rest of the room. e.g: drafty room with flickering light.
OTOH - the bed may not be the right thing to desribe in the room. common
mistakes - large block of text describing the whole room.
'dog' -> 'injured whimpering dog' - sets mood
'a dog that has not been caught and eaten'- says something, depending on the
setting. in the city for e.g;
don't use words that bring our world into the fantasy- don't use Ottoman vs
shelf.
'who'd lose such a fine hunting dog?' tells us something about the character
doing the viewing.'
' a whimpering dog with loose armor' - world building
add more senses - add smell, 'wet fur smell' - more heavy lifting than
'it looked wet'
follow up with *sentences* (not paragraphs) that do world/character building -
'reminded him of the dogs that accompanied the drake hunts, when the whole clan
would turn out ...' blah
in general, look at world through character eyes - a soldier would notice
fortification details, a scholar might notice that the walls were built on the
foundations of earlier civilizations etc. this is a way of getting first person
power in third person pov.
Lecture 4;
Sympathetic Characters
characters drive the book.
concept of sympathetic character.
s.c is better that protagonist/antagonist etc. Villains you love have
'sympathetic'.
1) similarity between you and the character <- big
2) problems - underdog in some fashion
3) consistency - act coherently. characters are far more consistent than people
in real life. you need to add foreshadowing if the character is going to change.
4) they do what you aspire to do, in your 'bad' moments. <- big
whole books can be made about the character growth of the character - the heroes
journey - starwars.
FRODO is NOT an example of the heroes journey - he changes only marginally -
which is fine. every book does not need to follow the hero's journey.
character arcs can be other things than growth in power. (s.a tyrion doesn't get
better at social maneuvering)
(5) 'superpower' == ONE attribute that is at super levels - SAM has super
loyalty. everything else is foolish/goofy etc. or 'expert at something'
characters need to be
(6) proactive. they should be doing things.
(7) nice: - hollywood rule - show me who is the good guy bad guy in 30 second
- hero pets puppy, villain kicks puppy
(8) people/friends who like them - not quite the same as 'nice'. have friends
who like them. SHerlock Holmes is very off putting, but Watson makes us like him
.
(characters don't need to be *all* of them - though it may be a good idea,
these are tools).
Standard pattern for 'duo' - one is quirky, one is 'every man'. we end up
liking both of them.
KEY: villians become sympathetic by having people who like them. GRRM is a
genius. (s.a: Tywin becomes likeable through other people's reports -
Genna, Kevan etc)
'if this were my brother, I could see why I would like him, even though he does
awful things'
(9) proactivity: if the villains do nothing, heroes have nothing to do.
make characters *DO* stuff. instead of character being described as
' a stamp collector', show them jumping through hoops to get a stamp.
e.g: Indiana Jones - go through all kinds of things, even though everything goes
wrong, we end up liking him.
proactive is where most amateur writers slip up the most.
how do I write a character who is unlikeable in the beginning?
do *some* of these things, while not ducking the unlikeable bits. especially if
the characteristic disappears in the arc. e.g: expertise (S.A Sherlock Holmes),
not necessarily at 'good things' - e.g stealing or assassination.
all the above == depth. == make them see the world in a different way than other
characters.
great concept in writing = Trick Number 1 (esp to fix 'flat' characters)
showing us how the characters see the world differently etc.
(s.a Jaime - incest + throwing Bran off)
VERY Common mistake amongst amateur writers - sentence like "
Bruce hated puppies" vs showing Bruce kicking a puppy. ok in the first draft,
get rid of description of character skills.
don't do 'did you know that .. ' , 'yes i know ...'
characters don't discuss stuff *they both know*. You MUST find a way to work it
into conversation or action. e.g if the master has been away three weeks, show
that by the maid cleaning an essentially unchanged room etc.
'did you know that while the master was away the lady of the house is getting
frisky with the gardener' -> show gardener coming out of the tool shed
whistling, with the lady following in three minutes.
nut shell : SHOW the characters depth
showing vs telling moved down the abstraction pyramid.
trick #2: Make the characters care about things in the plot.
HOWEVER do not make the characters focus ONLY on the plot progression.
then they become roles, not characters.
making characters into roles often happens when writing about the opposite
gender.
e.g: if you are writing a love story, the gender opposite yours, is 'the love
interest'. This character does only things that further/affect the love interest
.
e.g in comics - woman becomes 'straight guy' - rather than thinking of
character as a person, they become roles/foils.
solution: make the 'role' character care about things other than the plot elemen
ts.
good question: "Where is the character when the book begins?' A character is
not born when the book begins. They should be going about their lives when the
plot hits them like a freight train and derails them.
"What do they want most? *especially* if the plot never happened."
layout.
What do they want?
A. Before Plot
B. During/after plot.
Peter Parker: wants to become a cool scientist, do geeky things, go on a date.
After spider bite: defeat villians etc, but the former do NOT go away. The new
post plot beginning desires conflict with the pre plot desires.
Doing this for every one of your characters goes a long long way.
However don't over do any of these. balance all of them.
Even the most contrived character 'roles' can be made interesting.
e.g: my love interest won't let me be a superhero and face danger is stale, but
if you do enough character/world building, foreshadowing, by having her come
from a backgroung where her dad was killed by a rogue wizard and her whole
life goal is to find stability, THEN it can be made interesting.
if the readers can say 'oh no, there is a problem brewing' before the characters
do, then it is great!
One of the main things to focus on is building unexpected things into the
characters.
e.g one way to do this: standard fantasy tropes - old wise man, plucky warrior,
lad from farm, love interest etc.
PUT them in each other's roles (!!!) - so the girl is the wise mentor, the main
character is the plucky thief etc ...
Another way is to ask a question: what would *prevent* my main character from
being a hero of this plot in this world? Then work some of that in. eg: if the
'plot role' is that of a great swordsman, and the character is one armed,
or female, or too old.
generalising, build in problems *into* the character that they have to overcome
to fill their role.
characters:
interest 1 /passion 1:
interest 2/passion 2:
(PS do not always push for quirks)
self role: e.g: guardian to family
secret they don't want other people to know: tried necromancy to raise a loved
one (and failed) and now there are horrible consequences. e.g: demon possessed
father locked in the basement and have to cure him, while also taking advice
sometimes (!!)
"women talking to other women only about romantic interests/men" anti patterns
"woman hero doing things perfectly" over reacting to PC ness. "one black
character who is totally awesome, but not allowed to be the main character",
" one minority and one black woman in a sea of white males"
then add setting elements(politics for example), other people etc in the
characters lives so that they add friction to the aspects identified above
e.g: personality: obsessed inrovert, personality quirk: try to make everyone
happy/fix everything
unusual political or religious philosophy that does not meld with everything
he holds: alien racist.
don't do too many of these. once you get a few, start tying it into plot.
use plot hooks.
What changes that shakes this up?
exercise: generate multiple totally different characters and make them walk
through the same scene, writing down what they notice, what catches their
attention etc. describe the world in their own words, *without* info dumps:
GET across all the character tags WITHOUT info dumps.
show 'love of family' withOUT saying "she loves her family"
e.g: character notices ward against necromancy and says 'hmm I can't enter that
building without taking it down"
Plotting
Frameworks help but do not get bound by frameworks
1 - 3 act
(1) Act 1 : Introduction - reaction to plot intro (luke on tattoine)
(2) Act 2 : Escalation - hero tries and makes things worse
(run away get princess, kenobi dies)
(3) Act 3 : Climax - pulls it out by skin of teeth or fails
(pull out Death Star destruction)
2 - Try Fail Cycle
monumental problem trying to overcome - each time we try, something goes wrong
either thru outside power/inner flaw, "yes they solve it, but ..." ,
"no ... and" 'fail twice at something they try, then succeed,
foreshadow three times before something becomes important"
tie failures into fatal flaw. Kvothe example.
3 Heroes Journey - monomyth
circular story - Campbell - hero in a place of ignorance -> impact character
gives call to arms -> impact character leaves/are killed ->
things go wrong/belly of whale/descent to underworld/low point ->
moment of decision/change -> defeat evil -> return to beginnig with wisdom.
big danger of HJ -> you can use as CheckList -> oh I have to put it in because
it is part of the framework. Many excellent stories don't have all these
elements. HJ describes an amalgam of many stories, but not all stories have all
Orson Scott Cards M.I.C.E. quotient is a concept from his books
Character and Viewpoint and How to Write Science Fiction. M.I.C.E. stands for
Milieu, Idea, Character, and Event
BS looks for a sense of progression - what keeps people moving thru the story
== progression. what stops people from reading = sense of stalling/stopping.
your job as writer == give people clues so that they know the story is moving.
BS divides stories in his head into different types of plots -
then each scene is planned with what kind of progress is made for each plot.
plot structure -> travelogue -> lots of episodic adventures,
Larry Niven's map gives a sense of progression.
key to successful use of BS's method = successivie clues being doled out.
'hanging a lantern in it'
another way == time bomb plot driving the 'progression' of the story.
here time is the progression meter.
book goal -> break into n pieces with some m of them being 'backward' steps.
Then fit each into scene-sequel steps.
World Building
don't save cool parts of a good story for book 2. Write a good book then build a
sequel on it. Tell the coolest story you can in the first book.
Character and plot are the heart of your story. Will work even with weak
settings. In short fiction, 'awesome settings' are easy because you just have
to point to random stuff.
That said, there is no reason for not having an awesome setting. Getting the
setting across is hard. But designing a good setting ,should be awesome.
so, all three character, plot and setting should be important.
Think of the setting as a character, or a cast of characters. It should have
the same characteristics as for characters. It should have a history, a
personality. a sense of tone, things should be happening that don't have
anything to do with the plot (just like characters have lives other than where
they intersect with the plot).
challenges: things that are harder (than in our world, or in generic English
medieval town), things that are easier. You *can* add a lot of depth to generic
English medieval town and make it work. but to begin with, start thinking of a
setting as a character.
look at this on various different levels
level 1 - world
level 2 - nations
level 3 - local
don't spend twenty years on this. a few months would work well (at most). build
as much as required. work in ramifications during revision.
geology lesson quick tricks.
coastlines are very regular. so rust patterns, stains on walls. etc.
rivers flow away from mountains towards the sea.
rivers don't split (or there has to be a major reason) they combine
lakes don't have multiple rivers coming out of them. (they may have multiple
rivers coming *into* them)
mountains and volcanoes come from tectonic plates colliding.
Deserts form from rainshadows. Also pressure things cause deserts with tropics
underneath them.
Fantasy Writers get deserts terribly wrong. They don't transition between
terrains well. foothills to the mountains.
Caves form in limestone coasts(?)
Cover is a poster for the book, not a depiction of the contents of the book.
Get copyright on the maps, use work for hire contract. Don't pay royalties.
Horses are not faster long distance than a person walking. Carts are slower.
Horse expresses make things way faster. Get some distances etc worked out.
Cities grow up around *defensible* harbors. breakwaters. guardian island
fortresses. one major exception, strong navy.
ask what ifs about governments, religions, etc. Don't just reverse gender roles.

dig deeper with whys etc.
investigate privilege, racefail, 'the other'
consider mores
ethics of warfare, family structure,
take 3, make minor or major changes. don't go radical on everything.
Sanderson's Laws of Magic
developing interesting magic systems.
Magic should have rules. (s.a structure)
how to write fantasy sf is a good book.
Rule for magic in LOTR = be gandalf
magic is a sliding scale between wonder to plot device.
The more the reader understood how the magic works, the more a plot device it
becomes, but the less the sense of wonder about it.
your ability to solve problems with magic in a satisfying way depends directly
on how well the reader understands (how that magic works)
sliding scale = sense of wonder <--> problem solving
if you want your characters to be wonderstruck and powerless in the face of this
magic (say greeks and their gods) the reader should NOT understand how magic
works. The greek role wrt their gods is to stay out of their way, and curry
favor if possible.
In such books (like LOTR) == magic should NOT Be used to solve problems, only t
create problems. When it is used to solve problems, it creates more problems.
Even in LOTR, 'rules' about magic (here embodied in Gandalf) are set,
'look for me on the third day' and the characters manipulate these rules to
their advantage, to achieve their goals.
the battle of helms deep is correctly plotted, but the battle of pelennor
fields is not.
if magic has to be used to solve problems, explain it and most importantly
*be consistent*. Problem Solving Magic is hard magic. Wonder magic is soft.
Not rational, etc. the metric is consistency.
Superheroes are 'hard magic systems' . What NightCrawler can do is known.
Authors use it to solve problems.
Harry Potter somewhat hard. Introduce a rule then use it consistently
throughout the book.(then forget it for the next book)
Using soft magic systems to address 'hard magic problems' - create wonder with
well explained systems (and vice versa) fails.
Beware Deux Ex Machina, where a hereto unexplained factor steps in and saves
heroes.
This rule can be bent for situations where a 'friend rides in to save the day'
is used to introduce a character. (to do this well, just add some hints about
this friend, use it to foreshadow). do NOT do this towards the end of the book.
Sanderson's Second Law
Limitations are more interesting than abilities. What a magic *can't* do is more
interesting than what it can. (analogous to character flaws being more
interesting than their abilities)
flaws you must have this thing to make magic work. spice in dune.
costs good but hard to get this right.
limitations what it can't do. telekinesis in MistBorn you have to move stuff
directly towards or away from your COG. (right limitations are) the most
interesting.
weaknesses. hole in the magic. kryptonite in the superman 'magic'. least
interesting.
Sanderson's Third Law.
Everything should be interconnected. make it interact with setting plot etc.
in game systems, what is fun to play is more important than the ramifications
the magic system would have if it really operated that way. So a medieval
society chugs along parallel to mindblowing magic. But in stories, magic systems
DO have ramifications. You can make a potin in an hour that costs 50 gold,
which is what the average person earns in a year, but you aren't rich.
you have to go adventuring! Don't ask why!! if you need griffin feathers for a
potion, why not breed griffins?
authors seek immersion - everything should interact and feel real. make things
interconnected (including the magic system). create a magic system and consider
the ramifications. extrapolate the systems to see how it changes the world.
zero level spell of 'create food' changes the world -warfare, population
scentres in tremendous ways in 10 years.