Category: On Writing

Letting My Writing Evolve

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

 

naruto confused
Yeah, I feel the same way sometimes, Naruto.

Over the past few years, I’ve come to the realization that I’ve learned an amazing amount as I evolve as a writer… and I’ve ‘unlearned’ just as much.  It’s not just the hard-and-fast general rules we all learned in school that I’m talking about, like the grammar and composition and all that.   I’m talking about rules regarding style and theme.

I think of my pre-trilogy work as me essentially learning the basics: in short, how to tell a cohesive story.  They followed everything I’d learned up to that point.  While you can definitely see a personal style coming out of it, the end result isn’t quite up to par.  I’m going by the rules, but I’m really not putting all that much of me in there to make it my own.  [I mean, other than dropping in obscure music references, inserting bad jokes, and general whinging about how life sucks.]

While my work finally evolved over the many years I worked on the trilogy revision, it really wasn’t until Meet the Lidwells and In My Blue World where I think I finally understood how my writing needed to evolve even further.  They’re both completely new projects that totally do not read the same way the trilogy does.  And even more so with the Apartment Complex story, where I’ve completely broken down any self-made barriers I’d put up in regards to style and story.

I tend to go through certain phases like this with certain aspects of my life; I’ll latch on to a new habit or process, or follow a new interest, and stay with it for a few years until I get bored with it.  This boredom isn’t caused by the thing itself; it’s that I’ve been digging away at it passively and without question until I realize it’s doing nothing for me anymore.  I suppose in the context of the trilogy — where I worked on the damn thing for almost twenty years — it was not just a relief to finally let it go, but to find a new project to latch onto, and in effect, a new writing process and style.

I’m pretty sure that in the next five or so years, I’ll have come up with some new writing projects that the me of today would never expect.  [The Apartment Complex story is a perfect example here.]  I’ve come to fully embrace the shorter turnaround and the shorter project that won’t keep me busy for years on end.  I’m still thinking of writing new stories in the Mendaihu Universe, sure, but they’re not going to be my only claim to fame (so to speak).  I find the quick turnaround much more exciting, and keeps my creative brain on the move.

I enjoy the idea that my writing continues to evolve.  I’m trying to get out of the age-old habit of telling the same stories over and over again, and this is the best way to do it.  I might still possess the occasional tell-tale stylistic quirks that make my writing unique, but the stories themselves will be different.  And that’s how I want it.  It’s how writing will continue to be a joy and an adventure for me.

Other Voices

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I’d say one of the hardest things for me to learn as a writer, especially when I was younger, was learning how to give each character their own distinct voice.  By this, I mean letting each character sound unique.  [Let’s just say that a lot of my high school-era writing sounded like a lot of Jonc clones spewing bad puns, whining about how life sucks, and making obscure music references.  It makes for extremely embarrassing and painful reading…]

I learned to do this in different ways over the years.  During my film college years I paid attention to differences between characters in the numerous movies I had to watch for assignments.  In the mid to late 90s and into the 00s I became a voracious reader, not just of fiction but comic books and manga.  Nowadays I keep my eyes and ears open for even more unique voices out there.

It becomes a focus on how the author or director wishes to let the story unfold.  There’s often a reason why this character is written the way they are, and why they act the way they do. It’s easy to fall into safe character tropes.  They’re not inherently bad, but I try not to rely on them too often, as I feel that makes for samey characters and stories, and I don’t write those very well at all.

My personal way to get around this is often to go beyond the tropes and make them unique.  Twist them a bit.  Instead of the Disheveled Investigator nursing a hangover and trying to find out why no one’s talking about a murder, turn it on its head: Disheveled Investigator is stone cold sober for personal reasons that tie in with a previous case, and the murder is being covered up by a rival investigator who’s a raging alcoholic and also his best friend.  Et voilà, unique characters and a nifty use of conflict for your plot!

I’ve also made it a point to read a lot of different writers — not just in terms of gender, but in race.  I’ve long had a love for Japanese literature, and that’s expanded to Latinx, Chinese, and more recently, Arabic/Middle Eastern literature as well.  I love to witness how a story unfolds in different cultures; why they unfold the way they do, the tropes they use in their own culture, and so on.  It gives me grist for the mill.  [I should probably state here that I’m not purposely appropriating here; I’m paying attention to how other characters in other cultures work within the context of the story, and contemplating if this is the kind of character I could write myself.]  There is indeed a little bit of Method Acting involved, at least for me.  I like to get inside each of my characters’ heads a bit to learn how they tick.  And I learn a little bit in the process!

This process of learning how to write other voices other than your own can be tricky, but with time and practice, you’ll eventually get it.

 

On Submitting a Novel

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I’m trying to remember the last time I tried submitting one of my novels to a publisher or an agent, and I’m thinking it may have been at least five or six years go, when I’d just finished the final edits of A Division of Souls.  I’d submitted it and other projects off and on over the years before that, with no success.

That part was frustrating, sure, but I won’t hold it against the publishers and agents.  I get why it’s so hard to get past the slush pile.  I got over it, and it helped me take the idea of self-publishing a hell of a lot more seriously.  It also made me a better writer in the process.

During our vacation a few weeks back, I reread what I have so far of the Apartment Complex story, and I was struck at how different the style is from most of my other novels.  It’s not as frantic as the Bridgetown Trilogy, or free-floating as Meet the Lidwells, or as fantastical as In My Blue World.  It feels like a style I could really sink my teeth into with future novels.  At the risk of tooting my own horn, I think this is some of my best stuff yet.  [Even after threatening to ragequit the project in frustration earlier this year, at that!]

Dare I say, I’m rather proud of it right now.

It got me thinking — maybe this one has a good chance of being picked up somewhere?  I mean, yeah, I have a wish list of publishing houses and agencies where this would fit in quite nicely, and that’s a good place to start.

So why now, and not with the other novels?  I think part of it is due to the fact that my previous work does feel rather indie.  I’d like to think they’re decently written, but they purposely don’t have that Manhattan Literary Sheen™ to them.  [I’m not saying that as a put-down.  I say this as a parallel to, say, the loose noise of early-era Dinosaur Jr or Sonic Youth on indie labels versus their much cleaner late-period major label releases.  I produced my self-published novels to be indie on purpose rather than to attempt to conform to something more commercial.]

Simply put, the Apartment Complex story, I feel, is a story that deserves a strong platform.  I’d rather not see it fall through the cracks due to my inability to get it seen by potential readers.  It’s a story that I truly would like to share with a lot of people.

That said…I’ll have to start doing my submission search soon, because it’s been ages since I’ve looked at a Writer’s Market to see who’s out there nowadays and who’s accepting and who isn’t, and what format they prefer.

But that part’s easy.  It’s getting the thing done and all cleaned up that’s the hard part!

Too Much Information

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During a Worldcon panel the other weekend, someone had asked one of the panelists about detail in your prose; when do you need more, and when do you have too much?  It’s a very good question indeed, because it’s one of the biggest mistakes a beginning writer often makes.

I should know, because I’ve gone through both extremes.  Back in my school days, my writing lacked so much exposition that it read more like a shooting script than a novel.  A few years and a handful of trunked projects later, I finally got the hang of balancing exposition with the action and dialogue.  However, I soon slid to the opposite end of the spectrum: my prose was far too verbose.  It took a few more years before I finally found and stuck with a happy medium.

How do I handle keeping a fine balance between prose and exposition in my writing?  Good question, because half the time I’m going by instinct.  I suppose all writers have their own balance they’re comfortable with, and mine is achieved by being aware of my pacing.  It all goes back to my equating novel writing to songwriting: I go with what sounds right to me musically.

When I’m writing a scene, I’ll know ahead of time whether or not this is going to contain a lot of action and detail (fast beats, layered production, a high-powered chorus, and perhaps a middle eight to provide a quick breather before moving on again), if it’s going to be a highly emotional scene (slower pace, minimal production with detailed focus on the melody, a memorable chorus, and a solo to pull at the heart strings), or if it’s just going to be a connecting scene (short, sweet, and to the point, and the barest hint of a motif borrowed from a previous piece).

With this in mind, I’ll know when I need to fill out the scene with exposition or detail, or when it needs the barest of touches.  A connecting scene will be tedious and drag on if I decide to put an infodump there, but it’ll make much more sense if I spread it out over the course of an action scene.  Perhaps as a character slowly coming to the realization that the cousin was the murderer after all, and that all the pieces suddenly fall in to place and giving him even more reason to keep chasing this now-familiar shadowy figure in the alleyway.

Most of this is instinct to me now, because of my decades of listening, studying and memorizing different pieces of music.  I write the scene according to the pace and the emotion I’m looking for.  This is my particular style of writing so it may not work for everyone, but it certainly works great for me, and hasn’t steered me wrong yet.  I even use it now and again when I’m writing these blog entries; even if it’s only a quick five hundred words, it’s still worth it for me to make the flow and style enjoyable to you, my readers.

I can’t tell you exactly what works for you as a writer, but I think keeping all this in mind might give you an idea of providing your own answer to that question:  when do you need more information in your prose, and when do you have too much?  Listen to the pace you’ve set, and let it provide the clues for you.

All at once

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avalanche.gif

Yeah, I’m having one of those months.

I won’t go into detail, but it’s one of those times where Best Laid Plans are thwarted by no other reason than Unexpected Events.  And this time out I have a few personal issues that have popped up that are causing stress and frustration.  All I can do is deal with them, and balance them alongside these same Best Laid Plans.

It can be incredibly frustrating when this happens when you’re a writer.  You don’t want to ignore the personal issues going on, but you’d rather not put your livelihood on hold, especially when you’ve worked so hard over the years to make them happen.

The most you can do is soldier on somehow, same as if your Best Laid Plans were thwarted by the Day Job, or whatever has come your way.  For me, the most I can do is continue to find the time to push through these projects the best I can, despite it all.

Post-Vacation Exhaustion

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that thing you do where was i

Note to Worldcon newcomers who typed in the URL from my freebie cards:  Hi there, and thanks for your interest!  I talk about writing a lot on this here blog, so if you have any questions on that sort of thing, by all means feel free to ask.

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Note to self: even with the best of intentions, heading out to a major convention fifty-plus miles away the day after a ten-hour flight back from London isn’t the best of ideas, no matter how you slice it.  We have been moving almost nonstop in one way or another for the last sixteen days.  Lesson learned.

We’d decided to take Sunday and Monday off from everything and just relax and catch up on what needs catching up, that way we’re somewhat conscious and rested come Tuesday when it’s back to the Day Job.  We’ve been on vacation for almost the entire month, having flown out of SFO on the 4th and joining the working world again tomorrow.  It’s only two weeks and an extra day, but it feels so much longer than that.

While I didn’t get any new words done on any projects at 750Words, I did do a hell of a lot of reading of both In My Blue World and the Apartment Complex story (as you see from the previous fly-by posts).  I focused most of my attention on the former since it’s first in the release queue, and worked my way up to about the first third of the novel.  I’ll keep this up until the run is complete and then jump in on the Big Honking Revision Process.

Which brings me to the following: I’ve noticed that my revision process has definitely changed over the past five or so years.  I’ve taught myself newer and quicker techniques, discarded my bad habit of flailing the story into shape, and paid a lot more attention to the details.  I’m sure I still have a long way to go, but I’m definitely getting there.

That said, I’ll be back to normal on Friday with more writing insights — I gave myself some time to think about new and different subjects to blog about here, and I hope you’ll enjoy the entries when I post them!

Working Vacations

Jon Chaisson1 Comment

anime vacation

Have I ever gone on a vacation and not done any writing work?  That’s a good question.  I highly doubt it.  I mean, even if I post a fly-by here and say that I haven’t been doing much of anything at all, chances are quite high that I’ve been doing something related to one of the projects I’m working on.

More often than not I use vacations to do a read-through of The Book So Far.  I’ll either pull it up via Dropbox or I’ll actually have it saved to my tablet or my Nook.  This is a perfect time for me to read what I have up to that point and make a few mental notes:  Is the flow of the prose consistent and balanced?  Does the continuity need work?  Did I forget a subplot?  Are there any gaping holes I need to fill?  These are things that I don’t necessarily need to work on that moment, but finding them at that point helps me remember them when I’m working on revision later on.

I don’t usually do any new writing during vacations, because that can take a while.  I’d rather be walking around the place we’re visiting rather than holed up in the hotel tapping away.  [The only exceptions to this are Just To Say I Did moments, such as when I did a bit of thumbnail sketching at the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris.]  I also don’t do that much new work because I only bring my midsized tablet and/or my Nook, which aren’t all that easy for typing.

And my favorite place to work while on vacation, oddly enough?  On the plane!  Our flights, depending on where we’re going, usually take a good couple of hours, so I can certainly keep myself busy with my reading/revision work.  With that, my mp3 player, and perhaps a beverage, I’m good to go.

I’ve also learned over the years not to overpack when it comes to bringing my writing on vacation with me; I’ll have less time to play around with it than I think I will, especially if we’re going somewhere like the Big Smoke where we’ll be hitting All the Bookstores and visiting friends and crossing Abbey Road and going on tours of royal locations.  Last time we were in London, I only brought my tablet, my Nook, and a small handful of index cards, all of which took up a tiny spot in my satchel.

I’ve also learned not to sweat it if I don’t get to it.  I purposely set my deadlines far enough in advance (and make them flexible at that), so I can spend these days properly enjoying our vacation and not feel guilty about it.

So yes…if you’re like me and you find yourself itching to get some writing work done while you’re kicking it in a tiny top floor bedsit in Earl’s Court while your significant other gets their recommended dose of Tony Robinson historical documentaries on the telly, by all means go for it.  But don’t forget to simply have fun and enjoy yourself!

On DIY: More on the Long Game

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doctor who brilliant jw
I feel the same way when I get a Smashwords Purchase Notification in my Inbox.

It’s been a little over a year since I released The Balance of Light, the third book in the Bridgetown Trilogy, and about three months since I released Meet the Lidwells.  The sales for all of them have been rather slow and dribbling, but I’m okay with that.  They’re still out there, available to anyone who wants them, and they’re not going anywhere anytime soon.

In fact, since I’ve registered all the books into a month-long summer sale over at Smashwords (If you haven’t gotten them, WELL WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?), I’ve gotten an uptick of downloads, especially for the entire trilogy.  Which makes me quite happy indeed!  {If you just recently bought them and are visiting my blog for the first time, thank you and Hi There!)

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m playing the Long Game with my books.  By this, I mean that I’m not looking for or expecting a large wave of purchases in a short amount of time, but a small but consistent wave over a much longer period.  This makes more sense to me, because my aim as a self-published writer was never to become a Huge Bestselling Author (although let’s be honest, that would be nice).  It’s about having a nice long and varied backlist that people can check out whenever they like.  By the end of this year I’ll have five books on that backlist, with one, possibly two more coming in 2019.  I figure in ten years I’ll have a nice fat catalog that potential readers can check out.

Granted, I’ve essentially traded a big payout for longevity, but I’m down with that.  In my own fanciful imagination, I’d like to think that ten years down the road I’ll still be getting the occasional purchase notification on A Division of Souls, especially once the next book(s) in the Mendaihu Universe surface.

And it doesn’t hurt that I’ll have a nice lift in sales every few months or so when I hand my postcards out at conventions or sign up for a sales event at Smashwords.  And whenever I give myself a bit of a sales nudge online now and again, I’ll get a brief lift there as well.  I admit I’d like to do better at the self-promotion, but I’m glad to say what I’ve done so far does work for me.

It’s still a learning process, but I’m glad that it’s going in the right direction!

On Writing a Positive Voice

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Don’t get me wrong.  There are things going on in this world that rile me up, get me pissed off, want to dick-punch anyone who’s fucking it up for the rest of us.  It’s aggravating and it’s exhausting.

Back in my high school and college years, I’d write protests — poetry, lyrics, comics, stories — most of which hovered between rose-tinted self-righteousness and vague finger-pointing.  I kept most of it to myself, though; I didn’t share most of it with others for various reasons.  The biggest reason being that I always felt the end result was crap.

Sure, you say.  Everyone’s early writing is in fact crap, because you’re still learning. The only way out of that sludge is to keep working at it until you figure it out.  Thing is, I knew my vitriolic writing was misguided and not fully informed.  It was merely a release of all the pent-up anger and aggravation.  That’s why I rarely shared it with the outside world.

I forcibly shed my Angry Young Male Writer facade when I moved back home in 1995.  I knew that was a dangerous road for me, and would lead me nowhere.  It wasn’t where I wanted or needed to go.  Which is why, when I started writing The Phoenix Effect in 1997, I made sure the book never veered too far into dystopian doom.  I needed to write something with a positive edge to it.  I’m not talking about Shiny Happy People here… I’m merely talking about writing stories that have an uplifting theme somewhere in there.

I’ve been tempted to write dark and gloomy fiction now and again over the ensuing years, especially when world events intervene in my personal life.  But each time I’ll let the mood pass.  Again: it’s not the direction I want to go.

Writing both In My Blue World and the Apartment Complex story is partly a response to that.  The AC project, as I’ve said before, is my attempt at writing in the style of Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki; something meaningful and emotional without being overwrought.  In My Blue World takes a slightly similar Ghibli road…there are moments of improbability in there, but that’s just the way that universe is, and the characters accept that as part of life.

Is this in response to the emotions and frustrations of Current Real Life for me?  Maybe, but I’m not making it a key component to the stories.  If anything, I think of it this way:  I’m writing positive stories because they’re needed right now, both for the reader and for myself.  The worst thing I can do right now is go back to my doomcrier days; those did nothing for me except make me miserable.  And if my writing is miserable, I’m making my reader feel the same.  And I definitely don’t want that.

Of course, I’m not saying that one shouldn’t write dark stories or angry songs.  In fact, I feel the exact opposite:  those are also needed right now!  It’s simply that there are many writers, musicians, etc, that can do it so much better than I ever could.  I’m leaving them up to the professionals.

I’m just better at Ac-Cent-U-Ating the Positive than I am at Fighting the Power, is all.

You go with your strengths.  That’s how you win the game.

On Writing: Names

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When I’m creating a character, the last thing I think about is what I should name them. More often than not, I’ll do the least amount of work possible to give them one.  Instead, I’ll just give them the first one that comes to mind that sounds good and fits the person to some degree.  If it needs changing, that’s what Find & Replace is for!

For example:  I’ve mentioned before that I came up with the characters of Caren Johnson and Alec Poe for the Bridgetown Trilogy rather simply: for Caren I wanted a name that purposely didn’t pop out, much like her avoidance of being the focus of attention; for Poe I wanted him to have a slightly awkward name that he felt didn’t quite fit him, to match his being adopted and not knowing his true origins.  That’s about as far as I went with them, and that process took all of a few minutes.

In my latest projects, I did pretty much the same thing.  For Zuzannah, the magical girl from In My Blue World, I wanted a name that was normal but had evolved over the course of time.  The three sisters, Diana, Katie and Allie Meeks, are just three girls you know in your home town; no one special, just neighbors or friends.  There’s only one character in this particular story that has an unconventional, obviously made-up name, and that’s done on purpose.  Even with the Apartment Complex story, where I’ve had to invent a lot of the names, I kept them relatively simple.  Kaffi, the tintrite co-lead, has a simple, fun name to mirror his friendly demeanor, while his father Graymar has one that commands respect and attention.

I’ve never really gotten into the habit of coming up with names that have to mean anything; I always felt that process, at least for me, was trying too hard.  I always create characters that you’d meet on the street or hear about from someone, so I find I can’t go out of my way to come up with a name that means ‘faithful healer’ or something like that.  [Mind you, I only did that once in the Apartment Complex story; I chose Diwa’s Filipino name for two reasons: I wanted a gender-neutral name, and it means ‘awareness.’  But the choice for meaning was only secondary here.]

Think about what kind of character this is, and also think about the people around them, how they react to people.  Especially if it’s a made-up alien name — you can have fun with that by giving them a bit of background in the process.  Diwa and Kaffi’s friend Anna-Nassi, for instance, is part of an alien race whose names combine the culture of their own and of humans as a symbol of planetary community.

When you’re coming up with names for your characters, especially during rough drafts, I’d say go right ahead and put in a placeholder if you’re not entirely happy with it.  Diwa’s name was originally the made-up Riksah before I decided to give him a proper one and decided his family is half Pinoy.  If your character merits a symbolic or metaphorical name instead, that’s fine too.

The most important things to remember here, though, is that a) it should fit the character, and b) it should fit the story.  It’s not just about avoiding anachronisms, it’s also about avoiding words that will stick out like a sore thumb.  You probably wouldn’t want to write a serious romance novel where the strikingly sexy chisel-chinned male lead’s name is Petey Bumblewiggins, right?  As they say, you want a name that fits the character.  How much work you put into that is totally up to you, but it doesn’t always have to be that much work if you don’t want it to be.  Just give it enough for it to work for you and for the story.