Writing Tip #16

Blogging's been kind of slow lately. I think it's some combination of being busy looking for a new job, playing too much Skyrim, and having some old health issues act up again. I'm trying to get back into writing some stories and finishing a book, so I'm starting off with a new writing tip.

Tip #16: Privacy

I just finished reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman. It was one of the best books I've ever read, and certainly quite a bit different than other things I've read. One thing Gaiman did a lot differently than other authors I typically read was giving the characters little to no privacy.

As the author of your own work, you decide how much readers see of your character. You can cut out the parts where they're sitting in a room doing nothing, reading an old book, using the bathroom, or being intimate with loved ones. You have the power to leave your character alone during those times or let the reader watch every detail.

One key thing, I believe, is to be consistent and know where your lines are drawn. If you write about your character's restroom trips, for instance, you're probably generally going into very minute detail. In a realistic, vividly described world, it makes it even more real. Otherwise, why would we care? If you only wrote about it once in a 300 page book, why was that one time so significant? The more you do it, the more a part of the realness it becomes, if that's what you're going for. And if writing about that is okay, what do you feel the need to omit or glaze over? Perhaps nothing, if you write for a mature enough audience.

I think writing the private moments of our characters' lives is an exercise we could all stand to do. Even if all of it gets cut out of the finished product, it can get the writer closer to the characters and really force us to analyze our creations as people, rather than a set of words on a page.

NaNoWriMo 2012

I'm once again pushing myself to write 50,000 words in 30 days. It'll go better this year, I promise. I'm completely restarting The Devil's Blade, which I started last year and failed to complete.

This year, I've had a year to think of better ways to do it. I have an outline written out. I shifted from a focus on Catholic lore to the Pagan aspects of the lore, though both always were and will be present. I've fantasized it up and stopped worrying about the accuracy of the 1400's.

It should be quite a bit better.

I'm also in sort of a competition with a coworker who will be watching my word count closely. There will be write-ins closer to home, so I'll be doing those, too.

Overall, should be a much better year than last year. For the Wrimos finding my blog through the NaNo site, welcome and enjoy the ridiculous writing tips!


About The Devil's Blade

Valdius is the Grim Reaper, a collector of souls that have been sold to the devil. Valdius possesses unearthly powers and immortality, quietly following orders to kill while holding onto what little humanity he has left. When he meets Anastera, a mysterious woman with abilities of her own, Valdius must tread carefully to keep her out of the devil's grasp without getting caught himself.

Writing Tip #15

I'm participating in Camp Nanowrimo, which is the same as normal Nano, but less formally organized and such. Probably not coming near a 50,000 word novel, but I'm trying, at least. I just kind of fell on this particular idea I hold when I write, and I figured I'd blog about it instead of raising my word count.

Tip #15 - Keep love levels realistic.

Assuming you're not writing a romance story, love is something a lot of writers tend to avoid using as the main focus. We typically care more about how our hero's battle with the dragon progressed or how far the adventurers are from home than what was in the letters they sent home to their lovers.

Still, having a little love - even just a little attraction or a few sexual encounters - is important and realistic. Romance is a part of life. Very few of us go through life without ever falling for someone, liking someone they can't have, or making a mistake with their best friend.

When I wrote Among the People Lost, I didn't have a set plot in mind, and all the romance I put in really pushed it in a different direction than what I think I was going for. I think it worked out in the end, but someone reading it for the post apocalyptic setting might not get as much out of it.

If we look at works of major importance, regardless of setting, there's typically always at least a little romance present. It's what gives characters drive to defeat their foes, seek brutal revenge, or find their way home. The Lord of the Rings movies have a wedding after the day is saved, partly symbolizing the rebirth of happiness and peace after the war. I Am Legend (both book and movie) has a main character who frequently has flash backs to his wife and child, both of whom died years ago. Just to shift to video games for another kind of love, Drakengard's main character is a sadistic psychopath killing to avenge his parents and protect his sister.

Love of all kinds is a great way to make a point, especially where missed chances are concerned. Killing off your main character's love interest before he has an opportunity to tell her how he feels is the perfect way to ruin his life for a little while. It can really help make a point of the sacrifices involved in going off to save the world or being too lost in finding himself.

Like everything, I think it's all about balance. You'll have some characters who will abandon the quest to start a family, some who will fight side by side with their partners, and some who will never have any interest in any of your other characters. You'll have the over-protective and the tragically unrequited. You'll have romantic and platonic and fraternal. To some degree, though, you'll have it. 

Writing Tip #14

This is one of those things I think of every time I see something I consider to be poorly structured, and something I think is a requirement for long prose.

Tip #14: Learn how to use hated punctuation.

Semicolons, colons, dashes, and ellipses must be the loneliest punctuation marks out there in the big world of English grammar. I use all of them on a regular basis; they're pretty handy.

Semicolons are a comma/period hybrid, even in appearance. They're way easier to use than most people seem to think. The semicolon is used in those awkward sentences that would be a run-on if you used a comma, but would seem broken up if you used a period. Examples:

"It's not that it's too heavy; it's just bulky." 

"I didn't get a chance to wash the dishes; they're still there."

Colons aren't quite hated, but they're certainly misused. I think the biggest rule about colons is they never follow a verb. "The following items I need are:" is not a proper use of a colon, yet that's the way many writers use them, from what I see around DeviantART and such. Proper usage of a colon actually varies quite a bit because the examples are so specific, so if you're curious, take a look over on Wikipedia. Just for the record, I don't like the use of a colon in independent appositives. I think a semicolon looks much more intelligent. To me, using a colon seems like you aren't really sure what you're doing. I've never seen it in published writing.

Dashes are, in my opinion, a really good way to establish a voice in your writing. They can break up a sentence for more impact, whether something is just that important or it's being said or thought by a character whose thoughts happen to be very muddled. They're another punctuation mark that has lots of uses, but in prose, they're really good for one thing - cramming extra stuff into a sentence. Examples:

"I went to the store - without you, I might add - and got those billion things you wanted."

"Every time you laugh - even when you just smile - it takes my breath away."

Ellipses are one of my favorites. They're another that adds voice to a piece of writing. Let me get this basic, simple, stupidly easy rule out of the way: three dots; no more, no less. I get where a lot of amateur writers are coming from when they make an ellipsis with twelve dots. It's a longer pause in their head, so it should be more dots...right? No. English (most languages, probably) doesn't work like that. The rules on spacing varies, but as a general rule in writing, as long as you're consistent, it never really matters too much. I never use a space on either side of the ellipsis, but there are a multitude of spacing options considered grammatically correct. Ellipses are used to indicate a pause, but they're different from commas. A comma indicates different clauses and should never be used solely for a verbal pause; ellipses can pop up anywhere. Examples:

"I just don't know...which one do you like better?"

"I...you...I don't even know what to say." 

Ellipses, unlike a lot of other punctuation, can also be followed by another punctuation mark in certain cases. I've often seen an ellipses followed by a period for a total of four dots in a row, which I've done myself after seeing it in a lot of published books. Personally, I feel an ellipsis on its own isn't really a closing punctuation mark, but that opinion varies, and grammar rules are a little loose there. That's different than making an ellipsis four dots just for the hell of it. Examples:

"We're going where...?"

"She's just...I don't know...." 

So there you have it. A few rules on some very neglected and misused punctuation marks. 

Writing Tip #13

It's been a while since I've done one of these, and my laptop is pretty much the only entertainment I've got all day, so I'd better get some writing in. This is something I think should be pretty obvious, but sometimes we writers get so wrapped up in our epic battles and raging gunfights that we forget about stuff like this.

Tip #13: Write vignettes for practice.

Vignettes and flash fiction pieces are quick pieces of writing that are not exactly "stories," as they lack a specific plot, conflict, and conclusion. They give a short glimpse into everyday life when your characters are interacting simply to interact, rather than to save the day and advance the story.

Writing vignettes has several purposes. First off, it helps with character development. Anyone following my blog at all should know how high I value that particular device. We all know how our main hero responds when someone points a gun or a sword at him, but what about his days off? Would he ever just go for a walk to enjoy scenery, or does he have people he talks to and jokes with when he's not off saving the world?

Another good use is to develop your setting. Take your characters on a little adventure. I have friends who have explored a nearby park and gone diving off a small waterfall. There's an even closer park with big tunnels that go beneath the interstate. I think a lot of people in the area must know that area like the back of their hand. Even if the reader never sees any of these little adventures your characters have, you at least have the locations in your mind and can draw upon them when you need to add a little padding to your main plot.

Vignettes are also great for focusing on characters who don't get much attention. I often notice that I end up with a few characters who have only a small handful of appearances, and that makes them harder to write when I feel they should come up. It goes along with character development, though this is more for determining their mannerisms and how they carry themselves rather than how they respond to stimuli.

Perhaps the most fun part of vignettes is releasing them to your readers after they've finished your novel and want more writing. It's fun to read about our favorite characters outside of the main plot. It gives us more information on what it would be like to know them, or even to be them.

Overall, I'd say vignettes are a great way to practice. I must have a dozen at least, and I plan on filling in enough gaps in Among the People Lost to eventually combine them into one book.

Appreciation

We all have the desire to be appreciated. We want our efforts recognized and our accomplishments known. We want to feel like we've made a difference to someone or something we've worked on.

I've drawn all my life. I was always better than average, but never super great. My art was appreciated among family, but really paled next to classmates work. I guess it just wasn't my strongest point. Writing was. 

I started writing in sixth grade. It was for a school project where we would write a story and put it in a nicely bound book. I remember being in the spotlight through that class, between the books I wrote (smaller than a chapter of my published novel, but at the time, very lengthy), the six foot long scroll I made on a history of dragons, and my published poetry. I can't even begin to imagine how often my friends told me I should be a writer.

By the time I was writing Among the People Lost, friends were in college. To a lot of them, it probably seems like a really stupid thing to do. Why spend a couple hundred hours writing a book when I could be learning how to make thousands as a doctor? It was just generally ignored, for the most part.

The people who really appreciated it and kept me writing it were people on the internet and Tim. Tim read over every chapter as I wrote it and helped make sure everything was clear, well-written, and not stupid as hell. Halfway through the book, I started posting it to DeviantART, since by then, I knew how the rest was going to go and I was confident that I wouldn't have to backtrack and change the beginning.

I had several people tell me they were really enjoying reading it, and that meant a lot. It helped dull the fact that at least 98% of my friends didn't even care enough to read a chapter. When I learned how easy it was to self publish on Kindle, I decided that if the people reading it enjoyed it, it was good enough to be my first published novel.

Even after I put the book on Kindle, most of my friends didn't seem to be too impressed. I must have at least eight people that said they'd pick it up and never have. It's disappointing to think that very few people are actually willing to put in a few minutes to read a bit and support your work.

When I applied at Target in November, the interview was a series of questions on accomplishments and team work and all sorts of things that really don't indicate how well you work a cash register. I used my book publication to answer a question about a big project, and the guys interviewing me seemed really impressed. I've mentioned it to a couple coworkers at Walmart, and they seem really damn impressed, too.

The people I'm getting the most appreciation out of are the people who wish they could have done the same thing rather than going into a job unloading trucks or asking nervous people tons of questions. I imagine that once all my friends are done with school and hating their careers, they'll look at me continuing to do my art and my writing, and some of them will wish they hadn't given up on their own personal goals.

A little appreciation really goes a long way. I've barely gotten any, and it's still been enough to keep me going on this path lined with words and painted trees.

Among the People Lost on Kindle

My recent digital paintings:

 

Writing Simply

I once believed that life was a gift. I thought whatever I wanted I would someday possess. Is that greed, or only youth? 

Green Angel is one of my favorite books. You probably haven't heard of it. I bought it at my school's book fair in 6th or 7th grade, read it over the course of 4 hours, and still count it right up there with Dragonlance and Drizzt. I have a review of it over here in my webzine, if you're interested in a review, but for now, let's just go over what this thing actually is. 

Green Angel is a pretty short novel aimed at the roughly 13-year-old range. It takes place in an unspecified location in an unspecified time period with characters with really vague names. The main character is called Green, and she's practically a plant empath. She's good with gardening to the point that it's a borderline magic power. The plot follows her from a first-person view as she recovers from losing her family in some sort of disaster, also very vaguely described.

What makes the book so fantastic is the way it's all put together. Absolutely everything about the book gives it a sort of dream-like, surreal atmosphere. When dialogue is spoken, it's italicized rather than put in quotes. It sort of makes you wonder if anyone is really speaking at all, or if it's all imagined in some kind of dream. Everything has a dark, poetic simplicity to it, and I think it's beautiful. It's full of things that hit me really hard just because of how simply they were put. No dramatic death scenes. No epic battles. Just simplicity at its finest. 

It's a kind of writing that's impossible to emulate by trying. It has to naturally flow, or you're going to break that simplicity. I've read through a lot of reviews of Green Angel, and it seems that the style is either loved or hated. It's too different to be somewhere in between. You can either appreciate the magical surrealism of it, or think it's the dumbest thing ever and go for something more realistic. Personally, I think it's one of the best ways to write a story, and whenever I find something similar, I love it.

I had similar feelings towards I Am Legend, though to a lesser extent. Some lines are so hugely important, and yet they're also super simple and blunt. There's nothing to say other than the simple truth. I think those lines can sometimes make more of an impact than several paragraphs explaining a heroic death.

Like everything in writing (and everything, really), there are times and places for everything. Simplicity doesn't always work. Still, I think Green Angel really did it right.

On Discouragement

I have had one hell of a time starting college. When I was in 8th grade, I wanted to be a writer. Somewhere along the line while doing a career research project, I realized how tough of a career that really was. I definitely don't want to spend years searching for a publisher only to have them demand books in a very short period and for not all that much pay. Being a writer is something I want to do on my own.

My views shifted to psychology. I love learning about the human mind. It also would help with important character development in that writing thing. I dropped that idea because there was just too much medical school involved.

I'm pretty sure Latin teaching was my next goal. It lasted for a long time, though it suffered fatal blows when my high school dropped me out and it came to my attention that I would have a monstrous amount of work to do in order to catch up. That wasn't the real killing strike, though. That came when I learned that my high school had cancelled their Latin program. I have no interest in teaching in a private school.

Now, I have my sights set on a Visual Arts program. I thought I would start in the fall. I didn't. I expected to wait another year, and suddenly, just a few days ago, I realized I could get in and start in January. I called the college a few days later to schedule an appointment.

They haven't called back yet. See, the program requires some stuff I'm not sure I can get, and with the enrollment deadline only 4 days away, I need to talk to someone who can answer my questions.

The program I'm interested in requires a recommendation from an art teacher and a portfolio. I can get a portfolio together, depending on what I need for it, but I had just one art teacher in high school. I didn't finish her class because I got dropped out. I don't even remember her name.

They seem to need a recommendation in general, now, which wasn't needed last I knew. With my favorite teacher retired and unreachable, I may have to ask a teacher who doesn't really know how good I've gotten at stuff in the past few years.

It's all been really discouraging. I'm sort of facing this possibility now that after everything I've done to get here, I might have to wait until the fall just because I can't get things done in time.

On the other hand, this stuff is wonderfully exciting.

I'm already a writer. I blog, I have a book published, and I have a webzine. It's not what I was going for originally, but it's an enjoyable, rewarding experience. I didn't need college to get me here.

I still plan on studying psychology, and I've learned a lot through independent research as my writing requires.

Part of the reason I decided against a teaching career was the limitations it would place on my art. No one wants their kids around a teacher who draws naked elves in her spare time. Not that I do, but you never know, you know? 

Art is what I like doing. In its many forms, it's always what I come back to, and even if a Visual Arts degree doesn't get me a career, it will certainly help me get the skills I need to make more money doing freelance work.

Really, what I expect from college is not to gain a career so much as to gain the knowledge and experience to make a living doing whatever I want to do. That's all anyone can hope to achieve, I think. 

Bizarre Things Old People Think

Occasionally, I hear something that's so off-the-wall stupid, I can't wrap my head around it. Sometimes, I hear those things from multiple people. The biggest offenders, I think, are the older people I meet who often have no idea that it hasn't been the '70s in decades. You young people who give me this stuff just make me want to lock our generation up in a school for a few years to teach them how the world works.

"Picture" = "Photograph"

It doesn't. I picture is an image. They're synonymous umbrella terms for visual media. It can be a photo, a painting, something drawn in the sand, anything. I've shown people photographs and had them ask, "Is that a picture?" Well, yeah, duh it's a picture. "Is it a photograph?" is always what they're actually trying to ask.

The Internet is Tiny

My family is notorious for this one. I told my aunt at one point that I bought some stuff online. She replied, "I should do that...get stuff online, and then it comes to the house, right?" She (and the other relatives) can't grasp the concept that you don't just "shop online." You go to specific sites, look through tons of stuff or whatever, pay for shipping, and then it comes to your house. They all think of the internet as this single entity rather than this mass of sites. They always ask me things like, "Can you read about that online?" They're totally oblivious to the fact that any given movie might be referenced on thousands of sites.

Anime is Porn.

It's certainly not. My mom has this mindset, just because she sees a lot (like, 2%) of books in her one book club that are half-naked Japanese-style characters. She's good at making unreasonable generalizations, though. It's what she does.

Books Are Very Educational and Informative.

I'm not going to tell you there aren't books like that, but when I say I'm reading a book called The Time Paradox, don't immediately assume it's about quantum physics. That actually happened with my boyfriend's dad. In case you don't know, that book is actually an Artemis Fowl book, part of a series that follows a teenage criminal mastermind and his adventures with fairies. Tim's parents read about 5% fiction, 95% books about people converting to Christianity and how it saved their lives. It's like recreational reading just doesn't exist to them.

Online Stores Steal Your Money

Just because you're not physically handing someone cash to take your waffle iron home doesn't mean the thousands (if not millions) of internet stores are going to take your money and not deliver. It's usually pretty easy to tell which sites are legit and which ones look like you're buying stolen merchandise from a drug dealer.

The News Said It! It's True!

Maybe in the 80s. Nowadays, you're lucky to find an article that doesn't withhold information from you. Plenty of news out there today is based on half-truths, misinformation, poor studies, etc.

Inexpensive Stuff Saves Money

Like hell it does. The more we figure out how to save on electricity, water, etc, the more stuff we put out that's just a little more expensive. Those funky spiral light bulbs pay for themselves, considering how long they last and how little energy they use in comparison to the incandescent ones. Same with LED Christmas lights. A lot of places, like Books a Million and GameStop, have cards you can buy for $20 or $15 a year that save you money. If you shop at those places enough, they'll pay for themselves and then start saving you extra, not to mention the coupons, magazines, flyers, and other perks.

Writing Tip #11

I helped an Asian lady who barely spoke English, got hit on by an old black guy with one tooth, helped a guy look at grills for 20 minutes, half-assed an attempt to keep things organized and STILL managed to slaughter everyone else's pathetic progress, rode in a new car, and scaled a wall like a champ. All in one day. Aren't you impressed?

Tomorrow, I'll be calling the local college about starting for the spring semester! I'm excited as hell. For now, you get a writing tip that's more about general activity than writing itself.

Tip #11: Don't promote your story using horrible spelling/grammar/typing. Or write your story like that, for that matter.

I can't begin to imagine all the times I've seen things like the following examples that make me turn around and run in the opposite direction of a story. 

Example A: The Comma-tose

I'm gonna be posting my story, about this dude, it has dragons. Big dragons that are part wolf.

I see people all the time using too many commas. I also see people using too few. Often, the bad comma frequency is accompanied by run-on sentences or blatant fragments. Sorry, half of you young writers on DeviantART, but that doesn't make me want to read your story. In fact, it makes me 80% less likely to even want to associate with you on the internet. It also gives me a headache as I try to decipher what you're trying to say.

Example B: The Scripted

Bob: *scratches head* What am I doing here?

Steve: *shrugs* Probably being in a bad story, bro.

Scripts are not bad on their own, but they have their place. Scripts should by no means be your way of telling an epic story that would normally be a 250 page novel. For the love of God, stop with the scripts. If I see an excerpt of something in script form, I don't even give it the time of day. I want to read a story; not 80 pages of dialogue and vague actions.

Example C: Teh Loltypr/Chatwriter

I wrote a story!! iz so kewl. it has teh best demons evr. u should read it.

That's seriously as bad as I can consciously make that, and really, I've seen so much worse. This is really self explanatory. I'm a thousand times more likely to read your story if you tell me about it like you can type better than longcat.

Example D: The Runner

I wrote this story about this guy, and he lives in this city and goes around killing people while there are all these gangs and stuff and there's this really crazy disease that's killed off almost everyone and he's immune so he's not affected so he has to go out and kill the gangs, but then he moves to this other city and meets this girl and then he joins this gang, well it's sort of a gang, and meets this other girl and then he has friends and then this crazy stuff happens.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that probably doesn't make you want to read Among the People Lost, even though that's exactly what I just described. Whenever I encounter this, I always feel like the person is sucking in a huge breath and then trying to hastily sum up their story before running out of air. It's just one massive run-on sentence, sometimes with commas, sometimes without. It's painful. 

Example E: The Stand Still

"So what's your story about?"
"Well, I guess it's about dogs."

"Okay...what about dogs?"

"Uh...a grey dog."

"And...?"

"And his master."

"Okay...?"

The opposite of the runner, there are occasionally those people who can't even summarize their story. Trying to coax them into doing to is harder than pulling teeth. Even when you hit them in the face with a hammer, you won't get anywhere. If that's the best promotion you've got, don't think for a moment that I'm willing to watch you try to describe what happens to that dog. 

Looking Back on NaNoWriMo

Today is the last day of the month, and my 15,740 words certainly won't get me a winner's certificate. I've essentially given up, and that's for a lot of different reasons, actually.

First of all, the past month has sort of been a wreck. October 30's car accident led to back pain for a week or so. I started my job at Target on the 4th, and they've been giving me LOTS of hours. I also got sick, which totally knocked me out for a few days, and then I had a bad reaction to NyQuil (which I took for the aforementioned cold) that put me in the hospital for tons of tests I can't afford. Feeling your heart beat 3-4 times per second is worth getting checked out, though, I guess.

The Devil's Blade was also not the novel I was going to write. I was planning a romance set in the 1970's with a farm boy and a kinda-sorta hippie girl. My back-up plan was to write a prequel to Among the People Lost that follows Solstice and Blaze in their time before Dante meets them. Then, on the day I started writing, I remembered this story. I remembered that I started to rewrite it and never really did anything with it, and I decided to give it a go.

Honestly, it started off okay. I realized pretty quickly, though, that NaNo just doesn't cater to my writing style. I don't like doing drafts. I like putting tons of time and thought into every sentence, making the story as good as I can on my first try, then going through after a few months of a break and looking for areas to improve. This whole write-tons-and-fix-it-later thing is just not for me.

I'm not someone who can let things go until later, either. I confuse myself if I put off research and make up a filler detail. I'd rather take the time to do my research and figure out what I'm doing beforehand.

I feel like my character development is severely lacking. That's something that I need to really sit down and figure out, because right now, it's going nowhere. Valdius is interesting, but not really interesting. Anastera, my main female, has about as much dimension as a sheet of paper. She has a history and abilities, but minimal personality. I never know how to write her dialogue. The best character I have right now is my imp Zirk. He's totally okay and needs, like, no work. It's really pathetic that that's how things progressed.

For now, I'm shelving the story for a few months so I can look back on it with a fresh mind. In the mean time, I'll finish off my Among the People Lost prequel I started that follows Dante and Hunter. I put it on hold for NaNo, and now that I've taken a break from it, I'm ready to get back into it and pump out the rest of it.

I'll keep posting writing tips periodically. I have quite a few more that I think will be fun to share. I'm hoping I can more or less return to the internet now that I'm over my cold. It's been a rough month. 

Writing Tip #10

I'm blogging when I should be working on my webzine and/or sleeping for work later. Oh well. Let's get right to the point here.

Tip #10: Humanize your monsters.

I'm doing something interesting in The Devil's Blade - I'm making the Grim Reaper, who is often portrayed as a skeleton, someone who was once an ordinary human and who, aside from being deathly pale, looks like an ordinary human.

A lot of stories take the Beauty and the Beast approach, arguing that it takes a really good-hearted character to fall in love with a monster. I'm blatantly ignoring that. It's not that I think it's a bad concept; I just think that we tend to see monsters as these scary things because we fear them, when maybe, if we looked just a little closer, we'd find they aren't that scary at all.

Valdius keeps his face hidden until a few chapters into the book. He's shrouded in mystery, and people are generally very afraid of him. It's much more terrifying to see a hooded figure with a scythe than it is to see some random pale guy with a scythe. When he finally chooses to reveal his face, it's a very important moment for his character. It shows that there is someone he likes enough to be human with, rather than the monstrous facade he keeps up.

Similarly, I have an imp character Zirk who is a friend to Valdius. Despite being a demon, he's essentially a good character. While certainly not human in appearance, he's not scary, either. Valdius himself perhaps describes him the best:

He looks like a carved gargoyle and only comes to my knees. He has little horns and red eyes, but he's not very intimidating. 

I know a lot of people, myself included, that would even go as far as to think he was sort of cute, in that cute-little-gargoyle sort of way. He needs to be a likeable character. Making him some kind of horrifying monster would push a reader away from him and make him lose that cute factor. As it is, he's relatively easy to picture, and also looks pretty small and harmless. He doesn't come across as being evil just by his appearance.

Of course, like all things in writing, humanizing your demons (literal demons, in this case) won't always work, but for this story, I think it's the way to go. 

Writing Tip #9

My NaNo novel is not even close to being complete. It's at 15,000 words and falling to bits. Mainly, I keep hitting this major issue of trying to decide what the hell I'm going for. On one hand, it's a fantasy. It has demons, spirits, and general supernatural stuff like demonic powers. On the other hand, however, most of that isn't 100% fictional. A lot of it has roots in mythology, religious texts, and the general knowledge (whether or not you believe in it is another thing) of how we understand demons, ghosts, energy, and death.

Unfortunately, it also has a huge amount of influence by Catholicism. I say "unfortunately" because religion is always touchy. I'm well aware that very few people will be able to look at this story the way I intend it, and the last think I'm trying to get my readers to do is go fall in love with someone who signed their soul over to the devil. It's intended to be a story about sacrifice and redemption, not devil worship and murder.

The biggest problem is that my story is set tentatively in the 1400s or so in an alternate, more fantasy-like England. This brings me (finally) to my next writing tip.

Tip #9: Accuracy Versus Perceived Accuracy

One of the things I really prided myself on when writing Among the People Lost was my attention to detail and keeping things very accurate. I used a car at one point that had front-wheel drive, so I researched what cars are front-wheel drive. I know most people wouldn't catch the details like that, but for the car people who read that, they'll think it's impressive that I was right.

Naturally, since The Devil's Blade takes place in a 1400s setting, I did research on the middle ages to be as accurate as possible. I then realized that I was screwed.

When you think of chivalry and medieval romance, you probably think of something like knights wooing the local women with flowers and kisses on the hand and such. That would have been doable. What I learned, though, is that the romantic kiss-on-the-hand came 200-300 years later, and no one gave flowers. Instead, it was all love letters, singing, and poetry. I think the Grim Reaper would lose at least half of his badass points if he regularly burst into a romantic song or poem. 

Clothing is also an issue. You certainly don't think of a reaper running around in tights, pointy shoes, and a doublet, or the female love interest of the story wearing an unattractive, shapeless gown sort of thing and covering her head.

It's becoming more and more obvious as I write this that I can't have a halfway decent romance novel if I don't break away from medieval accuracy and aim for a more medieval fantasy setting. Most people are going to think a kiss on the hand is totally time-period appropriate anyway, so why not use it? Boots existed. They may not have been common, but who cares? Let's put the reaper in boots. So what if no one gave flowers? Let him give her a rose, dew frozen on the petals by the cold that emanates from his unearthly body.

There's this big gap between how the middle ages actually were and how we tend to think of them. The truth is, medieval romance is outdated. It's not even what we would consider "romantic" anymore, in a lot of cases. Beyond that, most marriages were arranged until the 1600s. This story wouldn't even be happening.

Some things need to stay the same regardless, though. Premarital sex (which there is admittedly a lot of in Among the People Lost) is pretty much out of the question, especially given that both main characters are religious. Jewelry and women's rights are minimal at best. My lead female won't be going around doing any fighting like Solstice does in Among the People Lost. Religion plays a big part in every day life; this is when Catholicism really got big, and that can't really change.

I've really just hit this point where I have to abandon a lot of accuracy to get the effect I want to get. It goes against everything I taught myself to do when writing science fiction, but fantasy is not science fiction. There's much more room to modernize and adapt, and sometimes, that's what you need to do. 

Writing Tip #8

Thanksgiving is fast approaching, and with it, a nightmare of a 9.5 hour shift in Target the gift-giving holiday season! We have family time around Thanksgiving, then Hanukkah, Christmas, New Years, Kwanzaa, Ramadan, and whatever other holidays that happen around that time that I'm forgetting. Point is, lots of family interactions and gifts coming up.

 

Tip #8: Write about a holiday or birthday.

 

Especially for NaNo, holidays and birthdays can add a good amount of words to your story. In Among the People Lost, I covered Christmas, which gave some insight into the mentality of characters living in a world where holidays barely have meaning and most of them are without family. Dante had lost all interest in celebrating, but his friends were merry and festive and insisted on cheering him up.

 

I also covered Valentine's Day, which was much more well-received among my characters, since it's a holiday for girlfriends and boyfriends rather than cousins and grandparents.

 

Holidays and birthdays give a lot if information on how everyone in your story thinks. They show who the characters are close to, how they interact when around their own family or their friend's family, and have plenty of opportunities for good memories or terrible experiences. 

Writing Tip #7

Whee, my first cold since I started working at Target! I knew I would get one sooner or later. Going from next to no human interaction to a job where I do 50 transactions an hour is bound to wreck my immune system. Anyway, it wasn't a bad one, and it's mostly gone already. I'm still really behind on my NaNo novel, and being asleep for a day didn't help any.

One thing I've noticed with this novel is how few characters I'm working with. I have Valdius, the Grim Reaper, and an imp named Zirk who is almost always with him. Anastera is the lead female role, for movie terms, and I don't talk about her on her own much, either. I also have the ghost of a priest and Valdius' horse, but they aren't ever talked about on their own. The focus is always on either Valdius, Anastera, or Zirk. This made me think of something else my story is lacking that may be hindering my progress.

Tip #7: Put yourself or a close friend into your story.

I think of every character I write as an extension of my personality. Every character has a trait or two that stand out - Dante's bluntness, Solstice's sarcasm, Hunter's relaxed attitude. Each trait is a shred of our own personalities that we build upon and grow into a character who is centralized around that trait. Valdius repeatedly shows the sacrifices he is willing to make to protect the people he cares about. Zirk shows an almost human level of compassion beneath an exterior of mischief and sarcasm. Anastera...I don't know what the hell to say about Anastera. I haven't put much thought into her yet.

Point is, I see myself in every character I write, at least a tiny bit. Even if I write a character I despise and want to kill off at every opportunity, there is some small fragment of me - perhaps a flaw - in that character. It makes them relatable.

Dante was based off my boyfriend Tim, in both appearance and personality. Tim cares a lot for the people close to him and wouldn't mind putting himself in danger to protect them. Whether or not he'd arrive on time is another thing, but I digress. Those are a couple minor aspects of Tim that made their way into Dante. Other parts of Dante, such as his bluntness and artistic talents, are aspects of myself.

It's very easy to write a character when you feel like you really know them. It makes their dialogue and actions come very naturally. I know how my close friends will react to certain things. They all have their little things that they say all the time, their favorite words and phrases, and their fidgety habits. I pick at my lip when I'm in deep thought. Tim sort of furrows his brow, puts his hand on his chin, and tilts his head like he's trying really hard. He usually is, actually. 

Sometimes, we write characters and think, "Wow. This character is really similar to Steve, now that I think about it!" That should be a good thing! If you know Steve well, you'll know how that character, who is some fictional reincarnation of your real life friend, will act. It makes everything flow.

In The Devil's Blade, I don't really feel like I know any of my characters, and it's constantly slowing me down. I keep thinking, "Would he do this? How would she feel after all of that?" and it's wrecking my progress. It would be much easier if I had just modeled my characters a little more after people I know.

Writing Tip #6

I'm super behind on my novel! Yay! I also have Skyrim and do not yet have a good pc to play it on. Work needs to hurry up and give me more money. Work may also be fixing some of my health issues. It's weird. Anyway, on to this tip thing.

Tip #6: Give yourself a vocab list.

My 8th grade reading class did weekly vocab things. Each week we had 10 words, and they were words that were actually pretty advanced and new, like bulwark, incongruous, and myriad. Occasionally we had to write stories incorporating at least 20 vocab words, and I really think the story I came up with was fantastic.

So here's my challenge to you. Go through www.dictionary.com or something and browse around. Maybe look at little used words or something. Get yourself a good list, and make it a challenge to work them into your writing. If you have miasma, sinew, and Gorgonzola, you might think up a detail like seeing sinew and exposed tendons at a butcher shop while the nearby cheeses have a miasma of cheese scents. It can really help spark ideas while trying to get all those words in there, and it also makes your writing a little more interesting.

Writing Tip #5

This is a general rule I follow that always helps. I wouldn't have finished Among the People Lost without this, and it's something I'll use on every book or story I ever write, I think.

Tip #5: Picture your book like it's a movie.

There are a lot of ways to picture a scene in your mind. In my mind, it's always very cinematic. I don't think it's a conscious effort at this point. As scenes play out, my "view" switches just like camera angles switch and such. It makes things much more dramatic and intense, and definitely helps define the way my characters interact.

Let's use I Am Legend (the movie, not the book) as an example. If you haven't seen it, go see it bear with me. The movie is about Robert Neville, the last man alive in New York City who has a dog and a whole bunch of firearms to fight off savage vampire creatures that were once human. Sounds pleasant, right? Anyway, there's a scene near the beginning of the movie where Neville walks on a road that's crammed with dozens and dozens of abandoned cars that area all covered in weeds. The camera zooms out as he's walking down this street, and that's all you see - abandoned cars and empty buildings.

About a minute in on this trailer:

As a writer, you have to get across that same feeling of emptiness, loneliness, and abandonment without any fancy camera angles. If the cars are what would be seen first, then talk about the graveyard of cars and the empty buildings on the horizon. If the empty buildings come into view before your character goes over a hill or something and sees the cars, then talk about the abandoned skeletons of skyscrapers overlooking a sea of broken cars.

Mood is important in all stories, and so is seeing things from your character's eyes. The following is from Among the People Lost in a scene where Dante is standing on the roof of a building:

He stood at the edge of the roof, leaning on the chest-high wall ringing the building and staring out over the city. Lightning flashed in the distance.

It goes from the closest thing to him (the wall), to the things he sees in front of him (the buildings), and finishes with the lightning on the horizon. If that lightning was mentioned first, it's natural for the reader to place that lightning close to him.

When we read, we sort of start with the character we're reading about and build the scene around that person. When we picture things as a movie, camera angles often do the same thing. They start zoomed in on the character and then reveal the scene piece by piece. 

Good movies have good cinematography. Good books can, too! It's just a matter of making your reader really see what you're trying to convey.

Writing Tip #4

Skipped a day because of work, but let's get one of these down before I fall super behind! Also, I realize that so far, these are more "Character Development Tips" than "Writing Tips," but I'll get to more general things later. As I've said in the past, character development is the most important part to me. For those of you doing NaNoWriMo, good luck getting to 50,000 words if your characters all lack depth.

For this example, I'll be using two characters who have very little in common. I've used Dante in several other examples, so I'll use him here as well. He's straight-forward, quick-witted, and very sensitive to the needs of those around him. The next character is Valdius, the main character in my NaNo novel. Valdius is the Grim Reaper. He's trapped, alone, and detached. Both characters are highly skilled in certain areas and completely hopeless in others.

Tip #4: Use the 7 Deadly Sins to Create Conflict

Most things we humans consider bad or sinful can be labeled as one of the infamous 7 Deadly Sins. For writers, they make some good springboards. Think of how each would impact your character, if at all. It's a good way to see your character's strengths and weaknesses, and also see if they're well-balanced. Characters who have no weaknesses aren't particularly interesting, and neither are characters who are weak to everything in existence.

Wrath

Dante is pretty good at controlling his anger. Losing control would put him in a very bad position in most cases. Piss off Valdius, however, and you can be prepared to face an army of demons. Dante goes about revenge in a very cautious, opportunistic manner to ensure his success without putting too much at stake. Valdius will kill anyone who gets in his way, regardless of how much danger he is in.

Lust

Dante rarely - if ever - makes the first move in a relationship. This is an area in which he is very shy and very respectful of the other person involved. Valdius will go out of his way to protect a woman he barely knows, even while it is very unlikely they would ever be together. He is also not afraid to break a few dozen rules and guidelines while pursuing that woman.

Envy

Dante has very little interest in the possessions and skills of others. Valdius would give anything to be human.

Greed

Both Dante and Valdius live in situations where possessions and wealth are meaningless. Both have the potential to amass followers, but neither is interested in power, either.

Gluttony

Dante overindulges in alcohol to remove his stress. It doesn't matter to him how much he takes into his system, as long as it helps him sleep at night. Valdius has no physical need for food and drink. There is also nothing he does simply for the joy of doing it in excess.

Pride

Dante is very confident in his abilities, but not to a fault. He knows when he will be outmatched and when he lacks the necessary skills. Valdius knows he means nothing to his master, and he is well aware that he will be punished if he is caught breaking rules.

Sloth

Neither Dante nor Valdius is lazy. Both are extremely motivated to keep busy, Dante because of his friends, and Valdius because of the fear of punishment.

So there. Applying these things to your own characters can help outline their ideals and motivations and such. Happy sinning!

Writing Tip #2

NaNoWriMo starts today! I'm seriously reconsidering what I'm writing. I fear I may have severely underestimated the amount of research I need to do in order to write a story that flows well enough to let me write 50,000 words in a month. Anyway, here's my next writing tip. Character development is one of my strongest points, so I'll be sharing lots of tips for that. I feel that good characters can make for an enjoyable book even if everything else isn't that great.

I'm using my character Dante as a reference, just because he's my most fleshed-out character. Dante's story is set in 2026 and he does lots of fighting in a realistic, essentially post-apocalyptic setting. He'll work for this example despite the fact that he is not at all a fantasy character.

Tip #2: Give your character Morrowind stats.

Yes, I'm aware of how silly that sounds. Morrowind is my favorite game. For those of you unfamiliar with it, it's this big open-world RPG where your character is very customizable and such. Got it? Good.

Specialization

There are three options here: combat, magic, and stealth. They're pretty self explanatory. Dante falls under stealth, as he spends much of his time in the shadows of dark alleyways both to hide from enemies and to sneak up on them. 

Favorite Attributes

There are 8 Primary Attributes that govern your character's skills. These are obviously designed for a fantasy setting, but they can be adapted to work for a modern character such as Dante. You choose two of these when starting out.

Agility - Ability to hit, dodge, be stealthy, and recover from a hit.

Endurance - How much damage you can take and you much energy you have to keep going.

Intelligence - Your magic in a fantasy world, and probably something like your resourcefulness in a modern world, if not just taken literally. In D&D, low intelligence means you can't talk properly.

Luck - This affects everything you do in a small way.

Personality - How much people like you and how well you can talk to people.

Speed - How fast you are.

Strength - How much damage you can do with a weapon and how much you can carry.

Willpower - Maximum energy you have available, and in a fantasy setting, your chance of successful spell-casting. In a modern setting, this could be literal willpower.

Dante's two attributes would be agility (he is accurate, stealthy, and easily dodges hits) and personality (he is able to gain people's trust very easily).

Skills 

I'm just going to copy this chart from the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Wiki. There are 27 skills in Morrowind. Each has a governing attribute and a specialization. Blue boxes are Combat, yellow boxes are Stealth, and red boxes are Magic.

Attribute	Skills Governed by Attribute
Endurance	Heavy Armor (3)	Medium Armor (2)	Spear (7)
Strength	Acrobatics (20)	Armorer(1)	Axe (6)	Blunt Weapon (4)	Long Blade (5)
Agility	Block (0)	Light Armor (21)	Marksman (23)	Sneak(19)
Speed	Athletics (8)	Hand-to-hand (26)	Short Blade (22)	Unarmored (17)
Personality	Illusion(12)	Mercantile (24)	Speechcraft(25)
Intelligence	Alchemy (16)	Conjuration (13)	Enchant(9)	Security(18)
Willpower	Alteration (11)	Destruction (10)	Mysticism (14)	Restoration (15)

I'm going to put each of those into simple terms for use in any setting.

Heavy Armor - Plate armor (think knights and such) and other armors that are very thick, heavy, and are very stiff and rigid.

Medium Armor - Durable but flexible armors, such as a modern day bullet-proof vest.

Spear - A pointy thing on a stick. A character who kills zombies with a shovel would be good with a spear.

Acrobatics - Jumping, climbing, scaling walls, falling and not taking damage.

Armorer - Crafting and repairing armor. In a modern setting, this can be expanded to general craftiness and ability to repair things.

Axe - For dwarves and lumberjacks.

Blunt Weapon - Clubs, chairs, and other things used to bludgeon people without cutting them or stabbing them.

Long Blade - Swords!

Block - Parrying incoming attacks.

Light Armor - Very thin and flexible armors, like chain mail or a thin layer of Kevlar.

Marksman - Bows, guns, throwing stars, etc.

Sneak - Ability to remain undetected.

Athletics - Running, swimming, and walking.

Hand-to-Hand - Beat people WITH YOUR FISTS. Also martial arts like karate.

Short Blade - Daggers, knives, and short swords. 

Unarmored - Take a beating while totally unprotected.

Illusion - Make things look to be something they're not, whether by magic or mad skills.

Mercantile - Bartering.

Speechcraft - Persuasion, taunting, and general skill in talking to people.

Alchemy - Mixing potions and cooking things up. Cooking is basically just modern-day alchemy. 

Conjuration - Summon minions! I don't know how to make this non-magical...perhaps by having lots of connections and being able to get help whenever you need it?

Enchant - Make magical items and use them well. For a non-magical equivalent, probably something like fine-tuning an engine to get better performance or building a better mousetrap.

Security - Lock picking and disarming traps.

Alteration - Magically allowing you to do things like carry more weight or breathe underwater. This may be impossible to make non-magical, now that I've reached it.

Destruction - Fire and poison all around! This is pretty easy to make non-magical.

Mysticism - Telekinesis and teleporting. This would a be a favored skill by someone who meditates a lot to reach a higher level of awareness.

Restoration - Healing and medicine. 

Your character has 5 major skills (skills in which they are very proficient) and 5 minor skills (in which they are moderately proficient). All the rest get pushed to the side so your character can focus on the more important stuff.

Dante's major skills would be Marksman (his primary weapon is a revolver), Sneak, Acrobatics, Unarmored, and Short Blade (his secondary weapon is a switchblade). His minor skills would be Athletics, Hand-to-Hand, Block, Speechcraft, and Armorer.

So that seems like a lot of work! It's probably too much work and I probably just spent two and a half hours typing this thing up for nothing. Actually, it was largely just to put off starting my novel only to see it fall to bits. At some point, I want to go over some D&D stuff, too, so watch for that if you actually liked this. Have fun!