You Are what you READ

You ARE what you READ.

 by Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, "the Snowflake Guy.

Years ago I was talking to a fellow novelist whom I’d just met and I asked him what his Top Five favorite novels were. This is a question I ask writers a lot. I’m always looking for great books, and one place to find them is on the Top Five list of another writer.

He said, “I don’t read fiction.”

This guy’s answer just about knocked me over. I couldn’t believe it. I asked him if he meant he didn’t read much fiction.

No, he didn’t read any. He was a nonfiction kind of a guy.

He wrote fiction, but he didn’t read it.

That was years ago, and I haven’t seen anything from him recently.

To put it bluntly, I don’t see that as a recipe for success. If you’re a novelist, you need to be reading fiction.

There’s a saying that “you are what you read,” and I think this is partially true.

If you read great fiction, you’ll absorb some of it, and you’ll become a better writer. You’ll learn what’s possible to do in writing, and it can’t help but expand you as a writer. But I think it goes beyond that.

I recommend reading widely, even if it isn’t great fiction. Because the fact is that--

--you are MORE than what you read. 

What you read is fuel for your mind—it’s necessary, but it’s not sufficient.

Novelists need to read Fiction.

A lot of fiction. Not just the bestsellers. Obscure stuff. Good fiction. Great fiction. Horrible fiction (not too much of this—if you do manuscript reviews at a writing conference, you’ll see more than you need).

When you read other people’s fiction, you learn things that you couldn’t learn any other way because when it comes to the craft of writing--

--you don’t know what you Don’t Know. 

The only way to Learn

 what you don’t know is by 

Reading other people’s work.

For starters, you should read widely in your category. You need to know the rules of your genre—which ones are ironclad and which ones can be bent, but that’s not enough.

Read widely outside your Genre. 

Read outside your Demographic. 

Read outside your Worldview.

Read Romance fiction. 

Most novels have a romance thread in them, no matter what their category. If you can improve that thread, your story will improve.

Read Suspense fiction. 

Most novels have some element of fear in them. Learn how to do that better and your novel will be better.

Read Fantasy. 

Even if you, personally, would never want to read a vampire or werewolf story, it’s quite possible that one of your characters would. If you understand that character better, then you’ll do a better job writing that character.

Read Mysteries. 

Even if you hate mysteries. Most novels have an element of mystery to them—some secret that needs to be uncovered. If you know how to unwrap that secret, one layer at a time, then your story can only get better.

Read a Spy novel. 

One of your characters is reading a spy novel right now. Do you know what he likes about it?

Read a Historical novel. 

The better you understand history, the better you understand the present.

Read Science Fiction. 

You might learn a bit of science, if it’s a hard science fiction novel. But for sure, you’ll expand your universe a bit. Never hurts.

Read YA fiction. 

It’ll give you insights into your younger characters. It might give you some insights into a few young adults in your life.

Read Women’s fiction. 

If you’re a guy, you’ll understand women better, which is good all by itself. If you’re a guy writing fiction, you’ll understand your readers better, because the odds are that the majority of your readers are women.

Read fiction that features characters with wildly different Beliefs from yours. 

I understand hyper-capitalists better after reading Ayn Rand. I understand Jews better after reading Chaim Potok. I understand Wiccans better after reading S.M. Stirling’s apocalyptic series that begins with Dies the Fire. I understand Muslims better after reading Khaled Hosseini’s book The Kite Runner. I understand fundamentalists better after reading the first book in the Left Behind series.

The better you understand your characters, the better your novel will be.

Read Bad fiction. 

Yes, really. If you find a particularly bad piece of writing, read it all the way to the end. Figure out why it’s so awful. Resolve never to do the things that the author is doing.

I confess that I have a favorite bad novel, written by a high-school kid who graduated a couple of years behind me. This thing is fearsomely, wonderfully, amazingly awful. It’s bad on every possible level.

No, I won’t tell you the title. Find your own dreck. I’m keeping mine a secret.

My family knows which book I’m talking about, and they’ve all read it. We sometimes quote particularly horrible lines at the dinner table.

There are a billion ways to write great fiction, but only about a dozen ways to write truly horrible fiction. 

Good writing starts by learning to avoid that dirty dozen of Desperately Horrible Writing Follies.

If you’ve read some really awful fiction, I guarantee it’ll improve your writing. But there IS such a thing as too much of a bad thing, so stop when you’re had enough. A little goes a long way.

Read a little bad fiction and a ton of good fiction.

Reading Fiction

is the foundation of Writing fiction. 

Make your foundation

broad and strong.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Reprinted with permission of the author.

Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, "the Snowflake Guy," publishes the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, with more than 9,000 readers. If you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND have FUN doing it, visit www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com.

Making Ideas into Stories

Moonfish by SnowSkadi

----- Original Message -----
How do you develop an idea? How do you come up with the details behind stories? Do you get them from reading books? Do you get them from modern concepts? Or do they just come to you (if so, lucky you XD)? How do you develop the world in which it takes place? People or settings first? Do you include cults/religions/mass groups? How do you come up with these groups?
 -- Thoughtful Game-maker

In other words, what you want to know is:

How do you build a Story

from an Idea? 

Let's begin by breaking this huge pile of questions down to smaller, bite-sized pieces...

"How do you develop an Idea?"

I start with a Climactic Event.

My ideas may originate from anything at all; from a piece of music to a picture I saw on the 'net, but to make a Story from those ideas I start with What I want to Happen at the very heart of my story -- a central Climactic/Crisis Event. I then create a Plot Concept around it to make that event happen, and tie up loose ends after the event. 

Plot concept:

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Act 1: What caused the Event.
Act 2: Climactic/Crises Event.
Act 3: What happened after.

Example: What I want to Happen.

• I want the central climactic/crisis event to be an epic space battle between a Galactic Empire and a tribe of Space Privateers, and I want the characters to carry Swords. 

"How do you come up with

the Details behind stories?"

"Do you get them from reading books? Do you get them from modern concepts? Or do they just come to you (if so, lucky you XD)?"

RESEARCH. 

The Details I come up with are mainly generated by reading stories similar to what I want to write, and researching what I need to know to make such an event plausible. This tends to reveal unexpected facts which often give me MORE ideas to add to the story.

How do you make something in a story Plausible? 

You use Facts to give its existence a Good Excuse.

Examples: Facts

• Did you know that privateers had Written Permission from their home country to attack the ships of the countries their country didn't like --especially if there was a war going on-- as long as they turned over a certain percentage of 'booty' to their home country? (Ah ha! I now have a 'good excuse' to make the privateers the Good Guys!)

• Did you know that Empires (the British Empire in particular,) routinely hired Merchants to be Privateers when they didn't have enough ships in their fleets BECAUSE Merchant ships were extremely well-armed specifically to fight off Pirates (other Privateers)? (Ah-HA! Now I have a good excuse to have a Privateers vs. Pirates battle!)

• Did you know that those same empires that hired Privateers would also systematically destroy their Privateers once a treaty was signed with the country they had gone to war with, mainly because this was often a condition for a treaty to be signed? (Ah-HA! Now I have a 'good excuse' for Privateers to become pissed off at an empire!)

• Did you know that using a projectile weapon of any sort on a spaceship spelled Instant Death should that projectile shoot through the outer hull? (Ah-AH! I know have a 'good excuse' to have all my characters carry Swords!) 

"How do you develop

The World in which it takes place?"

"People or Settings first? Do you include cults/religions/mass groups? How do you come up with these groups?"

.

I begin with the World.

I always start with the SETTING, the World my characters will inhabit. I research everything to look for clues about what kind of cultures, politics, employment, social positions, religions, etc. would come into play in such a story because a character's culture and civilization will be what makes each character who they are -- the same way that your culture and civilization made you who you are.

Examples: Space, Empires, and Privateers.

• How do Empires happen, and how are they governed?
• Why would Privateers would be hired?
• Under what conditions would Privateers be attacked by an Empire?
• What are the conditions for living in space?
• What kinds of space travel would I need, (Faster-than-light? Folding space? Jump-gates...?) and can they be adapted to what I want to do?
• What kind of weapons would a spaceship have?
• How would a space battle be conducted?

Then Characters.
Once I have a good grasp of the cultures my characters would inhabit, then I decide what kind of characteristics and backgrounds the Characters would need to make my Event happen -- or Not happen.

Examples: Characters.

• Why would people (or a whole family) become privateers?
• Why would someone hate the empire?
• Why would someone hate privateers?
• What kind of training would be needed to fight in space?
• If I make the main character a neutral party, where would such a character come from, and why would they have such a mindset?

And that's how I build a Story from an Idea.

 

Enjoy! 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

How Much Smut for Your story?

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SMUT Does Not = POPULARITY

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Memory Training

How I trained myself to have a
Photographic Memory.

Shortly after I published my very first story, I was introduced to the phrase: "Write What You Know."

I was horrified.

I was horrified because I was still in high school and living with my Mother in a very small New England town. Other than a few encounters with a couple of ghosts, and what I had looked up in my local library, (keep in mind this was 1980, the internet hadn't been invented yet,) I knew Nothing. Seriously, I had no personal experience doing Anything.

What the heck was I supposed to write if I only wrote what I knew?

I had yet to learn how to drive a car, but that was okay. I was damned good at riding the bus. However, I still hadn't had my first kiss yet so relationship stories of Any kind were right out. Forget stories that had guns or weapons, though I could use a sling-shot and swung a mean baseball bat. (Don't make me break out my pocketbook!) Forget stories with horses in it, though I did know how to feed and train a dog.

I had three younger brothers so I had some experience with childcare, but having learned my techniques from a sociopathic parent (Not a Joke,) writing from those experiences would have landed that character in the villain slot, pronto. (The scary part was that I was aware of this back then!) I sucked at sports and had no friends, so those kinds of stories were out too.

In short, the sum total of my knowledge was strictly from books. Which was to say, Not Useful toward making a story realistic in even the vaguest sense.

Even worse, I discovered that my memory Leaked. I could remember things long enough to pass a test, but that was as far as it got.

Since moving out of my mom's house wasn't looking too close to happening, experiencing new things had to be put on hold. Instead I started working on my memory.

I tried a number of techniques but what worked for me was a type of Image Association.

In short, staring hard at something and then later, Drawing it. Or rather, trying to. I was an okay artist, nothing terrific, believe me, but I noticed right away that if I drew a picture whatever I was trying to remember stayed in my head better. Even doodling in the bottom corner of my notebook worked. The really interesting thing was that the picture didn't have to be related at all to what I was trying to remember! Though it worked better if it was.

Strangely enough, cutting pictures out of magazines worked too, though not nearly as well. I had to really stare at the picture and recite out loud what it was I was trying to remember.

This led to the next step: Recitation.

This meant quite literally, staring hard at a scene I wanted to write about later, such as the park during the height of autumn, or a thunderstorm, and describing it out loud -- without writing it down. Just spitting out adjectives that described what I was looking at, or what I was Feeling, such as what the brass handrail in school felt like sliding under my hand while walking down the stairs. After only a couple of tries, it didn't even have to be out loud. Saying it in my head or under my breath worked too.

I never did recall exactly what I said, but I recalled the experience Perfectly. In other words, Sensory Association.

By the way, the Schoolhouse Rock multiplication jingles saved my math grade, seriously. If I sang along with the cartoon, I remembered it. ALL of it. In fact, I still remember them. Recitation + Images.

About a month or two after I started doing all that, the flip-side of those exercises suddenly kicked in. I started Picturing what I was reading while I read it. In other words, I was playing a movie in my head of whatever I was reading. Though it was a bit more than that. My memory added the experiences I'd worked to remember. If the writer mentioned 'forest', my memory automatically added the sound of the wind, bird-calls, the smell of moldering earth, the specific colors of the leaves in sunlight, and the chilly brush of a breeze.

That doesn't seem like such a big deal, but it had one hell of a side effect.

I could remember anything I'd read. That included Text Books. If the text books had pictures it was even easier. I was actually able to remember the names and stories of any historical figure simply by picturing that person's portrait.

However, I was not remembering the Words, only the images I'd seen and the Stories that went with it. This actually worked well when I needed to answer essay questions.

However, my ability to remember things in a list; dates, names, phone numbers, groceries I needed to buy...dropped off the face of the earth. If I didn't have a picture to connect with what I was trying to remember, it left my head almost the moment it went in.

My last two years of high school saw a major lift in my grades in every subject except One: Math. I still suck at math. Numbers simply don't bring up images. I could remember my times tables, (thank you Schoolhouse Rock,) but that was IT. Geometry was fine because the formulas were all associated with shapes, but Algebra was right out.

One would think that Grammar would have been difficult to remember, but it wasn't. I was using it almost daily in my story notebooks. (When one is writing a story, one NEEDS punctuation to have it make sense to the reader.) Repetition saved me there.

Later on, I finally left home and gathered a great number of wildly varying experiences. I still can't recall all the names of the people I met, but their faces are all engraved on my mind along with everything I experienced down to the weather conditions on the day it happened.

Picture Association and Sensory Association


Those were the keys to how I trained my memory to recall anything I'd seen or done clearly enough to write it on paper. I'm still amazed by how much I haven't forgotten.

Enjoy!

WORLD-BUILDING: RESEARCH is your Best Friend

The Great Kanto Earthquake -- September 1, 1923 -- Taisho Era

WORLD BUILDING

RESEARCH is your Best Friend

----- Original Message -----

"...for bigger fictions (maybe 10-20 chapters, or more,) a big fan fiction, or original fiction, how much do you plan out? Since you are an actual Author I was just wondering how you would fair on this idea?"  -- Curious Kitty

How much do I plan out for one of my novels?
I detail everything. Seriously.

I start with a basic plot formula and extrapolate on certain points as needed.
 

Romance needs extra doses of lover's angst, Gothics need psychological breakdowns, Horrors need room for monster attacks, Sci-Fi's and Fantasies need moments of wonder... This gives me a rough plot outline to work from.

Next, I break down each of the Three Main Characters: 

 -- Hero/Ally/Villain.

This is to make sure that they are 'psychologically' in sync with the Plot and Each Other, so their actions/reactions will mesh in the way I intend. Ahem... That their personalities will clash nicely.

If I'm doing a Historical, I also look up the 4 years they were in High School; ages: 15, 16, 17, 18, and check out what books, songs, movies, and/or TV shows were popular during that time. Believe it or not, those are the most common foundational points in most people's personality.

Think I'm kidding? 

 

Look up your own high school years and check out what books, TV shows, songs and Movies were out during that time. Now consider how much those things STILL influence you today? If you're still in school, check out your Mom's or your Dad's high school years. The results will be shocking!

Once I get my Three Main Characters down, I sketch out the major support characters.
 

I don't go into detail on them. Just names, jobs, physical descriptions, and what I've based their personality on; Scorpio and an INTJ? or who; Riddick under a new name?

Why not detail the Support characters?

 -- I don't want to get attached to a character that ISN'T who the story is about.

Then, I map out the LOCATIONS I intend to use.
 

Location Research is especially important if I'm writing a Historical piece. I begin by researching the NEWS local to that area. 

• Did riots break out the summer my story happens? 
• Was there a killing snowstorm that winter? 
• Droughts? 
• Floods? 
• Fires?
• Quakes...? 

Weather and social conditions are vitally important because these conditions will make or break all the plot points caused by Setting.

In other words, if one location won't work-- "Oops, on that day, there's a riot on that street." --I'll have to thrash out either a way around it or find a whole new location -- or a new Time Period.

Case in point. I seriously thought about writing a Taisho Era story--until I discovered that Japan was in and out of war with Russia and China that whole period because of WWI, plus a few other less than savory--and still hotly debated--skirmishes in Korea. Then there was the 1923 Kanto Earthquake that came with hundreds of massive city-wide fires. Also, their Justice system was NOT Just. If you had money you were innocent. If you didn't...you weren't. In short, it was waaaaaaaaay, too much work to thread my little story in the middle of that mess.

If I'm using a completely fabricated world or country:

 

I suss out the political system and history for that country or set of countries for that last 200 years--or more. Then there's the time system: how many hours in a day, days in a week, a month... (Is there a moon on this planet--or two?) How long is a year? Education system, medical system, money system, invention or magic system, what occupations are available...etc.

If I'm doing a Sci-Fi or Steam Punk:

 

Next is Invention and Science research. It always pays to know what actually existed during a certain time period and what current science says is possible in the future! I normally find major inspiration during these research sessions.

If I'm doing a Paranormal or Fantasy story:  

 

Mythology, Magic and Paranormal research is next. Since I've got quite a home library on these subjects, this is just a matter of pulling a book from a shelf.

After all that is done, I take one last look at my plot outline then set it aside and begin to write.

I believe in a Total Immersion style of writing. In other words, I want to know the world so well I can simply step into the mind and skin of my main character and LIVE the story.

In the course of writing, some plot points will work and some won't. 

• Some locations won't offer quite the right atmosphere I intended for a scene. 
• Sometimes a whole new character will step onstage and become the Ally to the main character or the Villain INSTEAD of the one I mapped out.

When that happens, I take a few moments to extrapolate how such changes will affect the story. If the ending doesn't change--or a better one suddenly crops up, I go with it. I DON'T stick that hard to the plot outline. I change as needed to make the STORY better--not my ego, or worse, my Character's ego.

And...that's pretty much it. *Grin*

Enjoy!
~~~~~~~~~~
Morgan Hawke

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