One of my favorite parts of writing is giving feedback to other people's work.
A lot of people view writing as a solitary craft, but I don't think that's wholly accurate. Look at the Acknowledgments page of any published book and you'll find an army of people who gave it their blood, sweat, tears, and most costly of all, their time. Writers are not mad scientists locked in a tower, mashing together their creation with pieces from fevered nightmares and dark experiments, their only true collaboration with a hunchbacked assistant who flips the switch and publishes their book.
Even God, when creating the earth and the heavens, had Adam name the animals. Your manuscript could probably use help, too.
But you don't join a writing group just for the sake of getting critiques. You also have to give them. This helps me in the following ways:
- It forces me to objectively define my idea of good storytelling
- It forces me to understand where and how stories fall below their potential
- It forces me to practice a problem-solving process I can apply to my own writing
But that only happens when I try to give good feedback. So, what is good feedback? In this post, good feedback doesn't mean telling someone their story was good. I mean quality feedback.
A review is not constructive, quality feedback. Giving a story a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down is the most primitive, base reaction you can give anything. They have old high school friends and extended family for this--you are a writer, and should be expected to offer more useful information.
Here's what I think a good critique involves, or at least what I try to do. First I give it a read-through without making any notes, trying to read it as any reader would. When I'm done, I think back to the parts I liked and didn't like, and whether I enjoyed the story overall.
After that, I start asking questions. If I didn't like it, why not? Was there a part of the story where I stopped caring as much? Was there a part where I stopped hating it as severely? Keep asking questions until you can isolate the problem.
Just as important as identifying what doesn't work is identifying what does work. A car mechanic doesn't just know what makes a car break down, but what makes it run. This isn't just for ego-stroking; if you don't know why a story works where it does, you can't build off of it as effectively as possible. What pulled you through the story? Good character, the style, the premise, etc.?
Then I read it again, looking more closely. I list the individual things that worked (good lines, great use of theme, etc.) as well as the individual things that need fixing (this paragraph is confusing, you switch tenses here, this description could be stronger).
Then I try to offer solutions. Pointing out story problems is useful, but it's not nearly as useful as offering ideas as to how the writer can deal with the problems. Problem-finding is not nearly the same thing as problem-solving. This is the hardest part of giving a critique, in my opinion, because you have to take some ownership of the story and invest more of yourself into it. A lot of times, solutions will be drastic changes or involve throwing different parts of the story every which way. You may have to step back and think well outside the bounds of the text on the page in front you.
But don't give lame solutions, like "I enjoyed the snarky intro but not the confusing middle. Just have more snark there, instead." Attempt to figure out what the author's vision was for that confusing middle, and help them reach their vision; or understand better why the snarky intro worked so the writer can build on it instead of just copying it.
I find that a crucial piece of giving good criticism involves not asking the writer any questions. Too often the writer will try to justify or defend their decisions, even when you're fine with them. And you may pull back on your criticism if you're worried they'll be defensive about it.
A final, important note about quality feedback: the point is to help the writer improve the story. Don't spend twenty minutes debating word usage or tenses or punctuation, or minor story decisions. You should spend most of your time discussing the big issues. And since your goal is the help the writer improve the story, be aware of what will actually motivate the writer to improve it. If you make no effort to try to understand the potential of a story or where an author was trying to take it and simply point out all its problems and why you didn't like it, you're not helping them.
At my last writing group's meeting, we workshopped a piece that had a lot of stylistic errors that bogged it down severely. We identified examples and bemoaned our confusion and boredom at reading the piece, but the best advice someone gave was to simply not sweat it and just move forward with their story. Too often a lot of stuff we say in critiques are simple fixes for a rewrite, while the really crucial direction that a writer needs is more related to the story.
So give good feedback! Not only will you get better feedback in return, but you're really helping somebody out, and we can all use any help we can get. And you'll refine your understanding of your craft along the way.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
The Seven Elements of Ignoring Writing Rules
A lot of LTUE was spent explaining certain story concepts or story structures. I learned a lot of great rules, always with an accompanying caveat. After LTUE, I started visiting more writing blogs, wherein I've found more of the same: close analysis of different story elements, with rules about their correct application.
This is our craft—-of course we break it down and study its parts, like an engineer would study an engine. Clint Johnson, at an LTUE past, once said that there are great writers and great storytellers, but seldom are you both; and just as you can improve your craft as a writer, you can learn to be a great storyteller. It's important and useful to study your craft.
But another comment at this year's LTUE really sat me up straight, because it cut through a lot of fluff and got to one of storytelling's greatest secrets. At the panel on suspense, James Dashner eventually said (paraphrasing from memory), “Look, I don't really know how I make my books suspenseful. I think, 'Would this make it more suspenseful?' And if it does, I do it. Don't worry about all these rules. You've read books and seen movies, and you know what makes a good story.”
We know what makes for a good story, intuitively. Storytelling is something we do all the time, every day, from when our boss asks “How was your night?” to when your wife asks “How was your day?” It's an ancient art that's as old as language itself. It's part of what it means to be human.
And yet we have all these workshops and blogs about the Hollywood Formula or the Hero's Journey. Did you know that people told stories to each other before Hollywood? And that not every story has every one of the 510 steps of the Hero's Journey?
There's a website out there called TV Tropes, which names and categorizes every story tool ever used in the history of stories. People say they can get lost in there for hours, simply reading about all the tropes. I've never really found it useful. It feels like they're inventing an entirely new language for story discourse, and through the translation we end up with microwavable meals.
I don't think that we should define good storytelling with hard and fast rules, like some kind of Moneyball approach. I think we need to trust ourselves as natural storytellers instead of looking for a formula or rule set for everything we write.
So if you find yourself stressing over all the rules, advice, and story structures, just sit back, take a breath, and write what you like.
This is our craft—-of course we break it down and study its parts, like an engineer would study an engine. Clint Johnson, at an LTUE past, once said that there are great writers and great storytellers, but seldom are you both; and just as you can improve your craft as a writer, you can learn to be a great storyteller. It's important and useful to study your craft.
But another comment at this year's LTUE really sat me up straight, because it cut through a lot of fluff and got to one of storytelling's greatest secrets. At the panel on suspense, James Dashner eventually said (paraphrasing from memory), “Look, I don't really know how I make my books suspenseful. I think, 'Would this make it more suspenseful?' And if it does, I do it. Don't worry about all these rules. You've read books and seen movies, and you know what makes a good story.”
We know what makes for a good story, intuitively. Storytelling is something we do all the time, every day, from when our boss asks “How was your night?” to when your wife asks “How was your day?” It's an ancient art that's as old as language itself. It's part of what it means to be human.
And yet we have all these workshops and blogs about the Hollywood Formula or the Hero's Journey. Did you know that people told stories to each other before Hollywood? And that not every story has every one of the 510 steps of the Hero's Journey?
There's a website out there called TV Tropes, which names and categorizes every story tool ever used in the history of stories. People say they can get lost in there for hours, simply reading about all the tropes. I've never really found it useful. It feels like they're inventing an entirely new language for story discourse, and through the translation we end up with microwavable meals.
I don't think that we should define good storytelling with hard and fast rules, like some kind of Moneyball approach. I think we need to trust ourselves as natural storytellers instead of looking for a formula or rule set for everything we write.
So if you find yourself stressing over all the rules, advice, and story structures, just sit back, take a breath, and write what you like.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
What pro gamer MC can teach you about your MC
When I first started reading blogs about writing, I came across a term that threw me for an initial loop: MC. Why was everyone talking about Min Chul, the Korean Starcraft 2 pro gamer and champion?
Then it became clear that the term MC, at least in these circles, refers to your main character. It saves several strokes on the keyboard and is pretty universal.
At first I thought it was kind of funny that reading “MC” immediately called to mind a renowned pro gamer, a sure sign of my severe nerddom. But then I began to see parallels, patterns, and connections between the two MCs of my life. So here's what SK Gaming's MC can teach us about good main characters:
1. A good MC surprises you
In Starcraft 2, you pick one of three alien races to champion. When MC won his first global championship, it was the first time that any Protoss player had won. He then became not just the first Protoss champion, but the first repeat global champion of any of the three races. No other Protoss player has come close to repeating MC's success. But why not, when they have the same units, buildings, and strategies available to them?
Because MC played differently than any other Protoss. Other Protoss players tend to play defensively, waiting patiently until they've amassed an enormous late-game army. But MC turned all that on its head, instead attacking his opponent early and playing aggressively, even when conventional wisdom was that early Protoss units were weak.
Writing Application
Your main character should not be predictable—not to the other characters, to the reader, or even to yourself as the writer. The reason we want to follow this person's story is because we want to see what he or she will do next. If it's obvious or predictable, what's the point? That's not to say that your MC should have wildly different personalities and change all the time. Your MC can still be consistent. But give them conflicts where they must make one choice or another, instead of pigeonholing them through certain actions in your contrived plot.
2. A good MC is active
MC's aggressive strategies were successful for a few reasons. One of these is that by being the first player to attack, he was putting his destiny into his own hands. If he controlled his attack well, he would get ahead. If he controlled it poorly, he would be woefully behind. He put himself out there with these early gambits, relying on his cleverness, decision-making, and superior unit control to pull him through.
Writing Application
Your MC shouldn't be a passive player in your plot, and he shouldn't react to it, either. Good characters aren't meant to service plots; it should be the other way around. Too many manuscripts involve things happening to a character instead of a character making things happen.
If you allow your MC to be active, they can often get themselves into more trouble than you'd originally planned for them—which is good, because then they have to rely on their cleverness and decision-making to get themselves out. This gives your MC an opportunity to show his strengths, to grow, and to captivate the reader.
3. A good MC has personality
MC didn't only make his name as a pro gamer because of his success and aggressive play style. He is also one of the showiest, over-dramatic pro gamers in ESPORTS.
Before matches, he's pointed ominously at his next opponent, made throat-slitting motions at them, and even banged his fist against an opponent's booth.
After matches, he's celebrated his victories by shaking his finger, giving a thumbs-down, and even dressing up as a murloc and dancing around on stage (this actually happened; video below).
In interviews, he predicts that he'll beat his opponent 4-0 and make them cry. He's cocky and intimidating, especially considering that good sportsmanship in Korea is almost defined by a player's humility and mild-manneredness. He's earned nicknames like the Bosstoss (for his domineering style and behavior), the Kratoss (after the God of War, for his aggressive play and seeming invincibility), and Obamatoss (based on his desire to one day become President of Korea--fans chant "4 More years!" when he wins).
Writing Application
Your own MC doesn't need be a total showboat, but he or she needs to have some personality. Even if a boring accountant saves the world, the Saving of the World isn't entertaining if the accountant is boring. Give your MC a unique personality, voice, or perspective, so they become more than just an outline-fulfilling automaton.
Even if you don't know anything about ESPORTS, try to make your MC as captivating as SK.MC.
Then it became clear that the term MC, at least in these circles, refers to your main character. It saves several strokes on the keyboard and is pretty universal.
At first I thought it was kind of funny that reading “MC” immediately called to mind a renowned pro gamer, a sure sign of my severe nerddom. But then I began to see parallels, patterns, and connections between the two MCs of my life. So here's what SK Gaming's MC can teach us about good main characters:
1. A good MC surprises you
In Starcraft 2, you pick one of three alien races to champion. When MC won his first global championship, it was the first time that any Protoss player had won. He then became not just the first Protoss champion, but the first repeat global champion of any of the three races. No other Protoss player has come close to repeating MC's success. But why not, when they have the same units, buildings, and strategies available to them?
Because MC played differently than any other Protoss. Other Protoss players tend to play defensively, waiting patiently until they've amassed an enormous late-game army. But MC turned all that on its head, instead attacking his opponent early and playing aggressively, even when conventional wisdom was that early Protoss units were weak.
Writing Application
Your main character should not be predictable—not to the other characters, to the reader, or even to yourself as the writer. The reason we want to follow this person's story is because we want to see what he or she will do next. If it's obvious or predictable, what's the point? That's not to say that your MC should have wildly different personalities and change all the time. Your MC can still be consistent. But give them conflicts where they must make one choice or another, instead of pigeonholing them through certain actions in your contrived plot.
2. A good MC is active
MC's aggressive strategies were successful for a few reasons. One of these is that by being the first player to attack, he was putting his destiny into his own hands. If he controlled his attack well, he would get ahead. If he controlled it poorly, he would be woefully behind. He put himself out there with these early gambits, relying on his cleverness, decision-making, and superior unit control to pull him through.
Writing Application
Your MC shouldn't be a passive player in your plot, and he shouldn't react to it, either. Good characters aren't meant to service plots; it should be the other way around. Too many manuscripts involve things happening to a character instead of a character making things happen.
If you allow your MC to be active, they can often get themselves into more trouble than you'd originally planned for them—which is good, because then they have to rely on their cleverness and decision-making to get themselves out. This gives your MC an opportunity to show his strengths, to grow, and to captivate the reader.
3. A good MC has personality
MC didn't only make his name as a pro gamer because of his success and aggressive play style. He is also one of the showiest, over-dramatic pro gamers in ESPORTS.
Before matches, he's pointed ominously at his next opponent, made throat-slitting motions at them, and even banged his fist against an opponent's booth.
After matches, he's celebrated his victories by shaking his finger, giving a thumbs-down, and even dressing up as a murloc and dancing around on stage (this actually happened; video below).
In interviews, he predicts that he'll beat his opponent 4-0 and make them cry. He's cocky and intimidating, especially considering that good sportsmanship in Korea is almost defined by a player's humility and mild-manneredness. He's earned nicknames like the Bosstoss (for his domineering style and behavior), the Kratoss (after the God of War, for his aggressive play and seeming invincibility), and Obamatoss (based on his desire to one day become President of Korea--fans chant "4 More years!" when he wins).
Writing Application
Your own MC doesn't need be a total showboat, but he or she needs to have some personality. Even if a boring accountant saves the world, the Saving of the World isn't entertaining if the accountant is boring. Give your MC a unique personality, voice, or perspective, so they become more than just an outline-fulfilling automaton.
Even if you don't know anything about ESPORTS, try to make your MC as captivating as SK.MC.
Monday, February 20, 2012
How to Write Liars
In my opinion, a good, complex story has levels that need to be peeled back, like an onion, until you get to the truth. Even if your story isn't a mystery, or has absolutely no mystery elements to it (which is rarer than you'd think), you probably have some characters that lie at one time or another.
But lying is a lot more than simply not telling the truth, or saying something that isn't true. Lying causes people to think and behave differently, whether they realize it or not. We want to explore that in our lying characters.
But as writers, we hopefully don't know that much about lying. I'd like to think that we don't lie ourselves very often, and that we don't hang out with a bunch of people who lie all the time. So how do we get real experience on people lying to each other (especially when they're not going to just tell us that they're lying)?
The popular party game, Mafia, involves a small number of the players secretly conspiring to kill all the other ones. They privately, silently kill someone, and when the death is revealed, everyone in the game bands together to decide who to lynch under suspicion of being mafia. The mafia members will do very interesting things to avoid suspicion and get the town (everyone but mafia) to lynch another town member instead of a mafia member.
Whenever someone dies, you learn what their role was, and whether or not they were lying. By looking at some standard mafia strategies, we can use similar pathology to flesh out our deceitful characters (or send truth-seekers down more interesting paths.)
I played a game of mafia online recently, in a forum dedicated solely to these games. I was a mafia member, and at first I thought this would be easy--all I have to do is pretend to be a townie and act accordingly, right? But they dissected every one of my posts to reveal certain behaviors that logically pointed to me being mafia, even though I had no idea they were there. This forum had developed a list of sayings and acronyms that everyone knew, all describing some common mafia behaviors. These are also called scumtells. I've listed them below, and with each scumtell, I have a suggestion for a potential application in our writing.
1. WIFOM - Wine In Front Of Me
"You're trying to trick me into giving away something. It won't work."
WIFOM (a term from the classic scene in The Princess Bride) is an argument based on the hypothetical. Such as, "Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given," or, "If I were mafia, I wouldn't have tried to keep us from lynching that one innocent guy we lynched last night." These are arguments based on assumptions. A liar will often engage in WIFOM because they subconsciously know that they're actually guilty in real life, and so they make false arguments based on a hypothetical world where the operating assumptions don't involve them being mafia. Mafia will often do this without realizing it (I did), but innocent people also do it all the time just because they have bad logic.
Writing Application
Readers will identify someone as suspicious pretty quickly if they defend themselves with assumptions. If you want a red herring character you'd like your readers to suspect, have them engage in some WIFOM, only to learn later that that person was just using bad logic and often operates on assumptions in their normal life. Alternatively, you can have a liar engage in WIFOM but not have the reader realize it if the reader (or main character) doesn't realize that their operating assumption isn't true. Have a character with an air-tight alibi that removes them from early suspicion, only to reveal later in your story that their alibi was based on something that wasn't actually true (ie, they have a stamp on their passport for a specific country, but you learn that country was closed to all non-nationals that week).
2. OMGUS - Oh My Gosh You Suck
OMGUS occurs when you attack, or even vote for the person who attacks or votes for you. It's petty, emotional, and doesn't further any logical discussion. Mafia will do this when they don't want to bother accusing someone based on logic (again, they know that that person isn't mafia and so they're afraid of using actual logic), so they use the excuse of being petty.
Writing Application
I think this is more ripe material for red herrings. Liars will often lash out at whoever accuses them of lying--but so do petty people. Readers also will think distastefully of petty characters and be more likely to think of them as harboring other negative attributes (such as being deceitful or having murderous tendencies). In the end, these people just might be petty, or have an over-defensive nature because of some experiences in their past where they've been unjustly accused, or perhaps they really do have something to hide--just not the fact that they're the murderer.
3. Lurking
Based on a term describing people who regularly visit an online community but almost never participate, lurkers in mafia are those who don't forward any arguments at all--they just listen silently. The thinking here is that mafia have more to lose by talking, because they might accidentally reveal bad logic or other scumtells. If everyone stays silent, then when the town decides to lynch someone it will be almost random, odds that are good for the mafia players.
Writing Application
Liars won't volunteer much information, even if that information has absolutely nothing to do with their lie. They suspect any innocent question as the beginning of an interrogative line of questioning and will try to cut this off as much as possible. In the novel I'm working on right now, my main character has decided to lie to two survivors as to where he's taking them. He becomes paranoid about any questions they ask him and won't volunteer any information at all, spending most of their travel in silence--partly because of his nature, but also because he's trying to contain a lie. As far as Whodunit structure goes, characters who are silent, non-participatory, or peripheral make for unsatisfying reveals at the end, in my opinion. There's not much mystery if the killer is the guy who fled the scene of the crime and hides from everybody the whole time. And it's not satisfying if it turns out to be the rich uncle who is only present in the story via other characters talking about him. I like for the reveal at the end to not just reveal the mystery, but to also reveal something about the character of the killer. Who cares what it reveals if the reader never got a chance to get to know that character throughout the course of the story? The reader sure doesn't.
4. Congratulating the Medic
In mafia, there is sometimes a medic who can try to guess who the mafia will try to kill, and then preemptively "save" them. When it's revealed that the mafia tried to kill someone but that the medic prevented the kill, mafia will sometimes try extra-hard to be happy about this news, congratulating the medic on a good defensive read. This is a scumtell because it illustrates overcompensation on the part of the liar, who is secretly feeling frustration and disappointment that their hit missed. When people want to hide a powerful emotion, it's harder to cover it with a mask of moderate emotion than it is to simply switch to that emotion's powerful opposite. So mafia will try to look gleeful when things are actually awful for them.
"Wow! I'm so glad that the mafia are losing right now!
Writing Application
If your character is masking a lie, he may find himself wearing a more garish mask than necessary. "Wow, I can't wait until I take you guys to the super-awesome Eden-like paradise I told you about! It's definitely not going to be a human-ranch for vampires!" Nothing so obvious, of course. However, note that readers pick up on this easily, and other characters will at least note the liar's exuberance. Characters who go out of their way to check up on the detective's progress and offer encouragement and sympathy, such as the scientist in BBC's The Hounds of Baskerville, may very well be overcompensating.
5. Change in Behavior
In the online mafia forum I played this game, a lot of the veterans had played a large number of games together and knew each other's general play styles. So they'd search someone's post history and get suspicious when that someone was posting more frequently/infrequently or using different logic patterns. If people know each other better, it's easier to tell when they're lying--not just because of experience watching them lie, but experience in knowing how they normally act.
Writing Application
When someone lies, they're not just not telling the truth--they change, as a person. They try to rewrite themselves as people and don't quite know how to behave anymore. If your character lives a lie for a long time, they probably won't have a firm self-identity (except as a liar), or suffer a lot of self-delusion. If a character starts a new lie, their behavior will change, and those who know that person well will notice the change.
6. Wolf In Sheep's Clothing
This is what I tried to do in my game of mafia. I attempted to be as active as possible, forming arguments and defenses left and right, behaving as much like a townie as possible. While the town was suspicious of all the lurkers because of their silence, it took them quite a while to suspect one of the most active players, myself. (When they did finally point the finger at me, I engaged in a WIFOM defense: "If I were mafia, why would I do XYZ?") It's simultaneously harder to suspect an active player while also easier to analyze if they're guilty because of their high post content.
Writing Application
I think this is the most interesting kind of liar. They're not passive, hoping to be passed over, but actively influencing the investigation/plot towards red herrings and other bad leads. The liar is actually performing as an antagonist to the mystery-solver. Imagine if the killer isn't the one who fled the scene of the crime, or the overly-defensive aunt, or the petty grandmother, but the helpful Watson figure who sends the detective down all those avenues. When the reveal happens, you re-examine the entire story as well as the main character relationship. I feel that this kind of liar is the hardest to write, but the most rewarding to experience as a reader.
Sorry this was such a lengthy post, but I think that deceit is such a prevalent and difficult story element, and that you can learn a lot by looking at these scumtells. Also, note that while I use Whodunit plots as an example multiple times, the concepts of mystery enter all kinds of fiction, and these principles should still translate well.
But lying is a lot more than simply not telling the truth, or saying something that isn't true. Lying causes people to think and behave differently, whether they realize it or not. We want to explore that in our lying characters.
But as writers, we hopefully don't know that much about lying. I'd like to think that we don't lie ourselves very often, and that we don't hang out with a bunch of people who lie all the time. So how do we get real experience on people lying to each other (especially when they're not going to just tell us that they're lying)?
The popular party game, Mafia, involves a small number of the players secretly conspiring to kill all the other ones. They privately, silently kill someone, and when the death is revealed, everyone in the game bands together to decide who to lynch under suspicion of being mafia. The mafia members will do very interesting things to avoid suspicion and get the town (everyone but mafia) to lynch another town member instead of a mafia member.
Whenever someone dies, you learn what their role was, and whether or not they were lying. By looking at some standard mafia strategies, we can use similar pathology to flesh out our deceitful characters (or send truth-seekers down more interesting paths.)
I played a game of mafia online recently, in a forum dedicated solely to these games. I was a mafia member, and at first I thought this would be easy--all I have to do is pretend to be a townie and act accordingly, right? But they dissected every one of my posts to reveal certain behaviors that logically pointed to me being mafia, even though I had no idea they were there. This forum had developed a list of sayings and acronyms that everyone knew, all describing some common mafia behaviors. These are also called scumtells. I've listed them below, and with each scumtell, I have a suggestion for a potential application in our writing.
1. WIFOM - Wine In Front Of Me
WIFOM (a term from the classic scene in The Princess Bride) is an argument based on the hypothetical. Such as, "Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given," or, "If I were mafia, I wouldn't have tried to keep us from lynching that one innocent guy we lynched last night." These are arguments based on assumptions. A liar will often engage in WIFOM because they subconsciously know that they're actually guilty in real life, and so they make false arguments based on a hypothetical world where the operating assumptions don't involve them being mafia. Mafia will often do this without realizing it (I did), but innocent people also do it all the time just because they have bad logic.
Writing Application
Readers will identify someone as suspicious pretty quickly if they defend themselves with assumptions. If you want a red herring character you'd like your readers to suspect, have them engage in some WIFOM, only to learn later that that person was just using bad logic and often operates on assumptions in their normal life. Alternatively, you can have a liar engage in WIFOM but not have the reader realize it if the reader (or main character) doesn't realize that their operating assumption isn't true. Have a character with an air-tight alibi that removes them from early suspicion, only to reveal later in your story that their alibi was based on something that wasn't actually true (ie, they have a stamp on their passport for a specific country, but you learn that country was closed to all non-nationals that week).
2. OMGUS - Oh My Gosh You Suck
OMGUS occurs when you attack, or even vote for the person who attacks or votes for you. It's petty, emotional, and doesn't further any logical discussion. Mafia will do this when they don't want to bother accusing someone based on logic (again, they know that that person isn't mafia and so they're afraid of using actual logic), so they use the excuse of being petty.
Writing Application
I think this is more ripe material for red herrings. Liars will often lash out at whoever accuses them of lying--but so do petty people. Readers also will think distastefully of petty characters and be more likely to think of them as harboring other negative attributes (such as being deceitful or having murderous tendencies). In the end, these people just might be petty, or have an over-defensive nature because of some experiences in their past where they've been unjustly accused, or perhaps they really do have something to hide--just not the fact that they're the murderer.
3. Lurking
Based on a term describing people who regularly visit an online community but almost never participate, lurkers in mafia are those who don't forward any arguments at all--they just listen silently. The thinking here is that mafia have more to lose by talking, because they might accidentally reveal bad logic or other scumtells. If everyone stays silent, then when the town decides to lynch someone it will be almost random, odds that are good for the mafia players.
Writing Application
Liars won't volunteer much information, even if that information has absolutely nothing to do with their lie. They suspect any innocent question as the beginning of an interrogative line of questioning and will try to cut this off as much as possible. In the novel I'm working on right now, my main character has decided to lie to two survivors as to where he's taking them. He becomes paranoid about any questions they ask him and won't volunteer any information at all, spending most of their travel in silence--partly because of his nature, but also because he's trying to contain a lie. As far as Whodunit structure goes, characters who are silent, non-participatory, or peripheral make for unsatisfying reveals at the end, in my opinion. There's not much mystery if the killer is the guy who fled the scene of the crime and hides from everybody the whole time. And it's not satisfying if it turns out to be the rich uncle who is only present in the story via other characters talking about him. I like for the reveal at the end to not just reveal the mystery, but to also reveal something about the character of the killer. Who cares what it reveals if the reader never got a chance to get to know that character throughout the course of the story? The reader sure doesn't.
4. Congratulating the Medic
In mafia, there is sometimes a medic who can try to guess who the mafia will try to kill, and then preemptively "save" them. When it's revealed that the mafia tried to kill someone but that the medic prevented the kill, mafia will sometimes try extra-hard to be happy about this news, congratulating the medic on a good defensive read. This is a scumtell because it illustrates overcompensation on the part of the liar, who is secretly feeling frustration and disappointment that their hit missed. When people want to hide a powerful emotion, it's harder to cover it with a mask of moderate emotion than it is to simply switch to that emotion's powerful opposite. So mafia will try to look gleeful when things are actually awful for them.
Writing Application
If your character is masking a lie, he may find himself wearing a more garish mask than necessary. "Wow, I can't wait until I take you guys to the super-awesome Eden-like paradise I told you about! It's definitely not going to be a human-ranch for vampires!" Nothing so obvious, of course. However, note that readers pick up on this easily, and other characters will at least note the liar's exuberance. Characters who go out of their way to check up on the detective's progress and offer encouragement and sympathy, such as the scientist in BBC's The Hounds of Baskerville, may very well be overcompensating.
5. Change in Behavior
In the online mafia forum I played this game, a lot of the veterans had played a large number of games together and knew each other's general play styles. So they'd search someone's post history and get suspicious when that someone was posting more frequently/infrequently or using different logic patterns. If people know each other better, it's easier to tell when they're lying--not just because of experience watching them lie, but experience in knowing how they normally act.
Writing Application
When someone lies, they're not just not telling the truth--they change, as a person. They try to rewrite themselves as people and don't quite know how to behave anymore. If your character lives a lie for a long time, they probably won't have a firm self-identity (except as a liar), or suffer a lot of self-delusion. If a character starts a new lie, their behavior will change, and those who know that person well will notice the change.
6. Wolf In Sheep's Clothing
This is what I tried to do in my game of mafia. I attempted to be as active as possible, forming arguments and defenses left and right, behaving as much like a townie as possible. While the town was suspicious of all the lurkers because of their silence, it took them quite a while to suspect one of the most active players, myself. (When they did finally point the finger at me, I engaged in a WIFOM defense: "If I were mafia, why would I do XYZ?") It's simultaneously harder to suspect an active player while also easier to analyze if they're guilty because of their high post content.
Writing Application
I think this is the most interesting kind of liar. They're not passive, hoping to be passed over, but actively influencing the investigation/plot towards red herrings and other bad leads. The liar is actually performing as an antagonist to the mystery-solver. Imagine if the killer isn't the one who fled the scene of the crime, or the overly-defensive aunt, or the petty grandmother, but the helpful Watson figure who sends the detective down all those avenues. When the reveal happens, you re-examine the entire story as well as the main character relationship. I feel that this kind of liar is the hardest to write, but the most rewarding to experience as a reader.
Sorry this was such a lengthy post, but I think that deceit is such a prevalent and difficult story element, and that you can learn a lot by looking at these scumtells. Also, note that while I use Whodunit plots as an example multiple times, the concepts of mystery enter all kinds of fiction, and these principles should still translate well.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Effective Swag
These days, it's easier to get published than it is to get read. So promoting yourself and your work takes on added importance. How do you make your promotional material stand out from the rest of that crowded table of business cards and bookmarks?
Looking at all the swag I took home from LTUE, I'm going to examine what worked on me, and what didn't.
The LTUE program--simple and effective. Except that they didn't have Saturday's schedule in there. Whoops!
1. Business cards
Business cards are the most traditional and understood way to network. It's got exactly everything it needs and nothing else. This works great if the person who takes your card is actually interested in you already. Otherwise it'll just got lost in a stack.
A few things make a business card stand out to me. The first is excellent visuals. The inkpageant.com card works really well on me because it's very simple, and it has a pleasing, well-designed visual. It's just the logo to their website. They could cram that card with all the services their website offers, big-name bloggers who use it, etc., but they decide to hang everything on their simple, effective logo. Easy to pull this card out of a stack.
The second thing is novelty. In particular, Eric James Stone's business card actually has a short story on the back of it.
A victim of my poor photography skills
That's pretty awesome. It gives people an excuse to want your business card outside of just networking, and offers meaningful content. Note that I said "meaningful." Throwing a Sudoku or tic-tac-toe grid on the back of your card may be different, but it's not meaningful if it doesn't relate at all to what skills you're marketing. Eric James Stone's card works really well because it illustrates exactly what he does: writing short stories.
2. Bookmarks
I don't know how I feel about bookmarks. First of all, who uses them anymore? More and more people read electronically. Of course, the kind of people you'll usually give these to are probably big enough readers that they could ostensibly use a bookmark for something. But there are so many bookmarks out there, I don't know that anybody really needs another one.
My second qualm with bookmarks is that they only really expose themselves while your target audience is already invested in reading something else. "Yo dawg, I heard you like text so I put some text in your text so you can read while you read." So if you're going to do a bookmark, I would aim for the more visual kind, like the "Upside Down" bookmark you see above.
Bookmarks at least set your material apart from standard mini-fliers, handouts, or business cards. And they're clearly linked, utility-wise, to the product you're promoting.
3. Handouts
I'm sure there's a better term for these middling things, that are usually about a quarter of a piece of paper in size. They can be cheap to produce, but if you look at that stack, some of them stand out a lot more than the others. Those are the ones who pay for better physical material (glossier) and ink so they can show off their visuals.
The three there on the bottom are for a series of books, but it was the illustrator who gave them to me. I told him I was an aspiring writer and he showed me some examples of his work in case I wanted a cover artist. It wasn't just yet another paper to stuff into my bag, but an actual tool for his pitch. Again, if the point is marketing your content, it's useful to have something that can show it.
4. Free content
An entire paper about serial killers
Free comic book
People always jump at free stuff. Even if the content is only somewhat interesting, hey, it's free, right? The only problem with that is that you're giving away content for free. As Tracy Hickman said so cleverly, "free books are worth every penny." People may wonder why it's free and subconsciously decide the quality is low.
My advice would be to only give things away for free that you can afford to give away. Don't rely entirely upon all your free content to quadruple the sales of your priced content. Brandon Sanderson put his latest book up for free online, but that was only after being picked to write THE WHEEL OF TIME and he wanted something he could point WoTers to so they'd have more faith in him (and also buy his other books.)
I liked how Dr. Carlisle just put a stack of his papers in the Dealer's Room instead of waiting for people to ask for his expertise. He just cut out the middle part of the process. If he was willing to give that out for free, he might as well just literally give it out for free, right?
5. Posters
The best promotion there, in my opinion
Posters are more expensive to make, but super effective, in my opinion. People want cool posters to hang up and look at. If you're confident in the visual you can produce, as far as selling your product's tone and quality, a poster may be your best bet. This was a poster for the Writers of the Future contest. They're not just trying to get people to buy their anthology, but submit to it as well. Writers are confident in their own text, but what a contest has to sell is their ability to promote your work once you've won. They do it with this strong genre visual. Every writer thinks, "Man, I would love for my book/story to have a cover like that." It suggests the contest's level of quality and professionalism.
If the image is cool enough to put on your wall, you're going to subconsciously be traveling to the world of that image all the time, whenever you look at it. That's why they do movie posters.
I saw an awesome poster in my friend's basement the other day, showing off some cool steampunk world. I asked them what it was from, and they said "I don't know, some graphic novel. I just picked up the poster because it looked cool."
Looking cool always works.
Feel free to share examples of effective promotional material that worked on you.
Looking at all the swag I took home from LTUE, I'm going to examine what worked on me, and what didn't.
1. Business cards
Business cards are the most traditional and understood way to network. It's got exactly everything it needs and nothing else. This works great if the person who takes your card is actually interested in you already. Otherwise it'll just got lost in a stack.
A few things make a business card stand out to me. The first is excellent visuals. The inkpageant.com card works really well on me because it's very simple, and it has a pleasing, well-designed visual. It's just the logo to their website. They could cram that card with all the services their website offers, big-name bloggers who use it, etc., but they decide to hang everything on their simple, effective logo. Easy to pull this card out of a stack.
The second thing is novelty. In particular, Eric James Stone's business card actually has a short story on the back of it.
That's pretty awesome. It gives people an excuse to want your business card outside of just networking, and offers meaningful content. Note that I said "meaningful." Throwing a Sudoku or tic-tac-toe grid on the back of your card may be different, but it's not meaningful if it doesn't relate at all to what skills you're marketing. Eric James Stone's card works really well because it illustrates exactly what he does: writing short stories.
2. Bookmarks
I don't know how I feel about bookmarks. First of all, who uses them anymore? More and more people read electronically. Of course, the kind of people you'll usually give these to are probably big enough readers that they could ostensibly use a bookmark for something. But there are so many bookmarks out there, I don't know that anybody really needs another one.
My second qualm with bookmarks is that they only really expose themselves while your target audience is already invested in reading something else. "Yo dawg, I heard you like text so I put some text in your text so you can read while you read." So if you're going to do a bookmark, I would aim for the more visual kind, like the "Upside Down" bookmark you see above.
Bookmarks at least set your material apart from standard mini-fliers, handouts, or business cards. And they're clearly linked, utility-wise, to the product you're promoting.
3. Handouts
I'm sure there's a better term for these middling things, that are usually about a quarter of a piece of paper in size. They can be cheap to produce, but if you look at that stack, some of them stand out a lot more than the others. Those are the ones who pay for better physical material (glossier) and ink so they can show off their visuals.
The three there on the bottom are for a series of books, but it was the illustrator who gave them to me. I told him I was an aspiring writer and he showed me some examples of his work in case I wanted a cover artist. It wasn't just yet another paper to stuff into my bag, but an actual tool for his pitch. Again, if the point is marketing your content, it's useful to have something that can show it.
4. Free content
People always jump at free stuff. Even if the content is only somewhat interesting, hey, it's free, right? The only problem with that is that you're giving away content for free. As Tracy Hickman said so cleverly, "free books are worth every penny." People may wonder why it's free and subconsciously decide the quality is low.
My advice would be to only give things away for free that you can afford to give away. Don't rely entirely upon all your free content to quadruple the sales of your priced content. Brandon Sanderson put his latest book up for free online, but that was only after being picked to write THE WHEEL OF TIME and he wanted something he could point WoTers to so they'd have more faith in him (and also buy his other books.)
I liked how Dr. Carlisle just put a stack of his papers in the Dealer's Room instead of waiting for people to ask for his expertise. He just cut out the middle part of the process. If he was willing to give that out for free, he might as well just literally give it out for free, right?
5. Posters
Posters are more expensive to make, but super effective, in my opinion. People want cool posters to hang up and look at. If you're confident in the visual you can produce, as far as selling your product's tone and quality, a poster may be your best bet. This was a poster for the Writers of the Future contest. They're not just trying to get people to buy their anthology, but submit to it as well. Writers are confident in their own text, but what a contest has to sell is their ability to promote your work once you've won. They do it with this strong genre visual. Every writer thinks, "Man, I would love for my book/story to have a cover like that." It suggests the contest's level of quality and professionalism.
If the image is cool enough to put on your wall, you're going to subconsciously be traveling to the world of that image all the time, whenever you look at it. That's why they do movie posters.
I saw an awesome poster in my friend's basement the other day, showing off some cool steampunk world. I asked them what it was from, and they said "I don't know, some graphic novel. I just picked up the poster because it looked cool."
Looking cool always works.
Feel free to share examples of effective promotional material that worked on you.
Visiting LTUE from the Future
LTUE (Life, The Universe, and Everything) was a fantastic symposium on science fiction and fantasy writing. I flew out from Maryland to attend (I also have some family and friends there, so I got double out of the trip), and wanted to squeeze every possible drop of worth from the thing as possible so as to justify the cost.
Looking back, I have a few woulda-coulda-shoulda's. But in the scifi genre, we have a slightly less fatalistic phrase: Dedicate The Rest Of Your Life To Inventing A Time Machine So You Can Change The Past.
In that spirit, here's what I would tell my pre-LTUE self if I could travel back in time:
1. Talk to people sitting nearby. The most interesting and valuable people at LTUE aren't necessarily the ones doing all the presenting.
2. Take lots of notes. There's no way your brain is going to be able to retain all the advice it's going to receive over 3 days straight of sessions, no matter how interesting.
3. Take Dr. Collings up on the poetry consultation. You might be shy about your poem, but he'll give you some insightful, constructive advice that will help you look at poetry in a new way.
4. Prep meaningful questions for the presenters. Too much time will be wasted on dumb questions by dumb people, and instead of complaining about the dumb people, come up with some good questions of your own. These authors are a free resource for these three days, so plan to make good use of them.
5. Avoid going to too many panels, or at least know what you're getting into. A single blabbermouth will often dominate a panel with useless information or self-hype, while the intelligent panelists are too polite to cut them off in the name of discussion. In other cases, the moderator may not best know how to lead a meaningful discussion, or the audience will randomly call out awful questions. Some panels will be marvelous, but be aware that panels are harder to execute.
6. Look up the presenters in your program before going to their session. Otherwise you may find out too late that the person teaching you about writing has never actually been published, or you'll get to the end of a fantastic presentation and go, "Wait a minute, what does this guy do again?" If you particularly enjoy one person's insight, you can follow them to their other sessions. If you particularly dislike a certain panelist (this will happen to you), avoid further panels in which they participate. Knowing is half the battle (the other half is remembering).
7. Avoid brainstorm-focused sessions. Not that there's no worth to authors showing how an idea-creation process works... but as soon as they start involving the audience, things will go downhill. In such environments, people tend to be more silly than serious because they know that they have no actual investment in the idea. It will become slightly entertaining but also not very useful.
Prepare for a discussion of giant weasels to dominate 30 minutes of your life
8. Eat lunch early on Saturday. The kiddie dance competition and the final day of LTUE will combine to create a Perfect Storm and literally eat all the food out of the UVU food court, leaving nothing open by the time you'll go looking for grub.
9. Go to the dealer's room, and don't wait until Saturday to do so. You'll see a lot of nifty promotional items there--some for things you care about, others that you don't care about so much but the promotion is still cool--and you'll be able to talk in a more one-on-one setting with whoever's there. This is how you'll find out about inkpageant.com, which, for some reason, you'll keep trying to type as "inkplague" for the following week.
10. Bet everything you own on Jeremy Lin hitting a game-winning three against Toronto for Valentine's Day.
Now to invent that time machine.
Looking back, I have a few woulda-coulda-shoulda's. But in the scifi genre, we have a slightly less fatalistic phrase: Dedicate The Rest Of Your Life To Inventing A Time Machine So You Can Change The Past.
In that spirit, here's what I would tell my pre-LTUE self if I could travel back in time:
1. Talk to people sitting nearby. The most interesting and valuable people at LTUE aren't necessarily the ones doing all the presenting.
2. Take lots of notes. There's no way your brain is going to be able to retain all the advice it's going to receive over 3 days straight of sessions, no matter how interesting.
3. Take Dr. Collings up on the poetry consultation. You might be shy about your poem, but he'll give you some insightful, constructive advice that will help you look at poetry in a new way.
4. Prep meaningful questions for the presenters. Too much time will be wasted on dumb questions by dumb people, and instead of complaining about the dumb people, come up with some good questions of your own. These authors are a free resource for these three days, so plan to make good use of them.
5. Avoid going to too many panels, or at least know what you're getting into. A single blabbermouth will often dominate a panel with useless information or self-hype, while the intelligent panelists are too polite to cut them off in the name of discussion. In other cases, the moderator may not best know how to lead a meaningful discussion, or the audience will randomly call out awful questions. Some panels will be marvelous, but be aware that panels are harder to execute.
6. Look up the presenters in your program before going to their session. Otherwise you may find out too late that the person teaching you about writing has never actually been published, or you'll get to the end of a fantastic presentation and go, "Wait a minute, what does this guy do again?" If you particularly enjoy one person's insight, you can follow them to their other sessions. If you particularly dislike a certain panelist (this will happen to you), avoid further panels in which they participate. Knowing is half the battle (the other half is remembering).
7. Avoid brainstorm-focused sessions. Not that there's no worth to authors showing how an idea-creation process works... but as soon as they start involving the audience, things will go downhill. In such environments, people tend to be more silly than serious because they know that they have no actual investment in the idea. It will become slightly entertaining but also not very useful.
8. Eat lunch early on Saturday. The kiddie dance competition and the final day of LTUE will combine to create a Perfect Storm and literally eat all the food out of the UVU food court, leaving nothing open by the time you'll go looking for grub.
9. Go to the dealer's room, and don't wait until Saturday to do so. You'll see a lot of nifty promotional items there--some for things you care about, others that you don't care about so much but the promotion is still cool--and you'll be able to talk in a more one-on-one setting with whoever's there. This is how you'll find out about inkpageant.com, which, for some reason, you'll keep trying to type as "inkplague" for the following week.
10. Bet everything you own on Jeremy Lin hitting a game-winning three against Toronto for Valentine's Day.
Now to invent that time machine.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
"How Many of Us Will Actually Get Published?"
As any careful follower of my blog will know, I was at LTUE (Life, the Universe, and Everything) last week, a symposium on science fiction and fantasy writing. After one of the first sessions I attended, the lady on my right asked me a very interesting question.
“How many people in this room do you think will ever get published? Zero?”
It's an interesting question because it forced my appreciation for realistic, objective predictions to confront my subjective hopes.
“Well, I plan on at least one,” I responded. Which I thought to be pretty clever; at least clever enough to put in my blog.
However, I definitely understood what she was seeing, thinking, and feeling. There were maybe 100 people in that room, all there, ostensibly, to learn how to get published. And there were even more people at the other concurrent sessions. But realistically, we're all not going to get successfully published. I even caught myself deciding which ones had a chance as I looked at them: are they wearing a fedora? If they're not already published, they're not going to get published; the fedora is a post-publication hat. Are they not taking notes? Nottachance. Do they look younger than me? Then they've got to be too inexperienced, amirite?
Shoot yourself now, sir. You'll never get published in a hat like that.
These silent categorizations of mine show a couple things: firstly, that I'd probably make for an awful agent or acquisitions editor, and secondly, that I worry way too much about other people's chances. I suppose that publication is a competition, but not to that degree.
Additionally, if I decide that most people who come to these cheap writing conferences have practically no chance at actually making it, that they're deluding themselves, where does that put me? Does being cynical and critical of others raise my own outlook in any way?
I think this lady's speculation, as well as my own, were instinctual. We've created visions in our minds of accomplishing our goals and dreams, and in this narrative, we're special and solitary. When we're suddenly just one more member of a huge blob of people, all of whom have simply copied our dream, we don't feel as special anymore. We're part of a deluded herd—-or at least, that's the creeping fear.
It's not useful at all to think this way. Publication is not a lottery, no matter what anyone may say. There's no spectrum of skill in lottery participants. And I don't like when people refer to the “chances” of publication. Granted, there is a lot in this process that you can't control, at all. But the amount you can control—-you know, the actual writing-—is such a deep, complex task, we have no room to complain about our chances. As aspiring writers, we already have so much we can do.
And as writers, isn't that So Much We Can Do the stuff we actually want to do: the writing?
I can't know why everybody else went to LTUE. And I certainly can't control whether any of them get successfully published.
But I can write better. So I'm just going to do that.
“How many people in this room do you think will ever get published? Zero?”
It's an interesting question because it forced my appreciation for realistic, objective predictions to confront my subjective hopes.
“Well, I plan on at least one,” I responded. Which I thought to be pretty clever; at least clever enough to put in my blog.
However, I definitely understood what she was seeing, thinking, and feeling. There were maybe 100 people in that room, all there, ostensibly, to learn how to get published. And there were even more people at the other concurrent sessions. But realistically, we're all not going to get successfully published. I even caught myself deciding which ones had a chance as I looked at them: are they wearing a fedora? If they're not already published, they're not going to get published; the fedora is a post-publication hat. Are they not taking notes? Nottachance. Do they look younger than me? Then they've got to be too inexperienced, amirite?
These silent categorizations of mine show a couple things: firstly, that I'd probably make for an awful agent or acquisitions editor, and secondly, that I worry way too much about other people's chances. I suppose that publication is a competition, but not to that degree.
Additionally, if I decide that most people who come to these cheap writing conferences have practically no chance at actually making it, that they're deluding themselves, where does that put me? Does being cynical and critical of others raise my own outlook in any way?
I think this lady's speculation, as well as my own, were instinctual. We've created visions in our minds of accomplishing our goals and dreams, and in this narrative, we're special and solitary. When we're suddenly just one more member of a huge blob of people, all of whom have simply copied our dream, we don't feel as special anymore. We're part of a deluded herd—-or at least, that's the creeping fear.
It's not useful at all to think this way. Publication is not a lottery, no matter what anyone may say. There's no spectrum of skill in lottery participants. And I don't like when people refer to the “chances” of publication. Granted, there is a lot in this process that you can't control, at all. But the amount you can control—-you know, the actual writing-—is such a deep, complex task, we have no room to complain about our chances. As aspiring writers, we already have so much we can do.
And as writers, isn't that So Much We Can Do the stuff we actually want to do: the writing?
I can't know why everybody else went to LTUE. And I certainly can't control whether any of them get successfully published.
But I can write better. So I'm just going to do that.
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