Action Fatigue

Being a Better Writer: No Dice – Bringing Randomness Into Your Story

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“I, at any rate, am convinced that [God] does not throw dice.”
—Albert Einstein

“The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.”
—Robert Coveyou

Welcome back, writers. It’s time for another installment of Being a Better Writer and—what’s that? I need to mention what’s happening tomorrow first? And after that lead-in with the quotes?

The dice say “Yes!” so we’re doing it. If you somehow missed it, my eleventh book, The Phoenix releases tomorrow. Yes, you read that right! September 16th The Phoenix drops out into the world, and everyone finally gets to find out how a man who can’t die goes about solving his own murder.

Like the premise? You should probably go pre-order the book, then. It’s a lot of fun. If you’ve never tried one of my books before, why make this the first one. Again, if that premise at all sounds like fun, go give it whirl. You’ll have a good time.

Okay, plug over. I know, but it’s not like book launches happen every day. Not for the same author, anyway. They’re big deals and signify the end result of a lot of hard work. Hundreds of hours. So when a launch comes along … We want to talk about it.

Oh, and there’s that and more discussed in last week’s news post. Go check it out if you’re curious what’s coming next.

“Okay, so … what’s the deal with today’s topic?” is what I’d ask if I’d not thrown the subtitle on today’s title. But as fun as just calling this post No Dice was, I figured a little more needed to be said.

In the same vein, I felt having those two quotes at the top were a great primer to getting people thinking about the subject for today. And let me tell you: Einstein may have been right about God not playing dice with the universe. But us mortals? Though we may be the “gods” of our stories … We play with dice all the time.

Or rather … we should. Hit the jump.

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Being a Better Writer: Over the Top Action

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Welcome back, writers! I assume that most of you know the drill, but if this is one of your first exposures to the weekly article series that is Being a Better Writer, then all you need to know is there’s a new article each Monday, and that the title there is entirely self explanatory. Are you looking to sharped your writing skills in a subject? Then you’ve come to the right place!

Now, before we dive into today’s topic, which is indeed a unique one, I do want to poke your attention toward last Thursday’s news post. There’s some stuff there worth looking at, even if the protagonist poll for the next book has already concluded by this posting. So go check it out!

Now, on with the show! Or rather, BaBW post. This one’s a bit of an interesting topic. In part because some do find it incredibly polarizing.

But it is polarizing in part because of how tricky it is to do right. Look, if all there was to making a successful over the top action story was writing really over the top action with a decent grasp of grammar mechanics, webfiction—especially fanfiction—would probably be the dominant form of writing on earth.

But while webfiction and fanfiction is certainly popular, it’s also frequently used as a demonstration of elements of fiction gone wrong—and to be fair, it should be noted that the majority of this sort of fiction is novice fiction, IE written by novices at the craft. I’m not trying to disparage fanfiction or webfiction, just pointing out that the scales are weighed against it for understandable reasons. However, even webfiction that’s universally seen as poor will often find among its criticisms that the action is “too unbelievable” (or poorly written, often both) even if it is “over the top.”

And yet … one of the more successful authors of the late 20th century was Clive Cussler, whose Dirk Pitt adventures could not be counted as anything other than “over the top” to a frankly ludicrous degree. But as noted, one of the more successful authors of the late 20th century.

In other words, while over the top action is often cited as a failing of many novice fictions online, it’s also counted as a win for the millions upon millions of books Clive Cussler sold in his lifetime. And he’s not the only example of this, but certainly one of the more famous. Clearly, over the top action isn’t an automatic flaw, despite the legion of critics online that quickly jump to it as such. But then, if that’s the case …

What’s the difference? What did Cussler do right that so many webfiction creators do wrong?

Hit the jump. Let’s talk.

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Being a Better Writer: Let Characters Fail

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Welcome back writers! As work continues getting Axtara – Magic and Mischief (I still miss Mayhem, but we’ll be getting a BaBW post on that next week) that hasn’t stopped Being a Better Writer from delivering!

Oh, but if you’re a fan of Axtara and weren’t around last Friday (or you’re brand new to the site), don’t neglect to check out Part One of A Trial For a Dragon, a free short story set in the Axtara universe starring Axtara’s older brother. A dragon becoming a banker is one thing, but what about a dragon becoming a wizard? You can check out the short here, and if you’ve stumbled across this post months (or even years) after the fact, read the rest of it by following the comment links!

That’s pretty much it as far as news is concerned. At this point Beta Reading/Editing is underway, and next up will be a cover … So you’re all caught up—

Wait, almost. Just a quick reminder to Patreon Supporters that you only have until the release of Axtara – Magic and Mischief to vote for the next book to come out! You can do that here!

Okay, that’s the news. Let’s talk writing. I’m sure a few of you writing vets have looked at the title and thought “Well, that seems pretty straightforward, but I must admit that today’s post is one that comes about due to a perceptive shift I’ve witnessed taking place over the last several years. A shift that, in the last six months especially I’ve seen on display more and more across various internet forums and even in reviews for books.

Because recently, one of the most common strikes I’ve seen leveled at characters in movies, books, and games, is that they’re failing. No, not as characters, but in their goals until the climax arrives.

Let me give you a direct example, one of the more memorable ones that, because it bugged me, stuck in my mind, and was one of the inspirations for this post: 2023’s Super Mario Bros. movie. Look, I’ll be the first to say the movie doesn’t shy from what it is: non-offensive child-friendly entertainment that’s greatest achievement, previously unmatched by Hollywood, was actually representing the property it was based on (which, for Hollywood, is like a lawyer refunding cash: a blank look followed by “I don’t know what those words mean).

But I was really interested in some of the criticism leveled against the movie, in particular the accusation that whole elements of the story were “a waste because the characters failed.”

In particular, if you’ve seen the film, the recruitment of the Kong army. Critics across the web will note that a good portion of the movie is spent on the recruitment of the Kong army, which includes Mario trying a training course—and failing, the critics either ignoring or forgetting that he does actually succeed at the course eventually—to show that he deserves to go along for the recruitment pitch, having to face a challenge to “prove” they can handle the army … and then the army is beaten anyway by the antagonist in a big battle sequence.

These critics argue that because the army failed, it’s a waste of storytelling time. That it shouldn’t have been in the story at all because due to the failure, the story didn’t move forward.

And these critics are not alone, nor are they just unhappy with Super Mario Bros. It seems any story that comes out these days—or even an older story—is increasingly being viewed with this lens. “Oh, the characters had this plan and it didn’t work out? That’s bad storytelling. It’s a waste of the audience’s time and attention. It’s padding to lengthen things out. It’s boring.”

Or my personal “favorite” accusation, that it’s “woke.” Which is about as empty and hollow a criticism as I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen some doozies.

However, with this criticism becoming more and more frequent, it’s been leveled at books and written stories as much as anything else. I’ve seen people post about famous books decrying them because ‘So-and-so waffled around not being able to face the big bad for two-hundred pages and getting beat. What a waste of my time. No one should read this as it doesn’t respect the reader’s time.’

Worse, I’ve started to see newbie advice handed out by these critics that such scenes should be cut or removed from stories. Advice given on writing forums that young writers should not include scenes or story elements where the characters fail because “This doesn’t move the story forward, therefore it is bad” (and lest you think this is hyperbole, I’ve see variations of that exact statement several times in the last month).

And while I can see where that advice is coming from, and how that conclusion has been reached, I’ve just got to say it, in as straightforward a manner as I can: It’s just plain wrong.

So hit the jump, and let’s break down this new bit of “advice” that’s circling the writing circles.

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Classic Being a Better Writer: Pacing

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Welcome back to another classic Being a Better Writer post!

Confused? New around here? Don’t be! Being a Better Writer is a weekly writing guide posted to this site every Monday designed to help writers of all experience hone their craft. Beginning or experienced and in need of a refresher, BaBW has been a staple of Unusual Things since actually before the site existed. You could say it’s one reason my site exists.

Anyway, although each post is carefully tagged and organized, as well as searchable via the site search function, there’s still a lot of material to go through after the years. Classic posts are a way to bridge the gap and make it easier for some to find the topics that they’re interested in.

This week? Pacing! An oft overlooked by quite vital aspect of any story.

Pacing—
Have you ever seen a film or a read a book where things started out with a bang and just kept exploding? Or a tense film that just stayed tense and never gave you a moment to relax? And by about halfway through, you’re actually bored with both of them? That’s because the pacing was poor. You can only keep an audience in a constant state of tension/suspense/action before the audience is tired of it. They need a moment to relax, to digest. To think about what’s happened. They need a slower moment where they can catch their breath, and if they don’t get it, they’re going to stop enjoying whatever it is they were watching.

Pacing – Part II—
If I were to put it in my own words, pacing is the measure of timing that flows through your story. It is the rate at which things happen, the length and depth of scenes and sentences, and even the rhythm by which the events in the story flow …

… Because contrary to what a lot of young writers think, there’s more to writing than simply getting the right words down on the page. You can write a wonderful, otherwise well-written story full of heart, character, and adventure, and yet create something that fails to deliver to the reader at all because of improper pacing. There’s more to writing than simply getting all the right words out. You need to have the right length and timing to go with everything.

The Try/Fail Cycle and the Evolving Story—
Now, I’m going to preface things with a caveat here: We know that the hero is going to win. Usually. 95% of the time, it’s a safe bet that the hero will emerge victorious in some fashion or another. But on the journey there? A hero who simply crushes all in their path doesn’t really make for an entertaining read because the reader always knows what is going to happen. If your hero fights mook after mook, takes down trap after trap, and comes out on top every time, well, even if your action is written in an incredibly well-done manner, you’re still going to start running into readers who just start skipping over things. Why?

Because they’ve gotten bored.

 

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Being a Better Writer: Pacing – Part II

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Don’t forget, Unusual Events: A “Short” Story Collection is out now!

This post was originally written and posted December 15th, 2014, and has been touched up and reposted here for archival purposes.

Pacing.

If there was ever a topic that I felt needed to be discussed with young writers—crud, or at the very least referenced in a basic high school English education—that sadly seems to be completely overlooked or ignored, it would have to be pacing. A measuring stick of the writer’s toolbox, pacing is a lot like the sextant—an ancient, invaluable tool in many scenarios, but completely ignored by most because they’ve never been taught what it is or how to use it. Worse, there’s no modern equivalent of it such as a GPS to replace it, which means that many simply stumble through their works, never once picking up this ancient ruler and measuring their story with it.

Alright, you’re probably getting the idea. Pacing is important. But what is this “pacing” of which I speak? As I’ve pointed out, it’s something that isn’t really understood or taught to a lot of people. While most young writers have certainly heard the term, the actual application of it often doesn’t come with it. Most more experienced authors will mention the term from time to time—usually with a quick mention of how important it is—but unless you’re attending a panel or workshop on it, hardly anyone ever actually spends time explaining what pacing is, or better yet how to use it.

So then, let’s start with the basics: what is pacing?

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