Ideas

Being a Better Writer: Be Curious!

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Welcome, writers! It’s Monday, and that means we’re back with another installment of Being a Better Writer.

Now, today’s installment is probably going to wind up a bit shorter than normal, because I picked a more straightforward topic. Maybe not. I say this from time to time, but only half the time am I right. But I’ll try, because I’ve got editing to do for Blood Less Vile and The Phoenix, plus an absolute blast of a draft to get back to with A Pirate Planet.

Speaking of A Pirate Planet, Patreon Supporters got an early look both Friday and today, Friday’s at an exploratory I did of the opening to narrow down the characters and setting, while today they’re getting a look instead at what the “final but still a draft” version of the opening is instead for comparison purposes. So if you’re a supporter, head on over to the Patreon Page and take a look. And if you’re not a supporter …

Well, consider becoming one? Especially if you’ve been reading Being a Better Writer for any length of time. You might have noticed that there are no advertisements on the page. No, that’s not because you have an adblocker, or because I don’t know how to set them up. But because I refuse to have ads on my website. Instead of ads, I count on the support of readers, either through means like Patreon or purchasing some of my many books, to make up for the lost advertising revenue. Being a Better Writer is given ad-free and without any sort of “paid” requirement (unlike a lot of other author workshops out there that charge for what Being a Better Writer offers without cost).

Point being, if you’ve been around for a while and haven’t considered supporting the site, please do. Being a Better Writer is used by everything from classroom and college syllabi to up-and-coming writers looking to finish their first book, and it has that distinction because it counts on the generosity of its users to make up for the difference in losses from not paywalling or locking its content behind advertisement.

So again, if you’re a long term user of Being a Better Writer, please consider supporting via Patreon or through the purchase of a book or two. Even a small amount helps.

All right. With that reminder weighing on all our souls, let’s move on to the star attraction of these Monday posts, and talk about methods of Being a Better Writer. Again, as is becoming more frequent these days, today’s topic has been addressed before in a few different places, but we’re hitting it head on simply because it remains a frequent question and concept that’s quite hard for some would-be writers to grasp. Sands I’ve had some, when pressured on this topic, double back with “But no, really?” because they heard me correctly, but don’t want to believe that the answer is what it is. I was asked this question multiple times at the latest LTUE, and I’ve been asked it since then when my work comes up.

That question is, along with it’s associated part two, “How do you come up with so many unique story ideas? And how can I come up with ideas like that?”

Well, the answer is actually pretty simple, but it’s hard for a lot of people to grasp, I think perhaps because so many of us in society are discouraged from the exact behavior I want to talk about today, which is why they then go “But no, really” after they get my answer. Because it’s an answer that’s both simple but also isn’t … and can be difficult to get in the habit of, especially if you’ve spent a lifetime repressing it.

That answer is, put simply: Be curious. That’s it. Curiosity is the fount from which a billion questions spring without ceasing. Questions that often make great story prompts. Why does a plane load the way it does. What made the Mongols such effective horseback warriors? Why does one tire spin in place when my car is stuck?

Why? What if? What about? If you want to be an author who comes up with fantastic story ideas, these are questions you need to habitually be asking.

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Classic Being a Better Writer: Fleshing Out Ideas – From Idea to Story

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Hey folks! I’m still on break until the New Year, so until next Monday, enjoy a classic Being a Better Writer blast from the past! Merry Yuletide and a Happy New Year!

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Now, I don’t actually remember the circumstances by which this topic came to be on the list (could have been LTUE), but either way, the topic is a good one. Hang out in a writing-centric thread online or attend a writing workshop—sands, even look in the comments of a public page for an author or attend a panel—and eventually, probably fairly quickly, you’ll hear a question or  comment that’s a lot like the following:

I have this great idea/concept/story/character, but the moment I try to sit down and write them, I just run out of steam. I can’t get it/them written. How do I do this?

Now, the exact phrasing may vary, but trust me, you’ll here the sentiment, echoed from a number of beginning writers. And you won’t even have to wait long. It’s a question that comes up all the time.

And you know, to be fair, it’s not exactly a bad question. A poor one, maybe, but not a bad one. And it’s one that’s often reflected by the faces and situations of many more in whatever assorted audience is present than the one who asked. Crud, I’m certain that it’s a question that some of the authors who have been forced to scramble for an answer themselves once voiced, though perhaps internally.

But … it’s still a poor question. I certainly wouldn’t call it a good one. Not poor enough that it isn’t worth tackling in this post, but not the best question either.

Why? Well, let me answer that before I get into the deeper-roots behind the question. The question is a poor one because 90% of the time the individual asking it is asking for a silver bullet. A solution that doesn’t exist. I entirely suspect that if, when asked this question, whoever was asked responded with “Well, are you using X program?” or “Are you sitting in this kind of chair?” there would be a massive sale of said product in the audience that had asked.

Again, I shouldn’t batter these poor souls too badly. After all, they are beginners. But as beginners, when asking this question, the answer they get is hardly the answer they want (and sometimes, they’ll tell you). They’re inexperienced enough to think that all it takes is an idea, a pen or a keyboard, and a little bit of writing, and boom! Story! And the problem with that is that, as all writers know, there is no silver bullet. There’s no magic “thing” or element that anyone can just do to take a story from an idea to a finished product (or at least a halfway competent one). And in that regard, the question is poor.

Now, that said, it wouldn’t take much to “fix” it so that we can give it a real answer. If we rearrange it a little, tweak a few of the words a bit, we get something much more workable. Something like:

I have a good idea/story/concept/character, but the when I sit down to try and write it, I start having trouble. How do I take it from an idea to a finished work? What are the steps there?

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Being a Better Writer: Using Myth, Legend, Folklore, and Fairy Tale as a Springboard

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Welcome back writers! Who’s ready for to talk writing? Because if you aren’t, well, I’ll point you at last week’s news post but then otherwise be perplexed about why you’re here. After all, it’s a post titled Being a Better Writer, so I don’t know what you expected otherwise.

But for the rest of us, we’re just going to dive right in to a topic that … Well, I’ll be straightforward with my analysis here. I know some of you saw that title and either just groaned or immediately rolled your eyes. I’ve seen it happen in real-world settings. A number of people hear that topic and immediately think something to the effect of “You’re kidding, right?”

To tackle this quickly, before it gets out of hand, I get it. Most alive today have grown up with an abundance of access to “fairy tales” or “mythology” … largely through the efforts of a very corporate mouse-themed company and their mining of classic fairy tale for their animated features. But even outside their efforts, it’s really hard to walk into a bookstore and not find a huge swath of fairy-tale rewrites, especially in the middle-grade or young-adult section of the bookstore.

In other words, there’s saturation for a lot of people. They see this sort of stuff everywhere and think “What would I contribute?” or “Ugh, more of the same story?” and they check out. I get it … but …

Yes, I know it’s a little annoying to go into a bookstore and see sixteen different versions of The Goose Girl. I’ve rolled my eyes at that too. But that isn’t the fault of the original tale. It was just popular. We could blame publishers for doubling-down on selling as many variations on the same book as possible, but that’s getting out of touch with what the point of this post is.

I get that. But don’t let that extend to your own digging into these stories as source material, because that’s shutting off a vast ocean of mankind’s tales that we still know of today—and still use as inspiration—because they’re good. That’s how they’ve stuck around for so long.

But further than that, it is in fact an ocean, not a single pond. Shying away from fairy tale, folklore, myth, or legend just because one or two stories out of that ocean are overrepresented is denying yourself a huge array of idea-generating material without ever seeing it!

So yeah, I get that people might roll their eyes at the start of this post, or even at the title. But don’t, please. Extend a little trust, hit that jump, and let’s give this topic some needed discussion.

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Being a Better Writer: Good Ideas and Avoiding the Bad Execution

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Welcome back readers, to another Monday installment of Being a Better Writer! How were your weekends? Relaxed and enjoyable, I hope? Mine turned out pretty good, despite an illness dominating the days leading into it. Work continued, even during parts of said illness, on Starforge. This book is going to be a blast, folks!

Aside from that, there isn’t much news to discuss, so I think I’m just going to dive right into today’s topic, which is … a bit of an interesting one.

Let’s start with some background information, shall we? Before on the site—many times, actually—we’ve talked about the writing concept that there are no bad ideas, just bad executions. That any set of two ideas, no matter how odd-sounding, can be made into a pretty awesome story if one puts in the work. A common example of this being true that has been trotted out time and time again is the excellent Fantasy series The Codex Alera by Jim Butcher, which was written on a dare/challenge over exactly such a topic to combine The Lost Roman Legion with Pokémon and create from it a good story. A challenge that Butcher delivered on, as The Codex Alera is a thrilling series that stretched for five books and was a fantastic read (in my opinion, still his best).

There are other works that have come from similar challenges, of course. The point is, this is a common saying had among writing circles: There are no bad ideas, only bad executions, and even an idea that sounds really dumb could be a really good story.

Could be. Once again this topic came up last week when I published my critique post of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order‘s lackluster combat system, noting that it felt like a disparate element that had been shoved into a setting and scenario where it didn’t fit. On the site Discord, where discussion had been bouncing back and forth for days on the topic, someone asked if this was an example of maybe not every idea working with every other idea, since in my post I’d noted that sometimes two things went together like orange juice and toothpaste.

That question, then, prompted this post. Was Fallen Order a bad idea, or merely a bad execution, and what separates the two? Intrigued, I immediately wrote today’s topic down on the topic list and resolved to immediately tackle it as a BaBW post. Well, once I’d sat and thought about it.

Because in answer to that query, I’d argue that Fallen Order is an example of bad execution (something I did note in the post). Good concept, but too committed to two ideas that didn’t exactly work well together (and then the actual execution widened that rift).

But this started a little cascade in my brain. We’ve talked here again and again about how there are no bad ideas, just bad executions. But have we ever talked about how to keep those ideas from becoming a “bad execution?” Or have we been throwing the advice out there and then just sort of letting readers (and young writers) bumble their way through without any additional guidance?

Today’s post then, is to rectifty that omission. Today, we’re going to talk about what happens when you bring two ideas together, and what will need to be done in order to assure that any two ideas, no matter how disparate, can come together with a “good execution.”

So hit the jump, and let’s talk writing.

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Being a Better Writer: Fleshing Out Stories and Characters

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Welcome back readers! First of all, I apologize for the lateness of the hour with this post. These are supposed to be up in the morning, and it’s something I’ve slipped on further and further over the last few months. One my goals over the coming month is to get that schedule back on track.

Secondly, I am indeed able to report that the same day I posted last week about Stranded (Friday’s post) I did indeed finish off the story. Which means that today I can start going over Alpha Reader feedback, doing some spit and polish, and so forth. I still think it’s a dud, but I’m glad to be done with it all the same and the stuff that I wanted to practice at with it did turn out all right, I think, so it wasn’t a loss.

What does this also mean, however? It means that the Pre-Alpha for Starforge will start this week! That’s right, I’m going to begin poring over Starforge‘s draft at long last and start making nips, tucks, and other fixes and improvements before passing the story on to the Alpha Readers.

Which yes, Alpha Readers, means the book you’ve been clamoring for these last few months is almost in your hands. Be ready, because the last book in the UNSEC Space trilogy is about to arrive at last! Just in time for Christmas!

The rest of you waiting for the epic conclusion to what began in Colony and continued in Jungle will just have to wait a little longer, I’m afraid. The book isn’t going to be out for purchase this year. Next year though …

The only thing I can’t do yet is give you all an estimate as to the full release date. Starforge is massive, about 80,000 words larger than Jungle (which was already a monster), so editing is going to take some time. And as the ultimate peak of the trilogy, I want to make sure it’s shining and brilliant when you all get your hands on it. So, as of right now, no release date outside of “next year” and a confirmation that pre-Alpha work is starting this week.

And that’s the news! A decent chunk of it this time around I would say! Plenty to muse on and get excited over.

But for now? Let’s get talking about writing! This week, we’re talking about fleshing out characters and stories. Which almost sounds a little grotesque if we stop and think about it for a moment, but rest assured it is, like many other things in writing, only a somewhat gross or grim saying.

Boy, we really have a lot of those, don’t we? Ah well, good thing we’re writers! Hit the jump!

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Being a Better Writer: Bias and Growth

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Hello again readers! Welcome back to Being a Better Writer. You know, it’s moments like these, typing out a welcome introduction once again that I somewhat envy the ability of film and video to just drop an intro on people. Granted, most people skip it, and people would certainly skip over the same opening paragraph, but it would take some early lifting out of every installment of BaBW.

Ah well, at least this segues into news and whatnot better than a constantly identical intro was. Though this week I don’t have any news other than what would be repeating last week’s news post: Starforge almost has a completed first draft. Thing’s a beast too. Once I get done with this post here? It’s back to working on it and getting that last chapter and the epilogue done. After which I can finally take care of some IRL things like getting my car sold.

So without any news, let’s talk about today’s topic, which is kind of a tricky one. It’s also by reader request, and when it showed up on my list, I knew I wanted to get to it early.

Now, in a way we’ve kind of touched on this before. Indirectly. Being a Better Writer has seen a number of posts on things like Why Writers Should Play Games or Writing Exercises for Viewpoints. Among others (hit the tags on those links to find more). A good writer is one that’s embraced a wide range of activity that stimulates and works their mind.

But we’ve never talked much about the other side of this that was requested. A side that, at least in my mind, brings up the image of stale bread.

Yeah, maybe it’s because I’m hungry, but I think today’s post is going to make some food analogies. Get set, hit the jump, and let’s talk about bias in our writing, and how we can expand.

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Being a Better Writer: Can a Dumb Idea Work?

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Welcome back readers! How were your weekends? Engaging, I hope? I see a number of you came by to read the latest Fireteam Freelance interview. Not many episodes left now. In fact, I spent some time on Saturday working on Fireteam Freelance‘s wrap-up episode, which … Well, if I say anything about it some of you may infer spoilers, so for now I’ll just say yes, I spent part of my Saturday on it, and it was quite enjoyable.

I guess this is my way of saying there isn’t much news to be had from me at the moment. Just keeping at things and tying up Fireteam Freelance. So with little else to talk about, let’s talk about today’s Being a Better Writer topic. It’s kind of a mixed one.

In fact, I’d imagine that a number of you more experienced writers out there have, upon seeing this title, already deduced the answer. That’s fine. Being a Better Writer covers a lot of writing topics, from the early to the experienced (and if said readers would like a specific experienced question or look at something, they are encouraged to submit it when a BaBW topic call post goes out). Today the topic happens to be a bit more on the “early writer” side, but I’ll see if I can’t throw some tidbits in there for the more advanced writers frequenting the site.

So then, let’s get down to business and dive right in: can a dumb idea work?

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Being a Better Writer: Keeping it Simple

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Alternative title: Don’t Bite Off More than You Can Chew.

Hello readers! Welcome back! How was your weekend? I trust it was enjoyable?

I hope I was able to help with that. Episode two of Fireteam Freelance dropped Saturday morning with a bang! More adventures with Adah, Ursa, Anvil, and Owl!

And … that’s all the time I’ve got for news today. And all the news, so it works out. So, let’s talk writing.

With a title like this some of you are probably wondering what the inspiration is. Well, as many of you know, I do a lot of reading. Not just books, but webcomics and even some fanfiction here and there as well. I’m also highly selective, especially with the last two, but I do notice a lot of trends. Trends that tie back into a lot of stuff I hear from novice writers (who frequently turn around and write fanfiction or webcomics).

In fact, I was actually tempted to share a synopsis I found for one new webcomic in this very post to illustrate my point today, but decided against it. It would have illustrated today’s point, or rather today’s issue we’re discussing pretty well … but I’d hate to have that creator find this post and feel personally put under a spotlight they didn’t ask for.

So let me give you a common hypothetical. An occurrence that happens to authors, or to teachers in creative writing courses, or even to random people who know someone bitten by the writing bug. They get cornered, and they’re given a synopsis of this new writer’s planned plot and story. And it’ll be something like this:

So the main character is an undead werewolf, right? And she’s trying to hide and survive this organization that’s hunting her, while trying to figure out what happened to her mother. Her mother was a powerful sorceress who might have discovered the cure for this deadly disease that’s wiping out the world, which she got from aliens. But the good aliens, not the bad ones. See, she was part of a secret organization that fought the bad aliens during World War I, who were using voodoo to try and manipulate the world and take over. They’re not related to the people hunting the main character—or maybe they are, I haven’t decided yet. Anyway, one of the people hunting her is secretly in love with her, but there’s a problem because they’re actually a vampire, part of a secret organization that’s working against everyone else to try and make the world eternally night by using the bad and good aliens. So we start out in this high school …

So, what do you think of my short story idea?

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Being a Better Writer: Garbage

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Welcome back readers to another Monday entry of Being a Better Writer! I’ve just got one bit of news to talk about, and then we can cut right to the chase and talk about garbage.

That news? Life, The Universe, and Everything is NEXT WEEK! That is right! LTUE is literally around the corner of the weekend, this February 14th-16th. Will you be there? I sure will be, and I can’t wait! Hope to see you there!

Now, back to the the topic at hand. I’ll wager a number of you are pretty curious about what I’m referring to with a title like that. Garbage books? Garbage story? Garbage plots? Garbage tropes?

Nope. None of the above. Instead, I want to talk about something else. Worldbuilding garbage. That’s right, today is a worldbuilding post, that lovely topic of sitting down to draft and create worlds. But again, when I say worldbuilding garbage, a number of you may be thinking in less concrete terms than I actually am.

No, today I’m being absolutely straight. No metaphor or comparison here. I’m talking about actual garbage. Refuse, trash, debris, etc etc etc.

What does your world do with it?

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Being a Better Writer: What is “Adult” Fiction?

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Wow. Where did this month go? It seems like just yesterday it was the end of October, and now … Yikes. It feels like things just sped by.

One item of news to note: It is Cyber Monday! And yes, my books are still on sale from Black Friday (and will be through Thursday). If you’ve been thinking of grabbing a few for yourself or as Christmas gifts, now is the time to do so! The more I sell the better, and it’ll make up for a flat late-October/Early-November.

Anyway, you can check out the deals here, though note that if you’re on Amazon.co.uk, there are more deals, and that link takes you to the US-based site.

And … Sands, I lied. I have one other item of news to note: As of yesterday, I am sitting at 90 ratings/reviews on Goodreads! That’s right, only ten more to go before I break my year-end goal!

With that, my news is done. Little else to report. So let’s dive into today’s topic.

What is an “Adult” book?

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