Realism

Being a Better Writer: Diet and Worldbuilding

Max Being a Better Writer , , , , , , ,

Welcome back writers! It’s Monday and we’re here with yet another Being a Better Writer article! It’s not really a surprise in any way, as these have been regular features for so many years now that I’ve kind of lost count. But it’s still exciting, at least for me, and I hope for you. And if you’ve lost that zeal for writing and learning about the process well, then I hope these posts can bring it back a little and get you in the mood to deliver your own adventure once more!

So, where to begin? Well, I do have one minor tidbit of the news I’ll repeat here before diving into the post, so we’ll start there. The rest of the news I’ll leave to the post itself (go check it out) but I’m going to repeat this here so it’s hard to miss: LTUE is coming!

Yeah, Life, The Universe, and Everything #43 is this February 12th-15th. Chock full of panels on writing topics such as “How to Energize and Electrify the Middle of Your Story,” “Twist and Turns: Creating Unexpected Stories,” or “Creating Characters that Aren’t You.” And stuffed to overflowing with authors willing to talk about writing, sign your books, and more!

Seriously, it’s a ton of fun. I’ll be there on panels and at the (open to the public, no admission required) signing, so if you’re in the state during those dates, check it out!

All right, you can look at the rest of the news at the link, which is all about Axtara 3 – Armies and Accounting. I want to say more, but I won’t. Though I will note that today’s topic actually does stem from some of the careful worldbuilding I was doing for that book.

So, without further ado, let’s get into things. This piece is actually in a way a companion piece to a BaBW from a few weeks ago on Disease and Worldbuilding, as it covers a similar topic that follows parallel lines. But where that piece asked “Where or what will your characters go or do when injured?” today’s topic asks this question instead: what do your characters eat, and where did it come from?

Hit the jump, and let’s talk about one everyone’s favorite topics: food.

Continue reading →

Being a Better Writer: A Lived-In World

Max Being a Better Writer , , , , ,

Welcome back writers, to Being a Better Writer! Better yet, welcome to a post fresh off of Topic List #26! That’s right, we’ve passed #25!

Yeah, okay, it’s a milestone that means more to me than it does to all of you. But hey, it’s still a milestone!

But before we hop into today’s topic, don’t forget to check out last Thursday’s return post, as it’s chock-full of post Thanksgiving news! Plus a small OP-ED, and even some new Axtara fanart!

Speaking of Axtara, Christmas is coming! Do you know anyone who our loveable banking dragon’s adventures would make the perfect gift for? They might be a little big for a stocking, by they’re perfectly hefty and suitable for wrapping! And there are two of them for double the reading pleasure!

Book three, Armies and Accounting, is on its way. Check that news post if you want to know more.

If your answer to this is “read them both” then I suggest you check out the rest of my library, maybe starting with Shadow of an Empire.

Oh! And I do have one other announcement that I forgot to include in Thursday’s post: Unusual Things has a Bluesky now!

Yeah, that’s right, finally opening up the social media tap a little bit more. Twitter’s account for the site I closed years ago when the site started going down the tubes—not that it was much of a loss because “Book Twitter” was never a good place and more an ouroboros of influencers all trying to play the system for their own benefit.

Will Bluesky end up much better? Well, I hope so. They’re certainly making better decisions than Twitter did. Letting people block accounts, for one, or choose what content they want to see (where Twitter took that option away and started shoving its own content at you, something that really was a dumb move, since I didn’t join to see Elon’s latest unhinged political rants, but writing and gaming folks). These all seem like better iterations of what the original concept behind Twitter was before it slowly toppled into insanity as it tried to make more and more money.

Anyway, go ahead and check it out if you’re a Bluesky user. It’s already tied into the site feed, so all posts from the site will be automatically linked there, which is good news for those of you who used to use Twitter as an RSS feed for the site. You know, before Twitter decided for you that you didn’t want that anymore.

Okay, that’s the last news bite, I promise. So let’s hit the jump and dive into today’s topic! Which, if you’ve checked the title up there, is an interesting one you don’t often hear of when talking about writing. Nevertheless, I think it’s a fairly vital one, and key in making a world feel real to an audience.

Why? Hit that jump, and let’s talk about it.

Continue reading →

Being a Better Writer: Realism, Storytelling, and Suspension of Disbelief

Max Being a Better Writer , , , , , ,

Welcome back writers! It’s another Monday, and that means it’s time for another Being a Better Writer post! There’s not much news to discuss, or really any since everything immediately relevant was discussed in last Thursday’s post about what occurred last year and what’s coming down the pipeline right now, so rather than spend any text on that, today we’ll just dive right in! With a brief aside to say that if you are curious about what’s happened and what’s on the way, check out that post.

Anyway, today’s topic is, fittingly enough for the new year, a Reader Request! The last one on Topic List #21. Which I will add is getting a bit empty these days. We’ll be looking at #22 soon enough!

But anyway, today’s topic was requested with what I see as darn good reason, because it’s actually part of an almost endless debate that circles online communities and critics alike. In fact, it’s such a common debate that to start us off today, I’m actually going to request that you read this Schlock Mercenary strip, which will open in a new tab. Don’t worry, it’s digestible without context.

Once you’ve done that, don’t get sucked into the archive (at least, not right now), but come back, hit the jump, and let’s talk about it.

Continue reading →

Being a Better Writer: “Alien” Aliens and the Conflict of Drive

Max Being a Better Writer , , , , , , , , ,

Hello again readers from across the datanet! Well, some parts of it. Today I woke up to the frantic news announcements that Facebook and all its associated services, from Instagram to WhatsApp, are down. Completely and totally. Very likely not permanently, but as of writing this, it’s gone from the web. You can’t even access it.

You know I’m just going to say it: It’s a good break for people. I usually log on each morning to see if I have any notifications from my family, but I don’t miss not having it this morning. If it were gone for good, well that’d be a different story since I keep a bunch of photos on there and I do use it to keep up with family members since I can’t get any of them to use Discord.

But that’s all I’ll say on it. It’s down, so you’re probably not going to be linking here from there today unless things come back up. No ads on Facebook today! Which almost made me switch topics, I’ll admit, but I’ve wanted to talk about today’s Being a Better Writer topic for some time now. And having Facebook and some of the primary social media sites be down for the other topic would be slightly less than ideal, despite making me thing about it. So that post will have to wait.

So then, what about today’s post? Most of you have read the title, so where is this coming from? Why this topic? Well, hit the jump, and let’s get talking.

Continue reading →

Being a Better Writer: Consistency Versus Accuracy

Max Being a Better Writer , , , , , ,

Welcome back readers! Thank you, b the way, for letting me have that break last week. I needed it. Last week was a slam as far as work goes. But, there is good news.

The Beta for Jungle is done. Yeah, you read that right. Done.

What’s that mean for you readers out there? It means that this week, pre-orders will open. The cover will be finalized, the draft will go into the Copy Edit … and there will be a release date set.

Yeah, this week promises to be just as busy for me as last week. There’s always a surprising amount of work to do with getting any book ready for the big release day. And well, I doubt Jungle is going to be any different. But being done with the Alpha and the Beta, well … That’s a lot of work. It’s the peak. Sure, there’s still a lot of work to go.

But hey, this does mean that Jungle is still on track for a November release. As many of you might imagine, it going up for pre-order does mean that you’ll all be getting some good news on that end very soon. Oh, and a new preview tomorrow.

All right, so that said, our news out of the way, let’s talk about today’s topic: consistency versus accuracy.

This post was actually inspired by a Reddit post I was reading the other day discussing Science-Fiction, where a poster asked why it seemed like so many posters on the subreddit were so adamant that Sci-Fi stories be confined to real knowledge and hard reality rather than, you know, fiction. As they pointed out, they were quite surprised by the number of posters and commentators on the subreddit who seemed quite incensed the moment any author moved away from hard, hard, hard Sci-Fi into the realm of speculation, and noted that they didn’t like reading page after page of scientific explanation, analysis, and research just so that the author could look at the reader and say (in a nutshell) “It’s real science, yo!”

Continue reading →

Being a Better Writer: Garbage

Max Being a Better Writer , , , , , ,

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?

Continue reading →

Being a Better Writer: Historical Fiction

Max Being a Better Writer , , , ,

Welcome back, readers! And sorry for the delay. Life … finds a way. That isn’t always to one’s benefit! This week is just looking crazy.

Which means it’s probably best if I dive right in, given my ticking clock today. So, historical fiction …

Okay, disclaimer. I give these every so often. I don’t write historical fiction. So I’m not the best authority on this subject. While I have written stuff that has taken place in other time periods, both future (Colony) and past (Shadow of an Empire), both of those also deviate quite a bit from what would be considered historical fiction because one’s the future, and the other isn’t Earth, but a fantasy world with magic thrown into the mix.

Which doesn’t mean you can’t throw a little magic into things with your historical fiction—it’s been done. What I’m saying is that my grasp of historical fiction is not as complete as someone who writes historical fiction full-time. I touch on it, they embrace it.

But … even with those who embrace it, there is plenty of historical fiction out there that is truly terrible. Just bad. And if you want to write historical fiction, you’re going to want to avoid stepping into those same mistakes, and into those same pitfalls. So, what are they? Well, let’s talk shop! Writing shop!

Continue reading →

Being a Better Writer: Writing About Injuries

Max Being a Better Writer , , , , , , , ,

Hello readers, and welcome to … Topic. List. Eleven!

Okay, so it’s probably not such a big deal for those of you who are newcomers or aren’t sitting on my end of the keyboard, but on this side knowing that I’ve made it through ten of these sheets of paper with Being a Better Writer topics on them is a little awe-inspiring. This marks the fifth year of writing these, and from the look if it, I’m not going to run out of topics anytime soon.

So then, let’s talk injuries. Specifically, writing about them, why we write about them, and some of the different ways we can use them in our writing, for good or bad.

Actually, we’re going to tackle this in not quite that order. First up, why write about injury? Why should we be concerned with keeping track of our characters pains and aches, especially if they’re not “important” to the story?

Well, as you can probably guess by the quotes around “important” in that last paragraph, I’d disagree entirely, regardless of the type of story that we’re writing. That’s right, injury and pain are just as important in a story that’s a Regency Romance as they are in a story that’s an action-adventure novel. Do you know why?

Because pain and injury, minor or major, are a part of life. They’re as much as it sounds strange to say it this way, a unique flavor that’s a part and parcel of the experience. Ask yourself how many times you’ve stubbed a toe, burned a finger or palm, or suffered a cut or scrape across your arm. In all likelihood, you probably can’t even remember a large number of those times … but you still know that they happened because they’re part of the experience of life.

Continue reading →

Being a Better Writer: Balancing Readers’ Suspension of Disbelief

Max Being a Better Writer , , , ,

“Go! Go! Go!” Natalie didn’t need to be told twice. With the clock ticking, the building was only minutes from coming apart in a blast that would level half the block. If she could get away before then, she had a chance, but if not …

“Go!” the voice in her ear shouted once more.

“I’m going!” she snapped, crouching by the body of the colonel and retrieving his sidearm. Some of his thugs could still be standing between her and the exit.

“Natalie, you need to be moving, and I don’t hear you moving!”

“I’m busy, Jerry,” she muttered. “Maybe you could be useful for once and tell me how to get out of here rather than just screaming in a panic?”

She checked the pistol’s clip. Six shots. It would have to be enough. She rose, grabbing the colonel’s bag and swinging it over her shoulder. She couldn’t save the building … but at least she’d save the gold. Two-and-a-half million dollars worth of gold would set her up for life.

Gold and handgun secure, she began running down the hall, no destination in mind other than away from the bomb ticking down behind her. Her heels sounded out a rapid, staccato rhythm with her steps as she exited the hall into the penthouse atrium.

A loud bang was the only warning she got as the glass near her shattered, a bullet tearing through it. She ducked, crouching as the gunman—one of the colonel’s—continued to spray bullets in her direction.

She didn’t have time to play around. She lifted the colonel’s handgun, made a quick estimation based on the direction the bullets were flying from, and fired off a rapid trio of blind shots.

The gunfire stopped, her assailant either dead or dying, and she bolted back to a sprint.

“Natalie!”

“Kind of busy right now!” she shot back as another gunman opened fire. She fired on the move, spitting several bullets back at him. How long was left before the bomb went off? She wasn’t sure.

“I’ve got a way out,” Jerry continued, heedless of her warning or the shots whizzing past her head. How many men did the colonel have? “You need to get to the elevators. The cars themselves are locked, but you can ride the cable down to the ground floor.

“Too long,” she said, firing again and scoring a direct hit on one of her attackers. They fell with a scream. “What’s outside?”

“What?” Jerry asked as she fired again, downing another mercenary.

“What’s outside?” she asked. “If I jump out of the building—”

“Jump out? Are you insane?”

“What’s outside!?” she demanded, crouching behind a couch as more gunfire tore the expensive leather apart.

“Cars? A parking lot? The reflecting pool? A—”

What side is the pool on?” she shouted as she returned fire, the gun kicking against her hand. Another gunman went down.

“Uh … West side!”

“Got it!” That was the side she was on. She rose form her hiding place, sprinting towards the glass wall, firing on the move. The glass splintered, her view of the setting sun suddenly awash with physical static.

She hit the window at a sprint, glass shattering around her as she fell into open space. She could see the wading pool below her, rushing up at impossibly fast speeds. Ten stories passed in a heartbeat.

She hit with a wet slap, stinging pain erupting across her entire body as she sank into the pool. Her feet touched bottom, and she kicked upwards, her head breaking the surface. How much time was left before the bomb went off? She brought her wrist up, checking her watch and—

Ducked seconds before a faint whump swept through the water, rattling her body like a child’s toy. Seconds later something large and heavy splashed down in the pool, sinking through the water past her, and she kicked off, swimming forward as quickly as she could.

Gradually the rumbling slowed, and she broke the surface again, standing in the pool. Of the ten-story penthouse the colonel had been using for his scheme, all that remained was a pile of twisted wreckage. His scheme was finished.

She almost sat down in the water with relief. It was over. And … She checked the bag still slung across her shoulder.

Two-and-a-half million dollars worth of gold bars glimmered back at her.

Okay, did anyone see anything wrong with all that?

Continue reading →