Knowing how to celebrate

Blog - The Writer's Life

Written by Sofie
Tuesday, 31 August 2010 00:00

This weekend I had my second masters degree conferred - well after it should have been, thanks to some clerical errors and Melbourne University replacing their student administration system after I'd completed. I donned the cap and gown, sat in a hall, listened to speeches and clapped as about two hundred students walked across the stage before me, and another hundred walked after.

I've never been one for ceremonies. Perhaps my private school's love of formal ceremonies (with mandatory attendance, of course) for absolutely everything trained me out of their significance, but I usually find them more of a chore to be sat through than something to be stirred by.  I confess, however, as I listened to the occasional address this weekend, that I did feel a small glimmer of pride at what I'd completed.

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Writing games - Talk to yourself

Blog - Writing Craft

Written by Sofie
Sunday, 29 August 2010 22:20

Writing games are tricks, exercises, things to try to get your writing brain in the mood. I find them useful when a story's giving me trouble - I can't think of a way out of the corner, or I can't think of a corner to get into, or I'm just not feeling in the right mood to write that story - as well as generating new ideas, and just keeping my writing-mind in shape. And on the plus side, they're usually fun to try, and you can end up with the germs of some great little stories.

This one's great when you're having difficulty with a particular story or character - when you can't work out where to go, what to do, or why it isn't working.

Talk to yourself

It's simple - get a pen and paper (or computer and keyboard) and start talking to yourself. Write for at least ten minutes, though a lot of people find this can go on for half an hour or so before they feel they've finished. Similar to the Unstoppable pen, just keep rambling - ask yourself questions (written down) and answer them, branch off to other questions, sequey into musings and other random things.

If you're stuck for a beginning, try addressing the point that's bothering you. "I'm not writing the story because...", "This isn't working because...", etc. It's highly likely you'll have no idea what the answer to those are at the start, but by about halfway through you'll find yourself spouting random epiphanies about your process, your story, your relationship with your parents, everything.

New blogs, destroying your own universe, and some funnies

Blog - The Writer's Life

Written by Sofie
Thursday, 26 August 2010 00:00

I just discovered (well, last week, but I'd already written posts by then) a new blog called storyfix.com, maintained by one Larry Brooks. While I'll admit he pushes his 'how to write a novel' book a little too loudly for my taste, a lot of the posts I've been reading so far have been great. Two in particular on story structure present great visual aids for structuring your story. They're PDF's (and pretty large PDFs at that) but they're great visual conceptualisations of story structure, arcs, plot points and turns.

On a completely different note, Dan Wells had a great article on the inherent commercial difficulties in using dramatic, world-changing events in your story - that it means the world that readers fell in love with no longer exists, and can't (easily) be used for other tie-ins, merchandise, sequels or other fund-generating avenues.

And on a more humerous angle, Michael Stackpole has a great article about how much spammers seem to know about him, and (drumroll) there's a new Simon's Cat video out - whee! Also, love the concept behing Neil Gaiman's recent tweet: I dreamed that people from Wikipedia came round to your house to adjust reality if it differed from what they had online. Given some of the discussion pages I've read on wikipedia, my gut response is *shudder*.

Worldbuilding Experiment - Let there be light

Blog - World Building

Written by Sofie
Wednesday, 25 August 2010 00:00

I'd like to try an experiment - building a world here, adding a new (hopefully interconnected) piece each week. I don't have a story in mind - that's sort of the point, seeing what emerges just from the creation of the world itself. At some point this is going to need a name, but that feels rather premature for the moment. It is, however, getting to the stage where it's rather silly to link posts individually, so I'm just going to link to the tag lookup result here.

Let there be light

So our world is ice, with heat and safe living areas forged from volcanic tubes and tunnels. Our people live mostly underground, venturing out only during the night when the sun's gamma rays are hidden.

Outside, they'll be able to see a little by the moonlight, most of the time. And they may even borrow a few tricks from the Egyptians, using mirrors to reflect moonlight down into the tunnels. That's not much light to see by, however.

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Worldbuilding experiment - heat

Blog - World Building

Written by Sofie
Wednesday, 25 August 2010 00:00

I'd like to try an experiment - building a world here, adding a new (hopefully interconnected) piece each week. I don't have a story in mind - that's sort of the point, seeing what emerges just from the creation of the world itself. At some point this is going to need a name, but that feels rather premature for the moment. It is, however, getting to the stage where it's rather silly to link posts individually, so I'm just going to link to the tag lookup result here.

A short one today, because it's now that time of semester when my brain starts melting from answering student questions and resolving staff problems.

Heat

Our ice-world is volcanic, but it's still going to be uncomfortably cold to live on. While our inhabitants can huddle near volcanic vents and lava beds, heat is still going to be scarce - fire is difficult to create on an iceworld, and wood requires venturing up to the surface anyway, so our inhabitants are either going to have to have a technological adaptation to ward off the chill, or be physically adapted to deal with it.

Read more: Worldbuilding experiment - heat