This is a challenge akin to writing something that (might) work for a game story - it's shifting the character arcs onto the supporting characters, the characters who aren't the story focal point (protagonist).

Take three characters (you can use more, but it's harder).  One of these is the protagonist, the one making their own life, telling the story. Give them a goal.

The other two characters may help or hinder (they can do either, but if they're both helping or both hindering, they should do it in different ways). They also each have individual goals. These goals don't particularly mesh with your protagonist's, and they directly contradict each other.

Example: C is your protagonist. She's locked in a building and wants to get out (goal). G currently controls the building, and wants C to stay there to perform a task (goal). W starts out helping C because he (secretly) wants control of the building (goal).

Now, the trick is to create character arcs for G and W. Have them go through dramatic changes emotionally and as a person - think Hero's journey, though it doesn't have to be anything grand. So, create an emotional arc for G and another for W. Now you have to work out how to get there through C's actions. C is still the protagonist. It's just that C's actions are causing emotional arcs in other people. Remember The Hollywood Formula? - well, one of G and W is the hero, one is the antagonist. C (the actual protagonist) is the relationship character.

Now, either W or G has to be the 'hero' - this is the person that C will have a reconciliation with. In our example above, W is only using C to help him achieve his goal of taking over the building. Once he's done this, he betrays C and uses her in the same manner G was earlier. Near the end, however, W realises his mistake and apologises to C - they reconcile. So that makes W the hero, and G the antagonist.

You have your three goals, and your two arcs (your protagonist doesn't get an arc, they may or may not achieve their goal.). The arcs are a direct result of the protagonists actions and interactions with the characters. Now write the story.

 

A while ago I was downloading the remaining sondtrack for Portal 2, a game that's still on my list for game of the year. (The fact that I actually wanted the soundtrack to a game should tell you something of the production values and creativity of the team involved). I thought about the story, trying to determine what made it so much better than the typical video game fare. This was shortly after I'd listened to Writing Excuses' podcast on the Hollywood Formula, and approaching the issue from this angle showed something interesting

I should note that if you haven't already played Portal or Portal 2, this post assumes you know how the story goes, and there are major plot spoilers ahead. I'd strongly suggest that if you have any intention of playing it (and you should), play it before reading any further. It's well worth it, and one of the few games where experiencing the story is a vital component to the game.

 

    Okay, after last week's rant about archetypal characters, how can we make them useful? Primarily by understanding what they're for.

They're placeholders - they describe a character's likely function within a plot. They give hints of characteristics, a springboard of ideas or traits to further develop. In other words, they're a starting point. But they shouldn't be the endpoint, too.

So, writing game: Create a character by blending two otherwise unrelated archetypes. Eg The Mentor and the Whore. The Artist and the Mesiah.The Protector and Betrayer. You don't have to use all aspects of both archetypes, just pick some that sound interesting to you, and contradict each other at least a little. (If you're struggling to think of archetypes, I recommend reading either Campbell's The Hero Has One Thousand Faces, or Victoria Lynn Schmidt's  45 Master Characters.)

Don't worry about giving your character personality yet - that's partially what this exercise is for. At the moment, all you should have is a list of contradictory traits. And a name - give them a name.

Now, put them in a situation where none of their traits are applicable. They have no advantages here. No knowledge, no experience, their go-to solution not only won't work, there's nowhere to start. Totally out of their depth. See what they do. Chances are, you'll start to build actual personality.

 

 

I watched the pilot and second episode of the new sci-fi offering Terra Nova the other day. For the uninitiated: our world is royally screwed and barely habitable about a hundred (ish) year from now. Technology has surprisingly only-sort-of come to our rescue, in the guise of a "crack in time" that allows us to send people and objects 85 million years into an alternate past (note the key word "alternate" there - it's code for "now we can make up whatever the hell we want, and put Jurassic and Triassic creatures in the Cretaceous period. Woot!". It's a very special form of Handwavium.) So we recruit the best and brightest to send on a one-way trip back to live with dinosaurs in the hope that it''ll inexplicably help those stuck back on Pollutions R Us.

Because that totally makes sense.

 

 

Think of the most trivial need you can. Someone wants a bucket of sand. A packet of chips. A left shoe. Something utterly mundane and petty.

Your task is now to write the scenario where that need is world-ending. They'd give everything they had for that shoe. And you have to show why. Why is that shoe suddenly so crucial? What terrible fate will befall without the protection of that packet of chips? What will they lose, for want of a bucket?

Go for comedy if you like - depending on the need you decided, there may be simply no way to suspend disbelief without absurdity. But make sure you communicate real need for this item, with real stakes.

 

No writing games this week - too frantic preparing for Paris. But I do have two great posts for you (okay, one's a podcast, but it's still a "post".)

One - on your author-voice(s) and your character's voice(s): what they are, how to find it (or cheat at it, if you're struggling), how to know you've got one, and how to protect it once you have one.

Two - a podcast on "the Hollywood Formula" over at Writing Excuses (a great running series about all manner of writing, especially spec. fic). Don't cring at the word "formula", this is actually a great breakdown of how the major emotional arc works between characters in a story, and it's a great tool for getting to the crux of creating an emotionally satisfying arc.

 

I've always found Campbell's Hero has One Thousand Faces somewhat inaccessible. The information's buried so far down in metaphor that I found it very difficult to apply, as a novelist. And Vogler's Hero's Journey's not much better. I did, however, come across this piece online the other day, which explores the same material but makes it somehow more digestable. It's a lengthy read, but worth it, if you're looking at story structure and character arcs and trying to make sense of your gut feelings about things.

The writing game's pretty simple, really. Take a story, either one that you've written, or a book you've read recently, and find the points of the journey, if you can. Now, not all stories follow the journey (though they can usually be shoehorned in if you try hard enough, just as any literature student). The point is to get practise at seeing the structures so you can internalise them.

 

My partner is attempting to move in this weekend. I say attempting, because while all his stuff is now spread throughout our house in bags, boxes and deconstructed furniture, he's now napping in bed with a cold while I unpack what seem to be the least personal boxes and bags.

I'm a bit of a privacy freak. I politely declined any offers from friends and family to help me pack or unpack, because I hate the idea of people going through my stuff. Hell, I built my office as a cave of bookshelves so people can't see what I'm doing without coming into the room. Not everyone's so extreme, but I'd wager everyone has a mental box or two of things they'd rather keep to themselves - or even a physical item or two that they'd rather people didn't know about.

So, the game - either write about your own secret box, if you find it interesting enough, or come up with the oddest thing you can think of that someone should be ashamed or secretive about. Now expose it to their friends in the most humiliating way possible. What happens next?

 

There's a story of a memory - one of my father's, from when I was an infant. He carried me through a department store, where the perfume sales assistants would hand out sprays of perfume on cards. Between my father's looks and my angelic appearance* we collected quite a few cards, and I kept them all in my father's shirt pocket, where I could smell and play with them as he walked.

Perfumes in close quarters are rarely friends. One of the reasons I don't often wear it is I hate smelling the clash between mine and another woman's. I can only imagine what my father smelled like as we continued through the store. But in the battle of scents in my father's shirt pocket, one perfume in particular won out: Lou Lou.  Everything smelled of Lou Lou.

My father then packed the shirt - I think. I'm not clear on Step 2, here. But Step 3 was him ending up on a business trip with an entire suitcase of clothes that reeked of Lou Lou. Pants, shirts, socks, jocks, shoes - everything smelled of Lou Lou.

Today, neither he nor my mother can smell that smell (or, generally, discuss perfumes) without a smiling-groan at the memory of Lou Lou. And yet, I couldn't smell it out of a lineup. A suitcase of perfumed shirts clearly didn't impact on my toddler brain. I've often wanted to smell it, to be able to associate the smell with the story like my parents can, but I've never found it - surprise surprise, it's a perfume my mother will now never wear. That one encounter with the scent has used up their tolerance of it for a lifetime.

But I think of it a little every time I smell perfume. I have a scent-memory that's missing a scent.

Again, a story without much of an exercise, so: jot down your strongest scent-memory. What's a smell that instantly transports you somewhere? Now, write a scent memory for that smell for someone else. What does it mean to them, where do they go? To avoid copying your own too much, emotionally invert it. If yours is a happy memory, make theirs a fearful or sad one, and vice versa.

*All a lie, I was a stroppy terror.

 

I read a great post by Kate Griffin on why she tends to write male heroes more than female heroes. It's an interesting post, but there's one aspect I'd like to highlight: 

All this is rather tied up with my notion of what a hero is. I personally can’t stand any ‘heroic’ character who, when faced with an epic evil has any reaction other than ‘oh Christ, can we get someone else to deal with this?’ Heroes should be frightened, and make mistakes, and get things wrong, and try to compensate for all of the above by something more interesting than being overtly Strong and Brave...

I find it interesting because it ties in with something I've noticed recently in a show I've been watching. When I was little, I adored the show MacGyver (so much so, it seems, that my name is permanently associated with it in the mind of a friend of mine.) I've been on a bit of a kick with rediscovering shows I loved when I was younger, and have been devouring the DVD sets the past few weeks. And aside from some hilariously inexplicable plot holes that reveal just how sophisticated TV audiences have become in twenty years, I foudn something interesting.

In a lot of ways, Mac's a typical Hollywood hero of the 80's: more-virtuous-than-thou do-gooder who hates violence, guns, war, drugs, things that destroy the environment and anything else kids these days shouldn't be getting into. He doesn't drink, smoke or swear (I honestly heard the guy say "Gosh darn it" one time. Along with "I don't give a rat's pajamas".) has a token flaw (fear of heights) and always wins the day. 

What's interesting is how they've treated the concept of bravery in the show. Now, Mac's a pretty brave guy when the chips are down - when something needs to be done to save others, he does it. And he won't crack under the threat of torture (it's PG, there's very little actual torture.), especially if that involves Betraying His Country. He (usually) keeps his cool in trouble.

But he's not 'brave' in the way current Hollywood heroes are - that unflinching, you-can't-scare-me macho bravado. Mac will flinch. He'll cringe back and yelp "Don't hit me!" to the bouncer, throw his arms up over his face with a yell when a bomb detonates. He doesn't want to do risky things, and routinely refuses to get drawn into danger (until, of course, he has to go in to bail someone else out.) He acts in a way that most men probably wouldn't even admit to, and would lambast one another or weeks if they ever caught them.  In short, while he is brave, he doesn't act brave. And that makes a huge difference.

Someone who isn't scared of anything, who shows no fear, is impressive, yes. In a movie, we'll sit and watch as Bruce Wayne becomes the fearless Batman, because we're watching story shorthand - a movie has about as much room for character and plot as a short story - maybe 10,000 words. We have to take shortcuts or movies would go for weeks. But shortcuts don't work in literature.

In literature, someone without fear becomes wholly unempathetic. Monotonous. We don't connect with them, because they're not really a person anymore. They're a plot mechanism, a machine. Fear is a vital human quality, and removing it totally makes for a characterture.  If they're not afraid of the stakes, why should I, the reader, care what happens? You need fear in order to show bravery.

Other flaws with the show and character aside, I think MacGyver's treatment of a character's bravery makes for a much more human hero. It follows the classic rule of characterisation - the overt characteristics are contradictions of the 'real' character inside. 

Or perhaps it just makes him closer to what we'd like to think of ourselves - probably likely to yelp, duck, cringe and run until it really really matters, when we'll hold our nerve. 

 

 

In light of a post I just read that I'm going to blog about in a moment (I'm still moving, so I'm writing both of these on Friday... but at least I'm finally packed.) i Thought of an interesting experiment:

Take something you've written recently with a fair amount of character. The protagonist has a real 'feel' to them. Preferably something short - no more than a few thousand words. If you have a novel, then take the first chapter.

Now recraft it with the protagonist in the opposite gender. 

This is about more than just swapping pronouns. You'll have to really look at your character and reimagine how they'd "work" internally if they were the opposite gender. Fundamental aspects of how they handle things, how they think, how they react and what they want (or at least, the internal goals and reasons for what they want) would change.

This may mean fundamental aspects of the plot have to change. Go ahead, change them. Write a whole new story from this one change.

How does this affect your story? And perhaps more importantly, why did you chose the original gender in the first place? Is it because that gender suited the story you had in mind better, or because you felt uncomfortable writing the other gender? Or was it even a random choice? And has the change in gender strengthened your story or weakened it?

 

Point of view is an odd beast. So often, it feels, we choose the point of view of our stories out of whim or habit. It's selected before we've envisaged much of the story at all. But it's a powerful force in the story. Not only does it control what information is revealed and when, it shapes the bias and perception (and therefore the progression) of the whole story. For example:

Take a simple story you know well - Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Handsel and Gretel, etc. Iconic stories often work best for this exercise because they've already been pared down to their basic components, and the original story (and variations upon it) are well-ingrained in our memories; we don't have to stop and think about what happens next.

Look in the story for a minor character - someone who is entirely incidental to the story. They don't have to be in the official version,  - in fact, it's probably a good indication if they're not in every version, as if means they don't have a pivotal part.  The footman who carries the glass slipper all over the town following the prince, Red Riding Hood's mother, the Huntsman who butchered the deer instead of Snow White, Handsel and Gretel's new stepmother (or her sister).

Write the story from this person's point of view. It might help to jot down exactly how much of the original story this person can actually see. The footman might be at the ball, for example, and he may have noted the prince dancing with a beauty, but he knows nothing of her home life, her fairy godmother, her sisters or the prince's obsession with her. Instead, the story has to change to be about him, with the original going on in the background. What are his troubles, what does he worry about and hope for? What's his life, and how do the few scraps of the fairy tale fit into it.

More importantly - the ending has to change. Someone else's happily ever after isn't going to do much for him. So the real story is, how have the events of Cinderella changed his life?

Bonus points if you can change the ending, but still keep the fairy tale recognisable.

WIth thanks to Judy Bird for her suggestions on this exercise.

 

I'm (re)drafting the beginning of a novel, and I keep coming across completely different stories I could be writing with the given setup. Totally different themes, outcomes, character arcs, all from this point. All I'd have to do, is make a different choice here, or here or here.

This works best with a largish writing group - at least eight people. You can do it by yourself, but it's a lot of work, and probably not as much fun.

First, come up with your starting situation. A character with some quirks, dreams and flaws. A situation he or she is in. A conflict.

Now, come up with a decision your character will make. A major decision or action - not icecream flavour, unless the other flavour is about to give her food poisoning. A plot point, basically - something that will change the course of the story, and even the emphasis - one way, it's a coming-of-age story about a girl with beans, the other it's a crime-solving mystery. Split your group - one half of the group takes one path, the other takes, well, the other.

Now, separately, decide where this choice has lead your hero/ine. What's the conflict now? You might have to plot a little along the way; it's doubtful that major life changing events crop up every five minutes. Again, a change that will alter the story (though it'll do so less significantly than the first one - still try for a major difference). Again, split your group, half each way. As both of the original groups have done this, you now have four story paths.

Continue making decisions and splitting until each 'group' consists of one person. That means each person has a collection of plot points and decisions to write a story about the same character from the same starting situation. 

Now go write. Everyone's working from the same character and the same starting point. But different plot decisions make the character journey totally different. The comparison by the end can be startling.

 

Inspired by an ex-colleague, I started up a GoodReads challenge not long ago. My goal is 40 books for the year - 30 seemed a paltry number, and 50 too high. It wasn't until later I realised that leaves me little over a week per book, and I have some Ayn Rand's sitting on my To Be Read list, not to mention several door-stop fantasy novels. 40 will definitely be pushing it. At any rate, the latest on the list was something I picked up in a first-book-in-trilogy-super-cheap book sale.

The Eleven Domains were forged in blood a thousand years ago. The blood is about to flow again.

Bramble is as wild as the animals she follows deep into the forest near her village. Her dark eyes betray her heritage - she's a Traveller, one of the despised original people of the Domains. And for as long as she can remember, she has wanted to take to the Road.

In Turvite, where ghosts drift along dark cobbled streets, Ash must leave his parents, and the Road, to begin an apprenticeship with the only person who will accept a Traveller - the scheming Doronit. But the gods who linger in the gloomy square have other plans for him...

From different ends of the Eleven Domains, death casts Bramble and Ash on journeys across valleys and mountains, and into the dark history of their ancestors.

Freeman has a richly imagined world - the book is impregnanted with a deep history and culture that, while romanticised and idealised rather than realistic, lends weight to an otherwise non-existent story. Unfortunately, her timescale errs on the dramatic-and-unrealistic side -  not only has the civilisation not developed at all in a thousand years (no science, no change in religion, politics or social values) they're still hanging on to the prejudice and wrongdoing that was engendered thirty generations ago. A thousand years is a long time for a people to sit stagnant on things like this, but these people act like the wars happened last Winter. It's an odd blend that just doesn't ring true, to me.

Her writing is clean, clear and evocative, and certainly the strongest element in her work. Despite the books other flaws, which would normally have resulted in a dog-eared bookmakr hanging out from one-third-in for the rest of eternity, her writing kept me interested enough to finish it to the end, even when I could clearly see there'd be no significant plot development for the rest of the book.

And there's one of the main problems - this isn't a trilogy, it's a novel in three parts. After the first plot-points, which occur a little later than you'd expect in a novel, nothing much happens but the following of those plot points. At least, nothing that coherently fits together to make an emotional arc or a story. It's interesting - things happen to people, they make decisions, and other things happen, but it doesn't seem to have much of a point. There's no answer to the character's starting states - nothing that shows how they've grown, their development, and the closure at the end seems shoehorned in at best.

There's no resolution at the end of this book. Their quests aren't remotely answered - in the case of some characters, it's not even clear what their journey will be yet. Which makes the book fundamentally unsatisfying, to me. I wanted a story, something that would finish what it began, at least in part. 

And while the characters themselves feel dimensional, they're difficult to tell apart. Bramble was the only character I could keep track of - all the male characters blended into one another in short order. This was not helped by the fact that Freeman would stop the whole story to give us the point of view of another, inconsequential character. For example - one character killed a would-be-pick-pocket in self-defence, and spent a good deal thinking about the consequences of that. We then jump to a three-page POV of the death scene from said pick-pocket's point of view, a tangent which does not serve the story and does not give us any information we needed to know - it doesn't even give us anything unexpected. This happens several times throughout the book, and I'm at a loss as to why these interludes are there. There is no useful information in there. These characters are not important - we can see they're not important, and seeing things from their viewpoint doesn't add anything. They distract, confuse and slow down the book.

To me, those are big flaws, things that run right to the bones of the book and should have been addressed in the first or second draft where they could have been fixed relatively easily. So it is, I think, a testament to the quality of Freeman's writing that I still finished the book with a reasonable sense of enjoyment. While I won't be purchasing the remainder - I've no wish to slog through another lot of not-much-happening before the plot reveals itself - I will have a look at any other series or books she brings out.

 

 

This is the exercise I originally wanted to write last week, before I got side-tracked by good ol' Bugs and his Pismo Beach. Travel and journeys has been on my mind in terms of story rather a lot, not only from my own recent experience but from scenes that I'm currently working on in my novel and shorts.

This one you can make up completely if you like, but I find it more entertaining and often more absurd and original if you start with your own experience and build. So - think of a journey you took where things didn't quite go to plan. Doesn't have to be a big journey - it could have been a walk to the shops, or your daily commute to work. It could even be walking to the other end of your house. But something unexpected cropped up, something that made your day just a little unusual. That's your starting point.

And then things get really weird.

Let your imagination play. Bring in aliens or mythical creatures if you want to, but often the most bizarre, dramatic and character-revealing trials can be perfectly mundane in origin.

 

I read and adored Friedman's Coldfire trilogy a few years ago - a blend of science and fantasy, with brilliant worldbuilding, vivid, rich and fascinating characters, and brilliant writing and description. A while ago, I picked up her second trilogy, starting with A Feast of Souls, and was, frankly, disappointed. Her main character was irritating, unlikable and not in the least bith sympathetic, and while I was curious enough about the ending to finish the book, I certainly wasn't on the lookout for its siblings. However, the second book arrived as a gift, so here goes:

In a world where the price of magic is life itself, a group of seemingly immortal sorcerers appears to have cheated the system. But only one man knows the true origin of their power, or understands the true cost.

Now Kamala - born to poverty and abuse, the first woman to claim a Magister's power - will seek her rightful place among these mages, and lay siege to their secrets. The monk Salvator will claim his father's throne, and test his faith against a legendary darkness. The beautiful Siderea Aminestas, consort to Magisters, will be offered the thing she desires most - at the cost of her human soul. And an ancient Evil thought long-destroyed begins to stir anew, corrupting kings, shattering alliances and ultimately threatening to unweave the very fabric of human civilisation.

A mystical bloodline was cultivated to withstand this darkness, and its power must be wakened. But this will demand sacrifice of its warriors - and corruption is rife.

 It's an improvement on the first book of the series, but falls well short of her first trilogy.

Our main protagonist, Kamala, starts to develop some humanity, but is still far too out of touch with her own feelings or the feelings of others to be believable. She struggles with anyone expressing gratitude towards her, or respecting her, and yet that's exaclty what she envies when she meets women who are treated as equals by men. She spends an entire book wondering at her own attraction to a man, after running through more or less that exact process in the first book.

In short, she's patchy and inconsistent, but admittedly less irritating and inhuman this time around. Other characters are most consistent, but not particularly more interesting. There are a few mysteries set up and some posed questions, but I was honstly struggling to care.

There are some really great ideas in here, particularly the 'true cost' of their defence, and indeed the whole set-up, but it's swamped out by scenes that are just frankly dull (I found myself skimming), characters who have little input and should have been amalgamated, and the occasional truly cringworthy description - it shattered like rotton silk. Rotten silk can shatter? News to me. I think that might be her word of the year - almost every time she used it (which was quite often) it was in conjuction with something that just wouldn't shatter. Ah well.

As before, I was still curious enough to finish the book, but I wouldn't be looking for the third one. When she brings out her next trilogy, I'll take a gander - there's still enough good faith from her Coldfire series that I'll forgive her one that's a little rough around the edges. But I'd steer clear of this lot, for now.

 

I have finally gotten back to my giant pile of Books To Be Read (which has now toppled over into two piles, because some friends have recently come to the epiphany that I both like books, and have an amazon wishlist). Not a book that was on my wishlist, but has definitely been on my 'have a look at that' list. In my head. Anyway:

Alren lives with his parents on their small farmstead, half a day's ride from the isolated hamlet of Tibbet's Brook. As dusk falls each evening, a mist rises from the ground promising death to any foolish enough to brave the coming darkness. For hungry demons materialise from the vapours to feed, and as the shadows lengthen, humanity is forced to take shelter behind magical wards and pray that their protection holds until the dawn. 

But when Arlen's world is shattered by the demon plague, he realises that it is fear, rather than the monsters, which truly cripples humanity. Only by conquering their own terror can they ever hope to defeat the demons. Now Arlen must risk leaving the safety of his wards to discover a different path and offer humanity a last, fleeting chance of survival.

The Painted Man is Brett's debut, but reads far more like it comes from a seasoned author. The characters and world are engaging and vivid, the story and pacing spot-on for both a discrete novel, and the first book in a trilogy. Brett avoids constructing a three-volume-novel, and instead gives us a satisfying read that piques out interest for the later books.

The qualms I have about the book are few, though some are a little troubling. One of the societies Brett created had a clear caste system and complete male dominance over women. They were a violent, proud people with a number of faults, and clearly not displayed in an altogether positive light. So far, not a problem - the issue comes, for me, when he introduces burkhas into the equation (though he doesn't say the word, it's bloody obvious what he means - black cloth that covers women completely from head to toe, and while they may wear beautiful silks and jewellery underneath, only their husbands will ever see that.). 

I take issue with this because the burkha is such a strong image of Islam that introducing it to this society does not help enrich its culture, but instead invites the reader to assume that Brett is really writing about his understanding of Islamic culture - and it is not a flattering portrayal that he gives us. Instead of allowing the impression of these people to form from Brett's words, we're inundated by our own ideas of what Islamic cultures are. In the current cultural climate, slapping this Islamic brand on an invented woman-subjegating, violent, proud and easily offended people seems sensationalist, manipulative, and frankly racist. Not only unnecessary, but detrimental to the book.

And it could have so easily been averted. Did the women's wrappings have to be black? What if they were coloured to identify their marital status, or their husband's caste status? Just that slight change to move it away from the Islamic stereotype.

Other than that, it's a strong book. The characters are a little less dimensional than I'd like - but packing three complete and (for the most part) separate character arcs into 540 pages means something has to go. The female characters are the weakest - Leesha seems largely to be a one-note song, while Arlen and Rojer have much more depth. I would also have liked to see more of Arlen's transition - he exits stage left as one character, and essentially re-emerges later as a completely different one. Which is a valid technique, but when he's ostensibly the main character whose every nuance we've been following for the past three hundred pages, I feel a little cheated.

But, that aside, it's a book that I'd highly recommend, if you haven't picked it up already. The other two in the series have already made it onto my wishlist, and I'm looking forward to the other book of his (not from this series) that's sitting (unfortuntely quite a way down) on my Books To Be Read pile.

 

Can I stop pasting in that introduction about what writing exercises are for? We all know by now, yes? Good.

Your neighbour's monologue

Find someone nearby. If there's no one nearby, then think back to someone who caught your eye earlier today, or yesterday. The woman in the hot pink top at the supermarket, the man with the extraordinary nose at the bank. This works best (or perhaps, with least risk of offense and self-censoring) with someone you don't know. Picture in your head (or watch for a moment) what they were doing when you saw them, and their immediate surroundings. It might help to jot these things down at the top of the paper / screen, but it's not essential.

Now, write their stream-of-consciousness. Their inner-monologue, their thoughts running one into the other as they're doing whatever it was they were doing. What were they thinking of? Why are they there, what are they worried about or looking forward to? Keep it up for as long as you can, move them to their next task, location or scenario if possible.

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.

Roll to disbelieve

Pick something you believe - the more strongly you believe it, the better. It needs to be something that's a matter of faith, or morality - something with an argument for the other side. The theory of gravity, for example, won't help you much here.

Now create a character who believes the opposite of what you do, and write a short monologue expanding on his belief. It'll help if you give him a plausible scenario to be having this monologue in the first place. (I'm using the male pronoun for ease, it could easily be a female or a chair, if you'd like). You must not allow him to be a characterture of his belief, or instantily villified - keep him a rounded, believable, sympathetic character in his own right.

The point of the exercise is to step outside your own belief patterns for the purposes of creating story. It's a difficult thing to master - a lot of our beliefs are so deeply ingrained that they're difficult to even detect even with a great deal of introspection. But to create characters, especially villains, that have depth and believability, you need to be able to stretch outside your own mental structures.

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.

Hey, that's my line

Take a scene with two characters you've already written. If you don't have one handy, take a scene from a novel, or even a film, but make sure it's one you know well. Rewrite the scene, swapping the characters' arguments. That is, if John wants to go west in the original, and Betty wants to stay put, have John argue to stay put, and Betty yearn to venture west.

The trick is, what works as motivations for one character probably won't ring true to the other. If John wants to go west because that's where his brother went, Betty can't just have a brother spring up out of nowhere - she needs her own reason to go west. Similarly, John's going to need a more pressing reason to stay rather than follow his kin.

The work here is in re-exploring the characters to find motivations that ring true, but still make them do what you want.