Category Archives: writing

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Taking compliments

In some ways this is an end of the year sort of post, and in some ways not so much. I’ve been working on my story idea for years. Though, it’s only been the past couple of years where I’ve gotten really serous and only the past year or so where I’ve gotten nearly manic over it. This spring or summer, I can’t recall which, I finally made the decision to confide in a friend and co-worker. The only other person really aware of this project had been my wife. In retrospect, I think telling someone else about what I’ve been working on was a good idea. A few months after I had done that, I arranged to take a couple of weeks off work to spend with the kids and also write. My employer does, after all, have exceptionally generous leave policies, and so it makes sense to take advantage of those where reasonable. Anyhow, after having confided in someone other than my wife and not feeling stupid or ashamed, I felt emboldened to mention my endeavors to some other co-workers. Again, I think a good idea. Of course, starting this blog has helped to in a rather unexpected way, it’s helping me to keep my confidence and motivation up.

One of the reasons it has been a good idea to tell others about the story, is the possibilities for review. I am always interested in hearing fresh perspectives. Yes, those can sometimes sour my mood to the point that I just want to set the story down for a while (I’m convinced this comes with the territory. If you’re an aspiring writer you’ve probably had this experience), but I also recognize these opinions are essential to the revision process.

So, from one of those reviewers today I got some feedback. I’m not going to lie. It was of the ego-inflating variety of  feedback that put a smile on my face. Something to the effect of: “I’m enjoying the story for what it is, and I’ve got a few nit-picky comments you ought to work out, but I need to read more before I can think about those.”

Holy crap! Maybe my stuff doesn’t suck! Then evil Dave says ‘Well, perhaps I’ll concede it doesn’t suck, but that doesn’t really mean it’s any good.”

This sort of internal dialog makes it super-hard to take compliments graciously, or even take them at face value. That said, I think what I need to do is simply say thank you, and leverage those compliments as motivation to continue writing, and continue listening to what others might have to offer by way of suggestions or criticisms.

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Just another domestic sunday

Today was a woefully unproductive writing day. I think I managed to get down two lines of poem before once again becoming distracted by the celestial scope of housework that needed my attention. If all goes well, the kids will go down in half an hour, and I’ll be able to focus. It’s not that I’m not thinking about my story, I’m just not able to put in the concentration necessary to work through my current issue.

Last night, after I got back from what can only be described as an epic alpine adventure, I opened my laptop and stared blankly at the chapter I have been working on in my story. The three main characters of this plot-line (I do have a single sub-plot for this book that follows different characters) were essentially sitting around a fire, staring at one another and asking what next? Unfortunately, I was right there with them, blank stare and all. Part of the reason for this is that the explanation of events and character motivation leading to the end of the story, as it stands, is flimsy. If my characters launched off in the planned direction, some pretty important pieces of the story wouldn’t make sense (I could make it work, probably, but I’d hate it). My solution? Well, this is one of the reasons concentration is essential to fixing things. I am going to change the timeline a bit by going back in time a couple of chapters, where I will add in one long or two shortish chapters. If done properly, it will give my main character the motivation he needs in order to head off in the direction he was already going, and also beyond. If I remain focused, I’ll also be able to write those new chapters in such a way that following chapters should only require moderate revision. Not only that, the more I consider this solution, I realize it’s not just a good idea for plotting, it’s going to be an essential element to the development of the character. So, here I go…

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The Hobbit movie

I went to the Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies with my family today. In spite of all of the bad things I heard about it, the largest complaint being the 40+ minute battle of 5 armies, I enjoyed it. In fact, I think that the battle was done really pretty well, considering more than half the movie was centered around that one event. The question, I suppose, is what did I like about it? First off, I’m looking at the movie as a story in the same way I think about a novel. What I liked was that the action was broken up by other less intense events, yes some of that was contrived and thoroughly unnecessary from the standpoint of plot (Every scene containing Alfred the assistant to the master of Lake Town could have been removed with no impact to the story), however those breaks in the action were essential for the story-telling part. They kept the intensity in check to prevent the viewer from getting burned out on all the action. (This seems to have been Alfred’s sole purpose in the movie)

I am a firm believer that if you’ve got a long action sequence in any story there needs to be a break from whatever that action was – really this applies to any sort of intense situation in a story. Your characters, and reader,, need a bit of a breather. A moment where things aren’t really okay, but everyone can stop and take a breath before the action/intensity begins to rise again. I’ve read some books where this is not done well (in my opinion) and I found them difficult to enjoy. It seems to me that some critics might bang-on about those breaks in the action as unnecessary diversions, however you’ve got to keep the audience from becoming burned out. The audience is, after all, a huge part of the story-telling experience. The barrel escape scene from the last hobbit movie is a great example of action that hasn’t been broken well enough. I think it really mucked-up the story-telling. It was long, and didn’t contain any breaks from the action. The director’s attempt to do this was though humor, and that can work, but it felt out of place in the context. By the end of that barrel scene, I had become soured story overall because the scene had just seemed to become absurd after a while. If it had been shorter, or at least broken up better, I likely wouldn’t have had formed that opinion.

I feel like the book that sticks out in my mind as having tackled this nearly perfectly was Jurassic Park. There were parts so intense that I had to put the book down for a few minutes, but the next chapter almost always started with a minute to catch your breath before the action began intensifying again. It made the book gripping to the end without burning me out, as so often happens for me when the characters can’t stop long enough to take a breath.

I think my point here is that if you break up your intense action properly, you really can get away with a lot, and I think make your action much more intense, without experiencing audience burnout. Anyhow, this is how I prefer to read, and that’s my two cents.