Seven Things You Must Avoid If You Want to Write

These three books are on sale right now. THE MARK OF THE TALA, the book that started it all, first in The Twelve Kingdoms series. Also THE PAGES OF THE MIND, my RITA® Award-winning novel, which kicks off a new phase in the overall series, and PRISONER OF THE CROWN, first in a stand-alone spin off trilogy, The Chronicles of Dasnaria. If you've been thinking about reading my books or this series, it's a great time to start!

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week regards the writer's Seven Deadly Sins: the list of things you MUST avoid if you want to finish a project on time. Of course, if you're supposed to be writing, and you're reading this, you've already broken three of mine. Oops. But never fear! There is still hope for you. Read on.


1.  Avoid the internet, full stop. 

We all know this, right? And in a different world, we could avoid the time suck and distractions of the internet entirely. But with so much tied to the internet - from our phones to messages to mail - it's not viable to ignore the internet entirely. There's always the cabin in the mountains, but people still want to that you haven't been eaten by a grizzly bear.

2. If you must internet, avoid social media.

So, if you do have to check something connected to the internet, don't open Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. I disable my notifications (which they really hate and are always messaging me to change) so I only see that stuff if I actually go to the site. That takes some willpower, yes, but nothing like what it takes to break free of the gravitational pull once I do look. 

3. Stay away from click bait and rabbit holes (like this).

When I inevitably see an internet something, I have to exercise additional will power not to click on links. Remember: they're designed to make you WANT to click. (I made this post title click bait on purpose to illustrate the point.) Once they have your attention in their greedy clutches, they use all sorts of tricks to keep you there and spiraling ever downward. Best not to look in the first place. If I see something I really want to know about, I save the link. 

4. Prioritize your work over peopling.

There's a good reason so many writers are introverts: because they find it easier to avoid peopling. Even then, however, socializing can really disrupt a writing schedule. For me, I have to block out more time to write than I use actually writing. I need time to settle in, to ramp up, to take breaks. People who don't write rarely understand this. They also don't understand the trancelike focus writing requires and that their "one quick question" can derail a writer for hours.

5. Ignore people who don't (or won't) get it. 

Which is why you have to draw a bright, hard line for the people in your life. Do whatever it takes to get them to understand and respect your writing time. If they still don't get it? Well, I'd venture to say that we don't need people in our lives like that. A hard stance, I know, but if they won't respect your passion and livelihood, what exactly DO they add to your life?

6. Kick other people out of the room.

Not physically, because we did this in #5, right? These are the people in your head who like to yammer on about what you're writing. Some might be positive influences. Others might be severely critical. There's always someone yelling about what you CAN'T POSSIBLY DO. How can a person write in all that noise??? That's right, we can't. So kick them all out and enjoy the blessed silence.

7. Acknowledge fear and let it go.

I have a sign over my desk that says, "What would you write if you weren't afraid?" Sometimes when I tell people this, they reply that they're not afraid of anything. Bully for them. Also, I don't believe them. Any time I worry about how something I write will be received, that's fear. Ignoring that concern does nothing. Instead, whenever I fret over something in a story, I try to acknowledge that fear, look at my poster, and then write what I would if that worry had never occurred to me.

If I can avoid these pitfalls, I just might get my book finished on time. 

No Spiderweb Plots Here

Depositphoto

Our topic this week: "Spinning the Spiderweb of Complicated Plots."

I’m assuming perhaps whoever posed the question was thinking of intricate and complex series like Game of Thrones? Or all the Tolkien novels?

I write fast paced action adventure tales, whether set in ancient Egypt or the far future. My hero and heroine get plunged into danger pretty shortly after the book starts, they work their way through it, fall in love along the way, Happy Ever After ending achieved…and we’re done.

No spiderwebs (although there are deadly alien spiders in my latest book, CAMRON).

Even with my series, the Badari Warriors, although I have an overarching series plot, I don’t think it rises to the level of a spiderweb.

I’m not a plot-in-advance-too-much author. I can’t even imagine juggling a huge cast of characters and multiple plot lines and etc etc over numerous books. I also don’t much read novels of that type. I write what I like to read for the most part.

I do read and enjoy what Jeffe referred to earlier in the week as novels with ‘braided plotlines”, driven by characters. I love her books and Nalini Singh’s and others who take that approach. I don’t have any desire to try writing such a series, at least not at this point.

So, there you have it for me, this week. (I’ve been bitten by black widow spiders – does that count?)

A snippet of Camron doing battle with the alien spiders while trying to save the heroine...

Road Maps for Complex Plots

News: I have a release date for Enemy Within - July 17, 2019. 

I also have a new foster cat. She doesn't have a name yet. She had been dumped at the feral colony a few months ago. She integrated very well with the other cats, so we assumed she was fine, then one day, she showed up limping. We managed to pick her up and run her to the vet. Something bit her - either one of the other cats or a racoon. She's got an infection brewing in there, so she's had antibiotic shots. She'll have oral antibiotics for a few weeks, too. 

She's a sweet girl with a deep love for being brushed. She'll be with me until she's healed up. We'll be looking for a rescue placement for her so she'll have a chance to find a home that won't discard her ever again. 

Complicated plots. That's what we're here for today. You, my friend, have come to the right place. Complicated plots (some might say convoluted) R I. How do I keep it all straight? Pff. Who says I do? 

I absolutely lose track of what the hell I'm doing and have done. But there's almost always a roadmap that I can refer to - not an outline. Character profiles guide my way. Because for me, all plot comes from what the characters need in order to force them into their arcs, all the complications arise from what the characters need, too. I do pretty intense character work, digging into psychology, deep motivation and the bits of my characters' natures that lead them astray.

Any time I lose my way, I return to my character profiles and remember why we all called this party in the first place. From time to time, like the book I just shipped to beta readers, I *really* lose my way and not only do I have to go back to the character maps, I have to redraw those maps entirely while inching my way along the story, trying to figure it out as I go. We'll see what the beta readers have to say about how I did. 

To keep track of specific threads for complex plots, I keep a notebook for each story. Mostly, it's silly notes about DON'T FORGET THE THING! Remember you meant to do x with this event and this character! Stuff like that. It's one of those things - if I write it down, I'll remember it and not need to consult my notes. If I don't write it down, I will only remember that I'd meant to do something cool AND I'd failed to make any useful notes. O_o I do try not to get too het up about continuity until the editing stages. That's really where I get a little OCD about making sure every thread is caught up in the larger weave of story. If they aren't, they either have to be snipped, or woven in and tied. 

It isn't a foolproof process, but it does seem to work for me so far. I hope.

Juggling the cat herders of interwoven plots

So let's talk about plot weaving.

Just a reminder that novel writing is an industry where you have to fight REALLY HARD to get to do something and when you win the fight, you ask yourself, "Why did I agree to do that?" https://t.co/h0JvDfwPDn

— Marshall Ryan Maresca (@marshallmaresca) May 22, 2019

I'm working right now on the draft for People of the City, which is the culmination of Phase I of the Maradaine Saga, and... friends, it's a lot.
I mean, I've been the person who's been all "YES LET'S DO THIS" but bringing together the threads of four different series in a way that comes together in a single book that needs to be A. a solid story in its own right, B. the third Maradaine Elite novel and C. the twelfth Maradaine Saga novel that closes and caps and satisfies a bunch of storylines, while setting the stage for more things in Phase II and beyond.
It's a lot.
I've been saying it's like juggling a chainsaw, a flaming machete and a baby.
However, this is what all those outlines have been for.  I've been working up to this moment, and I've known what this one was going to be about, and how the different elements were going to come together here to unite the plot lines into what the plot of this book needed to be about.  I knew what I needed to seed in the previous eleven books.  The work has been building to this.  Seven main characters from four different series coming together into a big event.

But that doesn't change the fact that it's A LOT.  And I'm more than a little scared I won't pull it off.  But I've done the work, laid the foundation, and I think I've got it.
Because I fought to do this, and wow, I'm really getting to do it.  That's incredible.
So mark your calendars for Fall 2020.  We're going to have something awesome.

Plotting mischief

You know how sometimes the safest course of action is to admit when you don't know much about a thing? That's me and plotting. So if you're looking to learn plotting from a maven, you've got the wrong girl. I've taken scads of workshops and read even more craft books about how to properly plot a book, but I still do it all backwards.

By that I mean I typically start a book or story not with a plot but with the theme, the why. "Why am I even writing this story? What can I, and by extension my characters, learn form it? Why does it matter?" To mangle a Nietzche quote, if I know the why of a story, I feel like I can get away with a whole lot of absurdity in the how.

After figuring out how I want readers/characters/me to feel or what I want us to think about, my next priority is character arc. Because the best way of getting readers to think about or feel things is to put a character through some harrowing experiences, right?

And I ... guess that's plot? The experiences the characters have to endure?

In reality, I don't think too much about plot until a book is done. At that point, I lay structures over the top of my just-drafted mess -- I like Save the Cat and Michael Hauge's structures for this step, and Jami Gold has wonderful resources on her site for beat-sheeting these things -- and see how well my organically-grown series of hows fits. Usually they align fairly well. There are patterns in how Western folks tell stories, and we tend to follow those patterns even when we don't realize we're doing it.

After tweaking to make sure the story roughly fits a recognizable shape, I do a hunt for story promises. If I have a character behave one way at the beginning and a different way at the end, I need to make sure something plotty has happened to effect that transformation. Sometimes this step requires new scenes or scene rewrites or complete re-thinking of a whole section. Identifying and making sure to pay off story promises is my second layer of plotting, and it's probably the most important one for genre fiction. People on airplanes and beaches and up late at night don't read to be confused or dismayed, and if I promise them something, I for damn sure must deliver. (Can't say the same for students in literature classes, so the rules in literary fiction may vary.)

Finally, I have my poor critique partners read the story, and they almost always tell me my ending sucks. It's okay. They are of course right. You sort of expect endings to suck when they haven't been precision engineered by an expert plotter. But even at this point, when I'm trying to hit the final beats strong, it's still more about the why than the plot. I don't do a five-point finale for the sake of having five points. If the princess actually is in the tower and the why of the story doesn't need a high-tower surprise, I won't add stuff just for the sake of tidy structure.

Here's what I never do: plan plot twists before I start writing. If a plot twist happens and it's right for the story why and the character arc and it passes all the structure and promises tests after the draft is done, that is the BEST MOMENT EVER. I love plot twists!

I just don't know how to craft them from outside the story. I gotta be in the trenches when those bombs land on me. And you know what? That's okay. Your process is not my process, and we all need to do this writing thing the best way for our unique brains.

My brain plots by flinging why-sauced spaghetti. And I own that.

How Complicated Is The Plot: Depends On Word Count

Oh, dear readers, complicated plots are my jam...and often jam me up. I love them. Simple storylines aren't fun for me to write. I don't believe characters live one-dimensional single-thread lives, so the plots cannot, by definition of having "well-rounded characters," be simple. And yet, feedback on my early works was often "this is too complicated."

~record scratch~

Wait. Wut? There's such a thing as too complicated?  Alas, yes. Yes, if you've: a) tried to pack too much in too short a work; b) haven't properly led the reader through the maze you've created; c) withheld crucial information in a mistaken attempt to create mystery.

Complicated plots and short stories aren't impossible, but they take a real master of the craft to pull off that combo well. Last week we talked about leveling up; penning a well-executed complex short would be my "11." Now, give me 250k words and I can spin some hairy scary complicated stuff. With that kind of word count, it's only natural that I'd find my favorite genre is fantasy, right? My high fantasy stuff is infinitely more complicated than my urban fantasy stuff because of word count. In high fantasy, I have the room to guide the readers along many paths, gotchas, and oh-no-they-didn't's. In UF, I have less than half that; at 90k I have to pare back the options and challenges my protag faces in order to keep the reader's head from exploding.

Knowing how much information to include/reveal and when is what separates the novices from the masters. Too often, we authors think we're being tricksy, sneaky, or slick by hiding information from the reader to make the Big Reveal surprising. Too often, we're just annoying the reader because what we're leaving out are the frickin' clues necessary to move to the next stage of the story. Not our best moments. Hopefully, our CPs and editors catch those "insert vital info here" gaffs before the book goes to press.

None of this is to say that I always strike the right balance of complications to chapters. It's a point of continual improvement for me--I always want to do more--but I've learned that it's better to remove a plot thread than to lose the reader.

Come Into My Parlor....

Spinning the Spiderweb of Complicated Plots.

I like Machiavellian maneuvers.

One of the things I've enjoyed most about writing fantasy is that the genre allows for that.

One of my absolute favorite things is hearing readers or reviewers comment that they did NOT see that coming.

How do you do it?

No Idea.

My suggestion is simply to remember that some people lie. SOme people lie a lot. And some people, the truly scary ones, remember all of their lies.

I can't get into details but I had a character do two full novels of lying to another character> I gave a few hints and then walked away and continued the story. When the reveal came, everyone was surprised. Well, everyone but me. I had already laid out the groundwork.

Yeah, I think that's the secret. Plant the seeds and walk away for a while. 

Sorry. I got nothing else.

I have finished the first draft of the last novel in my BLOOD RED series. On to new projects.

Keep smiling,

Jim

Best Fantasy and Science Fiction

The first book in my Chronicles of Dasnaria series, PRISONER OF THE CROWN, is up for Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Book at Fresh Fiction! You can go there and vote for your favorites in multiple categories. I'm super delighted that this book was nominated. It's up against tough competition, so I don't expect it to win, but getting the nod is so gratifying. 

Our topic this week at the SFF Seven is "Spinning the Spiderweb of Complicated Plots."

I'm finishing up a week at SFWA's Nebula Conference and running low on brainz at this point. But I also think that, on the best of days, I wouldn't have much to say about this topic. I don't really think in terms of plots, since I'm a character-driven writer. When I do think about my own plots, the spiderweb analogy doesn't work at all. Plots feel more linear to me than that. They go from beginning to end, with many threads weaving along the way.

The most complicated effort I ever dealt with was what I called a braided timeline. In THE PAGES OF THE MIND, THE EDGE OF THE BLADE, THE SNOWS OF WINDROVEN and THE SHIFT OF THE TIDE, events in each story co-occurred with events in other places with characters in the other books. Making sure they interfaced correctly gave me headaches.

But I don't have much more to say about it than that.

To assuage your thirst for great blog posts, however, here's one from Jaycee Jarvis: IN DEFENSE OF BETA HEROES. She mentions THE TALON OF THE HAWK and Harlan. Really wonderful words!