Essay: What can you learn from a webcomic?

I've been reading a lot of webcomics lately. You'll find links to some of my favorites to the right. I particularly recommend Sluggy Freelance by Pete Abrams. Since 1997 this webcomic has updated five times per week and featured several volumes worth of storylines and character development.

Incidentally, it also has the honor (such as it is) of affecting my life in a deeply personal manner. In 2008 I began reading Sluggy over the Christmas Break, knowing that in a few short weeks one of the most stressful times in a young teacher's life was going to crop up. I'm speaking, of course, of the monumental waste of time that is student teaching. (The only thing that consoles me about how much time and money I wasted on my student teaching is that it was slightly more worthwhile than the two years of theoretical study and pointless essay writing that preceded it.)

At the same time I was trying to cajole 33 sixth graders to study Ancient Rome and learn fractions, I was unwinding at night by reading the antics of Torg, Riff, and Bun-bun, a homicidal mini-lop rabbit. (Where does a mini-lop keep a switchblade and a Glock-19?)

I'm leaving one character out. Kiki, one of the most adorable anthropomorphic characters in comic history, literally changed my life when I became so interested in ferrets that I finally adopted a starving little girl rescued from the wild. Ankhesenamun (or "Mun" as I call her for short) is just about everything that Kiki is: sweet, naive, difficult to potty train (well, only in one spot, really), and the only thing that really keeps me sane most of the time.

If I could just stop the little weasel from raiding my paranormal investigation kit for toys, I'd be much happier.

Lest this blog degenerate into a Livejournal-ish diary and my blatherings drift towards similar styling to that of a 14-year-old emo chick, I'll stop talking about my personal life now. I'll say only that ferrets are wonderful pets. There are far too many of them in animal shelters that need good homes. They are nothing like dogs and cats and take a lot more work than both, and if you are even remotely interested in one as a pet then you need to read Ferrets for Dummies. I also strongly recommend that you volunteer at a local ferret shelter for at least two months before you adopt one. Not only will that give you a chance to get to know them and meet your soulmate, but it'll also help that shelter out. Most ferret shelters are run by private individuals who receive no assistance from local government-- no funds and no equipment. They exist by private donation and volunteer support.

All right, enough! I promise...

Back to webcomics. There are hundreds of webcomics out there. Most are free, some are dropped after only a few days or weeks, and some of them go on for years. Some, like Something Positive, cover themes ranging from homosexuality to suicide and grief (and yet still manage to make me laugh out loud when they aren't bringing tears to my eyes. Read S*P and see if you can keep your eyes from clouding when Davan's father is trying to tell his beloved wife that he has Alzheimer's.)

Some comics, like Penny Arcade, are devoted to video games. (BTW: that link will take you to the blog. Each comic has a blog post attached to it, and their home page points to it for some reason. Look to the upper left hand side for a link to the comic.) While Penny Arcade is ofttimes insanely violent and strangely tangential to the world of gaming, it also happens to be utterly hysterical (one of the few examples of any medium that has made me laugh out loud hard enough to not be able to stop).

For those gifted with a sense of altruism, Penny Arcade is also the source for "Child's Play." This wonderful charity raises money to buy gaming systems for kids in hospitals. If you ever spent any time in a hospital as a child, like I did with an utterly destroyed knee at age six, you can appreciate a charity so devoted to easing the pain of children in that situation with a diversion like a Nintendo DS. Read a few of the letters on the Child's Play website. If your eyes don't well up then you're a stronger man than I.

This post isn't just a bunch of commentary about how great webcomics are when you've worked a 16 hour day that includes four hours of lesson planning, spending $250 of your own money on teaching materials, and a two hour meeting with an administrator that hasn't been in a classroom as a regular teacher in six years who wants to shred your teaching methodology. There's a lot more here than that.

Webcomics can also give you insights into character and plot development. On the right hand side of this blog you'll find a list of links to my favorite webcomics. (Except for some NSFW ones.) On this list is Ctrl-Alt-Del, another gaming webcomic. One of the reasons I like this comic, other than the strangely twisted humor, is Ethan's growing maturity throughout its run. Beginning as a gamehead with no concept of responsibility, who spends his rent money on new game releases, Ethan grows up, loses a child, accidentally ends up as the owner of a game store and business owner, gets married, and develops. As you read the comic, you'll see him grow into something new, something different... possibly even something wonderful.

Going back to Sluggy Freelance, Torg begins the comic run in 1997 as a rather naively innocent goofball, more interested in beer and chicks (if he could find one) than in personal responsibility. However, as time marches on he becomes wiser, more focused, and in the That Which Redeems storyline he steps into the role of action hero in a manner that touched my heart. Let's just say that I have an enormous soft spot in my heart for anyone with the cojones to leap off a mountain of bones into the teeth of a demon lord carrying nothing but a sword and a heart full of furious rage. (By the way, that last panel is my all-time favorite comic artwork E-V-E-R!)

If you're looking for further sweeping storylines, check out another comic on the list to the right, Order of the Stick. Rich Burlew was a writer for Wizards of the Coast (the company that screwed up Advanced Dungeons and Dragons when they bought out TSR several years ago.) Not only does Burlew break the fourth wall more or less continuously to make references to gameplay mechanics, but he's managed to create character depth where at first glance there is nothing but stock fantasy.

Don't be fooled by what appears to be simplistic artwork, either. I defy you to find another comic artist, online or otherwise, that could show a battle every bit as broad in scope as the battle of Helm's Deep from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy-- using stick figures.

Because I am most interested in fantasy and science fiction, I am deeply impressed with Burlew's ability to develop complex and far-reaching "quests" for his characters. His MacGuffins are not merely magical plot devices used to get characters moving. He develops a real resonating purpose for each character's focus on the plot goals. (One caveat of this webcomic: I recommend staying out of the online forums. The rabid users there are every bit as pig-ignorant as the commentators on Yahoo News, and have no problems flaming to a crisp anyone that doesn't agree with their point of view. Moderation is usually done after the fact and makes no attempt to be fair or even reasonable. I was very disappointed in my brief sojourn there, and have not returned since October of 2008.)

Of course, the next question I can hear you thinking is, "Why a webcomic, Chris? Why not just read a book to get examples of characterization, plot development, and action sequences?"

Of course you can do that. I don't discount that much of my writing comes from influences like Chris Bunch, David Eddings, Simon Green, and Terry Pratchett. I'm all for reading as much and as widely as possible in your chosen genre and trying to absorb as much as you can from it. This is just one more example of that in action.

There was a time when webcomics were laughed at. United Artists-- the same company that forced Bill Watterson to stop making Calvin and Hobbes because they insisted on licensing his merchandise against his will, openly laughed at webcomics in the early 1990s, claiming that the medium was not only not profitable, but it was only effective for comic writers who couldn't get published any other way.

By the way, this is the same miserable bullshit argument that professional editors and publishers use to to defame self-publishing. They were the ones to call it "Vanity Press," and they still insist that self-publication means that you weren't good enough to make it in the "real" world of publication. Rich Burlew (Order of the Stick), Tim Buckley (Ctrl-Alt-Del), Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik (Penny Arcade), and Dave Kellet (Sheldon) may disagree that the medium isn't successful, since they make their livings off of it. (In fact, you can simply go HERE and check out a list of comics that pay handsomely enough to keep their writers solvent.)

My point here is a simple one: as an author, you should probably be seeking out examples of good writing wherever they may lurk. Just because it's bound to a simplistic form and also uses pictures to convey meaning rather than expository description doesn't mean that comics aren't also a source of good writing. Since most webcomics are freely available, including archives that go back more than a decade in some cases (like Sluggy), you can read them as you choose, unlike buying a $2.99 comic book every month, or shelling out $9.99 for a novel. (Not that I am trying to discourage either of those purchases, but free is always good.)

In addition to some laugh out loud humor and some incredible artwork, you might find something else as well...

... you might come home with a new family member.

Write On!

*****
Christopher Rivan

Virgins Slain, Dragons Rescued.
Reasonable rates for all budgets!

http://chrisrivan.blogspot.com/

Chris.Rivan@Yahoo.com

Essay: How Twitter Helps You Write Better

Thomas Jefferson, one of our Founding Fathers, and a man who would definitely be ashamed of the current administration and their power-grabbing and excessive taxation, once wrote a letter to his friend John Adams.

At the conclusion of the letter, Jefferson wrote, "I must apologize for the length of this letter. I had not the time to edit for brevity."

In The Dragherian Chronocles, fantasy author Stephen Brust has a character declaim, "Brevity! Oh, but I could write for pages and pages on the need to curb the excesses of language and contain the wit such as to present the thoughts clearly, remarkably, and in such straightforward manner as to make obvious the need for brevity in speech."

In less tongue-in-cheek manner, William Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, "Brevity is the soul of wit."

If I have a fault other than my amazing good looks and blistering charm, it's that I never seem to be able to say in one sentence what I could just as easily say in a paragraph-- or six. Not forgetting that my first published work was a 423-page behemoth of non-fiction, I'm just one wordy sumbitch.

I'd like to introduce you, if you're not already familiar with it, to a site called Twitter. Twitter is a social networking site developed to take advantage of SMS; otherwise known as text messaging. For each post, called a "tweet," you are limited to just 140 characters, and you can mini-blog to your account from your cell phone. (Although it's difficult to follow the message stream and the "conversations" using that device.)

I've met some great people on Twitter. Julie Duck, an editor-turned-author. Kimberly VanderHorst, lovely and brilliant. Eric Krouse, expert at the short story. JM Strother, who brought us the idea of the FridayFlash. These are all people I met on Twitter and interact with every day. They've offered comments, criticism, and encouragement to my writing. (Guys, thank you so much. I really appreciate it!)

Believe me, there are others, but if I were to take the time to individually mention every wicked cool person on Twitter I'd have no time to complete this post.

Another thing that Twitter does is hashtags. By sticking a pound sign (#) in front of a tag, you can make it stand out and be easily searched. This allows you to create discussions. For example, the Young Adult Literature Chat hashtag is #yalitchat. At certain times of the week a dozen or more young adult fiction authors will congregate to discuss the problems and methods of that genre.

For a writer, this is free professional development, and I encourage you to drop in. I tend to follow anyone who follows me, so if you think I might have something worth saying now and then, you can check out my twitter posts by clicking on the link to the upper right of this blog window.

When I first got a text message capable phone I made a couple of promises to myself. The first was that I would never, ever, E-V-E-R, use text message abbreviations. I will never "C U L8TR! QT!" I may, "See you in a few, you sexy beast." I do not ever replace the words "to" or "too" with the number 2, and as much as possible I will stick to standard literary conventions with regard to when to type out numbers. (Anything under the number twenty-five should be typed and hyphenated, if memory serves, so that's what I do.)

As much as possible, I even try to stick to sentences that contain subject, predicate, and punctuation and only standard abbreviations like "lbs" and "Dr". This makes writing concisely something of a challenge.

Applying this to Twitter, I've noticed that some aspects of my writing are improving because of the way I approach the social networking scene. I'm more concise and more focused in my delivery. I rely more on impact statements, including a judicious use of the fragment. (Think of Hemingway: "He died. In the rain." The second, incomplete sentence is an impact fragment.)

I am coming to believe that using sites like Twitter not only connects you to other authors and even editors and agents while simultaneously allowing you to attract people to your blogs/pages/writing and increase interest, but it also helps you to improve your writing itself.

I even ran across one author who spent an entire Saturday writing the ultimate in flash fiction: 140 character stories. Could you condense your writing down far enough to tell an entire story in just 140 characters?

Yeah. Me neither.

Let's see if I can condense this blog into a Twitter post:

"Twitter is a social networking engine that allows you to network with other authors and improve the brevity of your own writing. Try it!" -136 characters.

Write on!

*****
Christopher Rivan

Virgins Slain, Dragons Rescued.
Reasonable rates for all budgets!

http://chrisrivan.blogspot.com/

Chris.Rivan@Yahoo.com

Essay: The Cart Before the Horse... or is it?

I was chatting with a friend of mine on Twitter the other day, the lovely and talented Kimberly VanderHorst, and I mentioned that I was about to begin work on a new piece. You've seen the prologue last week as my #fridayflash.

When Kim asked me what it was I was working on, I sent her the link to this trailer:

Now here's the interesting thing. I mentioned that I did this for all of my books (The one for Crossed Swords is HERE) and that I also did it before the book was written! Kim said it was a stroke of genius.

Stop laughing. She really said that.

Now Kim is as brilliant as she is pretty, and she's awfully dang pretty, so having her say that really made me pause for a second. I never considered for a moment that my somewhat narcissistic approach to writing would be helpful to others, but I do know how I use the trailers.

There are two parts to it. The first part is that I usually attach a publication date to the trailer (I didn't for this one for a specific reason I'll tell you about down the road.) What this does is force me to keep to a regular schedule of work. In order to get Crossed Swords out the door by August 2011 (while also getting my non-fiction out on approximately the same time line) I need to write about 1,000 words a week just on that story alone.

The trailer then becomes a sort of motivational contract. I put some of my favorite music and some stirring images on there so I'm inclined to watch it, and every time I do, I see that stark reminder: August, 2011, and I realize I better get my ass on the keyboard.

The second reason I do the trailers is entirely different. Think back to movies you really wanted to see and what the trailers showed. Star Wars Episode III is a good example. Let's be honest; we all pretty much knew that the Star Wars prequels were going to be about as delightful as an ass-flavored biscuit. We were largely watching them out of love for the original series and a desire for completeness. What we wanted to see was Obi-Wan kicking twelve colors of crap out of Anakin. In the trailer we see just one lightsaber slash of that fight (albeit from two different angles.)

The rest of the trailer fires our imagination. Why is Bail Organa screaming "NO!" over the cockpit of his fighter? How does Senator Palpatine go from a fifty-something to a decrepit beast in just a few scenes? Why does Yoda look so pissed?

If you're like me, and I know I am, you wrote that movie in your head about three dozen times after seeing the first trailer for it. I connected all those little dots in my imagination and hoped like hell that Lucas was up to the task of making a movie that was better than the one I saw on my own eyelids.

This is the secret behind why I make book trailers: Counterattack is not written yet. In fact, it exists solely as the 854 word prologue, two 400 word chapter precis, a yWriter file named Cntrattk.yw5, and the trailer above.

But every time I watch that trailer, I get an idea. Every time I consider the fight of eight humans against an alien race, I get inspired. Every time I think about what might happen if our world was destroyed by an alien civilization and the only thing left to fight for was vengeance, a few more words sear themselves into my mind.

I can't promise that the technique will work for you, but if you have a few minutes and some knowledge of iMovie or Windows Movie Maker, this is just something to think about trying out.

Oh, and if you need help making a trailer, shoot me an email. I've taught iMovie in the classroom and am experimenting with WMM. I'll do what I can to help you.

Until then, Write On!

*****
Christopher Rivan

Virgins Slain, Dragons Rescued.
Reasonable rates for all budgets!

http://chrisrivan.blogspot.com/

Chris.Rivan@Yahoo.com

Flash fiction: First Contact

This week's Flash Fiction is late. Sorry about that. There are a number of reasons why, and one of them is that this is more than just a stand alone story. This is the prologue to a science fiction project I'm now working on. You're welcome to come along with me every step of the way.

+++++

He didn't know who they were. They weren't the Krauts. That was for sure. It hurt to look at them; their strange proportions and shapes made him ill to think about.

He'd seen a lot in his twenty-five years, but nothing like this before. Six weeks ago he'd watched the waters run scarlet at Sword Beach as the invasion finally began into occupied France. Two weeks after that, he'd been part of the breakout. Cobra, they'd called it. He'd heard the plaintive whimpers of German wounded, begging for water, "Wasser. Bitte nur ein kleines wasser."

He'd seen his friends, buddies, brothers, vanish in a spattering eyeblink or sink slowly to the ground, sometimes not even realizing half their head was gone, dreams, hopes and loves vanishing in a pink cloud from a sniper's bullet or piece of shrapnel no bigger than a grain of sand. When the initial breakout had begun with such ease after the botched landings, he'd allowed himself to hope that maybe it would be over soon, maybe he'd make it through after all and see Oregon again.

He'd wanted to be a teacher once, and coach track. If only he could run now, but trophies and medals mean little when you're pinned to cold metal.

The war was over for him. He knew that. His eyes leaked despite being screwed shut until they hurt. One moment he was on patrol, looking for that damn German armor that intelligence swore was there.

The lieutenant had been the first to die. Something awful out of nightmares had reared from the darkness in front of him. While the men stared in horror it had flashed some kind of beam from the end of a misshapen arm and slashed it once across the officer's body. Unable even to scream, the lieutenant had come apart in a grisly flood of blood and worse as the glowing blade sheared through bone, cloth, flesh-- even the steel of his carbine-- without even a hint of resistance.

True to training and experience the squad had spread to combat positions and opened up, peppering the thing with .30 caliber rounds from their Garand rifles. He remembered seeing the bullets spatter, like hose water from a jeep.

Then it was in among them. The giant thing made no sound of its own, but its energy blade hissed as it tore men apart.

He was the only one left. It had stopped in front of him, almost seeming to regard him thoughtfully, and stared down at him from its enormous height. Something like a hand, but with too many fingers, closed around his throat with a precise movement that was almost delicate, and he felt himself rise into the air until his face was mere inches from its staring baleful eye.

As his feet kicked helplessly more than a yard from the ground he realized with revulsion that it wasn't an eye at all. It was some kind of window. Behind it was a face.

He struggled fitfully against the bonds that crucified him to the cold plate. That face had been the last thing he'd remembered before the horror and nausea had dragged him down into darkness.

Mercifully, he'd stayed there until the pain started.

That face was there now, in front of him again, angles and shapes and proportions that made no sense and hurt the eye to look at. It chittered something at him. Speech? Breathing? Was it asking a question? Making a demand? He didn't know if it was a directive or a curse.

"Jaime Tavala, private, United States Marine Corps, 538-03-53--" The rest vanished in a scream. The agony was like a physical blow. He could feel skin charring, knotted muscles searing, bones cracking with the heat even though nothing was touching him. He tried to keep screaming through grinding teeth, but the broken glass in his throat wouldn't let him.

It went on for a long time before the end. Such a very long time.



At one end of the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, where the fallen American soldiers of the Normandy Campaign lie, is a headstone marking the final resting places of those yet unknown. It bears the inscription, "Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God."

In one of those graves sleeps a soldier who was found weeks after the invasion. There was no marking on his body to indicate how he was killed, and he was uninjured except for his broken and worn teeth, as if he'd ground them in fury or agony for many years. The advanced stage of decomposition made identification impossible.

What would he say to us, if we could speak to him? Why was he found so far from the main battlefield and so long after the combat ended and the Germans were pushed back? Where was his weapon? Was he a deserter? Why didn't he have his dog tags, or even a letter home to identify him?

What would he tell us, if only he could speak?

He would give us a warning.

The Talari are coming.

*****
Christopher Rivan

Virgins Slain, Dragons Rescued.
Reasonable rates for all budgets!

http://chrisrivan.blogspot.com/

Chris.Rivan@Yahoo.com

Essay: Chekov's Gun

Andre Norton has written about 150 books. Fun fact: if you were to spend a million dollars on each one of her books, you'd still not have spent as much money as Obama's budget calls to be spent in the first nine seconds of fiscal year 2011! (Just a reminder that the games he, Pelosi, and Reid are currently playing are being played with your tax money. What they choose to do with their own cash is up to them, but I'm getting sick of paying for their hair brained schemes.)

But despite the absurd number of books Andre Norton published in her 71 year career, I refuse to read any of them. Nope. Sorry. Tried it once and I won't do it again. (Well, never say never. I'm arguing through hyperbole here. Please don't send me lengthy emails about Voodoo Planet.)

The reason why is very simple. Yes, I understand that I'm probably costing myself some great fiction. I'm probably missing out on some wonderful stories. Unfortunately, once, a long time ago, I tried one of her science fiction books and she dropped the ball so horrifically that I just can't bring myself to risk it again.

I can no longer recall the title. I was around eleven years of age. I can recall that one of the plot points of the book was an ancient alien city in the middle of the jungle. About thirty years previous to the story an archaeologist took a crew in there with a new piece of technology that was supposed to be able to replay historical events on a screen. This would show you why the aliens abandoned this city to the weeds.

Unfortunately, the archaeologist and his crew vanished after sending one terrified shrieking message for help-- similar to the events of the movie Event Horizon, only without the piss poor acting.

This is where things went wrong for me. This type of plot device is called Chekhov's Gun. Anton Chekhov (not to be confused with Pavel Chekov, navigation officer of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701.) was a playwright of the late 19th century and possibly one of the greatest writers of short fiction in world history. In a letter to a friend, A. S. Gruzinsky, (Under a pseudonym), Chekhov simply said: "One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it."

Other authors have also restated this:

"If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there." From Gurlyand's Reminiscences of A. P. Chekhov, in Teatr i iskusstvo 1904, No. 28, 11 July, p. 521.

"If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there." From S. Shchukin, Memoirs (1911)

This literary technique goes all the way back (and probably farther) to the Arabian Nights. Scheherazade tells her husband the story of the Three Apples in order to keep him from cutting off her head (Don't those muslims show total reverence for women?). In the story, the apples function as a repetitive designation and foreshadowing technique.

The best way this is done is by the introduction of a seemingly irrelevant prop. I can recall an example in the sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati. At one point, during a bomb threat, the station DJs decide to broadcast from the transmitter rather than the repeater site in the office. Johnny trips over a tool box on the floor and spends the rest of the episode beating the hell out of it, kicking it around, etc.

After the bomb goes off and wipes out the transmitter (fortunately while they are outside for a smoke break), they find out the next day that the bomb was hidden in a tool box-- which causes Johnny to sprint for the bathroom.

Another example would be the color red in M. Shyamalan 's The 6th Sense. If you watch carefully, any time there is a ghost on screen, the color red is featured somewhere within the frame. The Harry Potter series is also rife with the use of this technique, from characters you find later are defenders placed to protect and watch Harry, to one of the horcruxes itself, casually tossed away as trash when cleaning an old house.

Andre Norton's example is rather extreme: an entire alien city is placed within the novel to serve as a plot point, and you know that whatever else the story will be about, at some point the main character is going to enter that city and find out what happened to the archeological crew.

What actually happens is that the main character, a runaway slave, if memory serves, starts at one end of the magnificent city and walks completely through to the other side without incident.

Um. I think you forgot something, Andy!

I recall being so bitterly disappointed with the resolution of this plot point that I haven't read an Andre Norton novel in twenty-six years as a result.

Perhaps the best possible genre to elucidate the use of Chekov's Gun would be the mystery. It's usually not until the big reveal, when the detective has the suspects gathered in the study, that the insignificant little dust he noticed on the victim's clothing in passing turns out to be chalk dust, leading him to the inescapable conclusion that it couldn't be the teacher who was the murderer, since most classrooms use whiteboards, but most definitely is the sidewalk artist.

Using a Chekov Gun properly is an art form in and of itself. It's very easy to over stress your Gun, making it stand out in the reader's mind. It's also easy to make it so subtle that it never clicks to the reader, so the reveal seems more like a tacked on afterthought than anything else.

Here's my challenge to you: try and find a way to work a Gun into your current work in progress. Properly applied Guns really make the reader sit up and take notice. It gives them a sense of accomplishment, even if they didn't quite solve the riddle themselves. It can be described as a sort of "reverse MacGuffin" in that the apparently insignificant becomes the driving plot device.

Maybe your Gun will be a character who wanders in briefly, and turns out to be the main reason for the story. Maybe it'll be something completely different. Find a way. Make it fit.

I think you will find that it enriches your storyline considerably.

Write on!

*****
Christopher Rivan

Virgins Slain, Dragons Rescued.
Reasonable rates for all budgets!

http://chrisrivan.blogspot.com/

Chris.Rivan@Yahoo.com

Out of touch...

Hi folks. This is just a little note to let you know that the week of April 5 through April 9 I will be fulfilling a military commitment and may not be able to blog.

If you're seeing this message, it's because my internet access isn't consistent enough for me to get my posts up... or typing on my netbook has finally driven me batshit. Either way, regularly scheduled essays and fiction will resume on April 12 if not before.

Take care. Try not to cause any natural disasters that may result in my needing to come drag your ass to safety. It's okay to pine for my presence until I return.

Write on!

*****
Christopher Rivan

Virgins Slain, Dragons Rescued.
Reasonable rates for all budgets!

http://chrisrivan.blogspot.com/

Chris.Rivan@Yahoo.com

What Can You Do In Six Minutes?

I want to shout out about a friend from Twitter who has a neat writing site called "Six Minute Story." I haven't used it fully yet, since at the time I went there I actually didn't have six minutes, but I'm gearing up to use it every day next week while I'm drilling.

Here's the premise: when you decide to write, you click on where it says "write" and a box opens up that offers you a hero, a villain, and a goal. A timer starts and you have six minutes to write the story. At the end, you can save it to the site and publish it, or keep it private.

This is a neat idea. One of the main problems with writing, as I see it, is that I am more or less constantly writing non-fiction. Sometimes I sit down to work on fiction and I'm stuck-- and then I start thinking about why I'm stuck and the next thing you know I've kicked out another damn blog about writing-- but no actual writing.

The only way to get good at writing fiction is to write it. Write it as often as you can. Ingest it wherever you can find it, stories, webcomics, novels, historical perspectives (which are mostly made up out of whole cloth by people who think they know what happened). Assimilate all these methods and means of fiction and then hork out some of your own.

Here's the best advice I can give: don't get attached to it. I've written stuff I thought was great and had people say it was flat, boring, and tasteless, sort of like Diet Coke. I've also written stuff I thought was dead dogshit and had people offer me publication and money for it.

The more you write, the less attached you get to your individual words, and the more practice you get at fixing/adjusting/altering when things aren't quite the way you want them to be. It also helps you take critiques more easily. People are going to criticize your work. David Eddings is one of my favorite authors and I have ripped him to shreds for everything he published from 2003 to his death last year. Chris Bunch is another one I love, but there are a few of his series that flat out stink. David Drake is probably the nicest man I've ever met, but I can't get through all of his writing. Some shines like a star, and some glitters like talcum powder.

And that's okay!

None of those writers were writing for me, personally. I'm glad that some of their books resonate within me and take me to places I'd never see on my own, but not everyone is going to do that.

You're going to be criticized. Get used to it. Don't hide your stuff away. Get it out there where people can see it and comment on it and make it more gooder.

Six Minute Story can help with all of that. It'll get you actively writing, and it'll get you a place where your writing can be read and commented on. Ask for criticism. Beg for criticism. Every time someone tells me, "I couldn't connect with that character." or "You spend too much time telling without showing us," my writing gets better.

Write on!

*****
Christopher Rivan

Virgins Slain, Dragons Rescued.
Reasonable rates for all budgets!

http://chrisrivan.blogspot.com/

Chris.Rivan@Yahoo.com