Writing Diversity (SIWC 2013 Notes)

  
Wow, it's hard to believe that SIWC was over two weeks ago. I had a fantastic time, made a lot of great connections, and came away feeling absolutely energized. Which was a good thing, because after I'd sent off everything that had been requested from me during the pitches, it was all of a sudden November. And that means NaNoWriMo.

(Can I just say how much I love the Greater Vancouver community? There are multiple meetings taking place every day across the Lower Mainland, and being there is like stepping into a maelstrom of creative energy. Flourishing. Vibrant. Absolutely incredible.)

Back to SIWC. One of the highlights for me at this year's conference was the opportunity I had to meet fantasy author Jim C. Hines, who you may recognize from his Gender Swapped Cover Poses. His keynote speech was well-deserving of the standing ovation it received. His class, Writing Diversity, felt like a great complement to the PAX Prime 2013 panel, "Everything We Know is Sexist. Now What?" that examined the lack of diversity in video games. In both cases, it boils down to the writing. And that means us.
 
* * *  
Writing Diversity
Jim C. Hines
This is about creating more realistic and honest diversity. About the danger of stereotypes and token writing.

First, the obvious question – Why is this middle class straight white dude lecturing about diversity?
-    It’s important.
-    It’s a problem.
-    It’s something he cares about.
-    It’s something he’s tried to listen, learn, and talk about for years.
-    Not all of these ideas are his, but these are his words.
-    What he’s learned from listening to other people.
-    He’s in a position to address it, to bring attention to it.

It’s hard to write the other, because it’s not our lived experience. How do we do this?
-    Fear of screwing up is prevalent.
-    Lots of others speak about this, so don’t listen to only him.
-    Sometimes this stuff doesn’t occur to us because it’s not something we’ve experienced. (But that was the problem.)
-    We need to have someone come along and say, “Yes, it’s great you have these books, but I don’t. My kind of people die in the first chapter, are the sidekick, fill a narrow range of characters.”
-    We can do more than that.

Statistics
-    The current state of publishing: The Cooperative Children’s Book Centre sampled 3600 different YA/Children’s books. Found “The total number of books about people of colour, regardless of accuracy, was less than 8 percent  of the total published.”
-    Melinda Low: looked at YA novels for 2011. Of all of them, less than 1% had LGBT characters.
-    Cover art: Men on cover are usually portrayed as their character in book. Active. Women on cover of book – odd poses that flaunt their bodies, the weapon is an accessory, boobs are pretty, let’s look at them. Narrow, uncool.
-    This is not about meeting quotas. No one is saying when writing a book you must have this diversity. The only time quotas come up is from people trying to shut down these conversations. No, this about trying to undo quotas, the unspoken quota that 90% of books must be about white men.

Diversity
-    All of this stuff we talk about here is a reflection of our society – the prejudices, the oversights, get reinforced every day. We see it so much that we stop seeing it. It’s become normal. It’s why he participated in the cover pose calendar.
-    Diversity is many things: Gender, sex, sexual orientation, religion, disability, age, cultural heritage, colour of skin, English not second language
-    Throne of the Crescent Moon: about a crotchety middle aged guy. So many protagonists typically mid-20s or teens (for YA).

Why this matters
-    Writing’s hard enough, so why add one more layer of stuff?
-    Getting an email that says thank you for this character, or this is the first time I’ve seen this character treated respectfully, is awesome.
-    If you have spent most of your life being invisible, and you see this author saying you exist, it’s important.
-    Stories teach us a lot. They’re the most important thing of anything. How we relate to the world, understand things, why history classes suck because they destroy the story and give you dates and facts. We learn from stories. So if we learn that the world is dominated by 25-year-old handsome white men, that sinks in. If we learn that black people exist but mostly in the background and to die in the second act, that sinks in.
-    Stories are powerful. And no, it’s not necessarily our job to approach with “how can I change the world today” but it is to recognize that when we write stories with all white folks, that’s not okay. We’re choosing to exclude most of the world from our stories, and that’s not okay.
-    “…When we exclude—intentionally or otherwise—characters of color from our work, we do send a billboard message to readers. We tell them that people of color aren’t there, aren’t important, aren’t worthy of our stories. That they don’t deserve to be part of the conversation of our books. That reading isn’t for them. That they don’t matter. That they don’t even register on our radar.”—Sarah Ockler.
-    This stuff matters. And yes, you can have a successful career never doing this. But your stories will be much weaker, and they will be lies.

Recommended Book: Writing the Other by Nissi Shaw and Cynthia Ward

So how do we do this?
-    Writing about a person respectfully, not just cultural appropriation.
-    Cultural appropriation: “Oh look, shiny. I’ll take this.” (e.g. Washington Redskins, Atlanta Braves. Sexy Halloween costumes for women.
-    Surface level stuff.
-    Gypsies. Big in Fantasy. Shiny stuff, free lives, travel everywhere. The term gets used unintentionally. Yet for many, gypsy is a racial slur.
-    We do it unintentionally because we haven’t stopped to look deeper.
-    If you’re just taking shiny bits out of the culture, you’re going to fail. People will leave nasty notes. If you’re going to write about anyone, you must do it respectfully. These characters need a background and a history and a culture. Talk to people. LISTEN to them. Learn from them.

How do you borrow without stepping on toes?
-    Borrowing pieces from existing culture: he asked, Why did the culture evolve this way? Why is this a cultural norm? Does this make sense? (e.g. In the 3rd princess book, Sleeping Beauty is described as dark-skinned and from a desert culture. The culture evolved around the desert’s harsh environment.)
-    Also, do enough research to know when you are getting into very sensitive areas. One thing to look at taboo of turning away a stranger, different thing to dig up sacred religious ritual and steal it.
-    How to handle religion when opinions within a religion means different things? Just like any other character, try to do it respectfully. Do it so they’re not a caricature, have reasons for believing things. Remember, every character is the hero of his or her own story. This is part of who they are, what they grow up with, this is what’s important to them. Go beyond the one dimension.
-    Shepherd Book: the only representation of religion in Firefly.
-    Avatar: the cartoon, not the movie that doesn’t exist – Heavily influenced by eastern cultures, and not in a shiny bits way. The animators spent lots of time studying these cultures and learning about them. Affects the story. Good example.
-    Bottom line: it comes down to research. Find these people. Listen to them. It’s easy to make the effort to find people “not like you”. Still not about quota. Broaden yourself. Find people who disagree with you.
-    Remember that listening to people doesn’t mean agreeing with them. If it doesn’t work for you, that’s fine.

Description: How to describe these characters
-    Without description, there’s an assumption from readers that a character is straight and white.
-    Some people skim read and make assumptions (like the mistaken assumption that Rue in The Hunger Games was white and people got mad that she was cast in the movie as black).
-    When doing description, it’s okay to be blunt, to have a character say, “she looked Indian in appearance”. Avoid the chocolate skin and almond eyes, the cliché and purple prose, because that can be offensive. Find other ways to say it.
-    Are there other options than comparing people to food? Yes, wood, for example. Find other things that are brown, dig deep for comparisons.
-    Don’t overthink it.
-    Be aware of drawing examples between nonwhite skintone and things that have come from exploited races (e.g. coffee, chocolate).
-    Be true to the character. Just because the bisexual character chooses someone that matches with heterosexuality, or that choosing means that you’re either heterosexual or gay, doesn’t mean you’re making a statement about those issues. When you address it in text so that if someone complains, you can say, “no, I know what I’m doing.”
-    Take away the tokenism. Have more than one character like that. So the burden doesn’t weigh down on them all by themselves. As you’re writing, keep this in mind. If there’s just the one, pay very close attention to what baggage you put on them, because people will react.
-    Beware of assumptions and stereotypes. For example, just because a character is autistic does not always mean that they are a math genius who counts cards and amasses rocks.
-    A lesson learned: In his Princess Series: Sleeping Beauty is dark-skinned, a lesbian, and a rape survivor. She’s the only one of these things you know in book 2. She’s also the only tough, kick-your-ass character. But that was a problem because she took the burden of representing all. He was asked why. His answer was, “Because that’s her character. That’s her backstory.” But it doesn’t change the fact that this one character falls in many problematic areas and he realizes now that he could have taken steps to fix that.

Writing Dialogue
-    Do it carefully.
-    English as a second language is often portrayed as very stupid, filling a stereotype.
-    One or two examples sprinkled throughout is very effective.
-    Consider idiom and vocabulary. Idiom’s the last thing we learn – “eg. it’s raining cats and dogs”. You can do a lot to show the character is intelligent but communicating from a very different context.
-    Some use English, but use their language for sentence structure.
-    Words they’ve learned from reading only, but they can’t necessarily pronounce.
-    Puns are hard to translate because they depend on the language.
-    Give them really bad jokes that make no sense in our language, but are hilarious to them.

Don’t immediately kill off your own non-white character.
-    Be aware of secondary characters.
-    When you put these supporting roles in there. And why you put them in there.
-    No sassy gay best friend, the Asian dragon lady or martial artist, the native American vision-quest person
-    Stories are powerful. We’ve seen these very narrow stories. If that’s what goes in, that’s what comes out. We’ve absorbed that. So, step back and ask, Who is this character? Not just the gay character. The gay jewish computer programmer who lieks to brew his own beer.
-    “Colour doesn’t matter” – yes it does. We still have the prejudices. This still affects how we grow up, our values, who we become. Who are characters are. But it does not DEFINE or limit them. All things should not be dictated by their characteristics. It is dishonest to say that’s the only thing that affects this character. It’s equally dishonest to say that it doesn’t affect this character’s choices.
-    A lot of time we start these stories and write them as issue stories. Autistic character means all about autism, gay character is all about them coming out. As if it’s the only story about them. Identity is layered and complex and messy. Seeing other cultures in stories can be frustrating if they only see one piece of them.

“Why did you choose to make this character [insert minority]”?
-    This is a stupid question. Valid, but the stupid comes in that we only ask one side of it. If the character is a straight, white male, there should be a reason for it, too. Depending on the setting, culture, and time period, that will affect what kinds of characters you can bring in. But be careful about what history has erased, too.

Future Funny (SIWC 2012 Writing Panel Notes)

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! Don Rocko and I were at a benefit concert for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation yesterday, so we missed out on his family's typical turkey celebration. But the concert was worth it! We saw three bands in this year's Peak Performance Project: Rolla Olak, who sounds like a young Bob Dylan (complete with harmonica); Jasper Sloan Yip, whose combination of stringed instruments and guitars reminded me of the Airborne Toxic Event; and of course, the host of the afternoon: Greg Drummond. Don Rocko put it best: they're like Great Big Sea meets Mumford & Sons. They have so much energy. And while they're all multitalented, their keyboardist is a riot, because he also plays the trumpet, the accordion, and as needed, the banjo. It added a tiny note of humour to a concert I was already enjoying.

Which is a great segue into today's notes: writing humour in the SFF and speculative fiction context.

Only 11 days left until SIWC 2013 begins!


* * *

Future Funny
Mary Robinette Kowal, Robert J. Sawyer, Sam Sykes
Moderator: kc dyer

Note: Every writer approaches the concept of writing humour in their own way, so this is not a prescriptive class.


Who has influenced you in writing humour?

kc: Terry Pratchett

SS: Joe Abercrombie: A British writer with the basest of gallows humour, can spin a joke while stabbing someone in the face.

RJS: Douglas Adams, Spider Robinson, Robert B. Parker
-    RJS doesn’t write books in terms of funny plot, but the dialogue is snappy.
-    Read broadly, not just your genre.
-    A deep understanding of your genre / category can really, really help.

MRK: Influences are all from theatre:
-    Douglas Adams’ radio plays, learned how to translate timing onto the page.
-    Puppeteer John Ludwig of Sesame Street: lots of hilarious stuff that doesn’t get in the way of the story. Things don’t have to be funny so long as someone isn’t looking at it saying, “I didn’t get that”.

It's not just about making everyone laugh.
-   Even if you put a cultural reference, at least try to use the 80% rule (make sure 80% of the audience will get it).
-    There's a certain thrill of an in-joke that not everyone will get, but those who do will love it. (Case in point: The Firefly reference in Castle.)


When is humour an asset to the story?

SS: To deal with stress; when something bad, a tragedy happens.
-    A joke doesn’t necessarily decrease the tension; it can increase the tension.
-    Often people joke when they first get nervous. Gallows humour can ratchetup the tension.
-    It keeps the narrative from being relentlessly depressing, too.
-    Use the best joke at the right time so long as it pertains to the situation and comes from the right character.
-    All humour should derive from character and be approp to the plot. That joke at that time lets your audience breathe while keeping the tension of the plot.

MRK: Laughter is a physical reaction. It maintains tension in the diapraghm, and gives the audience a chance to catch their breath before the suckerpunch.

RJS: Scriptwriting: “On the nose” humour (what exactly is the character thinking) is not done. But you can make a joke to get at something without being on the nose, deflect it with humour while the subtext is the truth.

kc: When you know that something else is coming and this is just a chance to sustain the tension.


Do you use humour to move the plot forward?

MRK: Humour can move the plot forward, but it’s not the only thing that can do so.

SS: Anything coming out of the body when they aren’t intended to come out of the body can be funny. Bodily functions. But be careful: Jokes can sometimes do more to hold the plot back than to move it forward.

MRK: TV writer Jane Espenson (another SIWC 2012 presenter) was saying in an ep of BSG there’s a food shortage and people were starting to eat paper, “Well, the good news is people is stoped eating paper” “Oh good” “because there’s a paper shortage”. Laughter goes on so long, moves the character forward


Audience Question: Is there a difference between humour presented by characters, and humour presented by the author (dialogue vs. narration)?

RJS: Most writing is limited 1st or 3rd POV. An omniscient narrator cracking jokes is clumsy or intrusive, so it's better to have the character thinking something. You are *in* someone’s POV when you narrate.

MRK: Omniscient is out of fashion these days. But as an example, with Jane Austen: the cracking of the joke doesn’t get in the way of the story, it adds to it.

kc: the way you can work it in is the setting, have it in the scene

SS: the cardinal sin is explaining the joke. Don’t make a big deal of the joke because that will shatter everything.

MRK: The Carol Burnett Gone With The Wind sketch – new dress, wearing curtain rod – juxtaposition between her believing it and what she actually looks like, not cracking a smile – If you laugh before you tell a joke no one thinks it’s funny. This is also true with crying. Need to take character to the point where they almost cry, and the audience will do the crying for you. Catharsis. If you let your chars laugh too much the audience doesn’t need to laugh.

RJS: Don’t do things at character’s expense just to make the reader laugh. Don’t do it to make them look dumb if they’re supposed to be a smart character.

MRK: However, most humour does derive at the expense of the character, but other places where it’s the main character, it depends on the char and the situation.

SS: There's a difference between breaking character and just humour at their expense. From Pixar's 22 Rules for Storytelling: Coincidences that get characters into trouble are good; coincidences that get them out are cheating.


How do you capture visual humour?

MRK: John Scalzi does this well (Redshirts, The Android’s Dream)

SS: Humour is funniest when it’s unintentional

MRK: Slapstick that happens to other people is different from when slapstick happens to the main character.

RJS: It tells you about your character: how they deal with being the butt of the joke.

SS: It's a great way to draw subtext for other issues going on, too.

RJS: Obama joked about having lost the first presidential debate of 2012, and elevated himself by realizing he failed, and that people were making fun of him. Have slapstick happen to your characters so they can grow in your audience’s eyes: the way they respond helps to round out your character.

MRK: This American Life – the Fiasco. Having characters own humour when things are going so terribly wrong that if you don’t ackqonledge the fact that things are going terribly wrong then the audience will start to find it funny: Appropriate application of humour from the character.

SS: If things are relentlessly depressing the audience will reach a point where they HAVE to take a breath. Humour is an excellent chance for things to turn out better, a break. “For the moment we are not relentlessly depressed.”


Audience Question: How does humour in SFF differ from humour elsewhere?

SS: There's more absurdity, tropes, and idioms that can be played with. Especially because fantasy is kind of undergoing deconstruction at the moment.

MRK: The way you set up a joke is still the way you set up a joke. Your readers are in a modern context. But language-based humour doesn’t work well unless people understand it. Makes an opportunity for worldbuilding – jokes that involve ethnic slurs about the races can reveal chars, set up societal norms (eg. whether or not prostitutes are accepted), describe alien vegetables with jokes. Jokes that make sense in that world that the reader doesn’t necessarily get can help them connect with the story.


How has satire shaped your work?

RJS: Galaxy Quest is a satire, but also a comedy. Original Planet of the Apes was a satire (with moments of humour, but stil very funny). There's the satire that’s not overtly humourous (sometimes, dark), the satire that is social commentary, the digs not said in polite commentary (eg. Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal). Stephen Colbert is best when he doesn’t break character.

kc: Same thing with Borat.

RJS: The beauty of SFF is that you’ve got the most brilliant audience on the planet. Your SF audience is such that no matter how obtuse the joke, you can trust they’ll get it. The worst thing when you’re doing comedy is that it falls flat. Some of your best jokes will kill a few bright.

SS: Don’t blink. Don’t acknowledge it’s satire.

MRK: You may have 20% of the audiece that doesn’t get it, so you need other things to be happening in those same words. Galaxy Quest is still a funny story even if you don’t get the satire.


Audience Question: What about recurring jokes?

RJS: Set up your jokes in advance, so you can bring them back.

MRK: Called a “call-back” – when you refer to something and it retains a level of humour. This is especially funny in threes (in the Western tradition). The tricky thing is making sure there’s not too much separation between the call-backs so that the reader hasn't forgotten.

RJS: A call back is often the end joke of the scene.

MRK: Make sure that call back works on its own in case people forget the first joke.


Is humour dead? (e.g. hackneyed plot devices)

RJS: No. We live in a dark time – fear of terrorism, global warming, evil politicians – but even in the darkest time, the advent of sitcoms without laughtracks. Curb Your Enthuisam and Arrested Development, The Office (especially the British version). There are no laugh tracks, but we understand humour, and the writers trust us to.

kc: The laugh track dumbs down the humour – as does the overuse of the sarcastic expression “Really.”

RJS: Cultural memes become adopted by the general public, but the problem with any catch phrase is that it loses its potency with overuse. Anytime people fall back on a tired old cliché, it means "you’ve done something I think is cool so I’m going to pull the stock out of its cupboard and use it for the umpteenth time", and then it falls flat. You don’t know what will take off and become a catch phrase.


What about making cultural references?

MRK: Puts a Dr. Who cameo in each of her books. An in-joke and cultural reference. The key is that it can not break the story, pull the audience out. It has to be in a moment that even for people who don't get the joke it is an appropriate time for a laugh. It cannot break the moment. A cultural reference that calls attention to itself not good.

SS: There's a difference between referencing pop culture and having a pop culture reference be the joke. Eg. South Park. And Family Guy, which is not funny itself, but gives a pop culture reference and expects the audience to do the work (which they usually do).

MRK: Sometimes the humour is all about the cultural references, so the audience is in on the joke.

RJS: Readers can date the novel based on the scientific assumptions in the text. The cultural refs, too. But they matter for verisimilitude.

SS: There's also a difference between tipping the hat to something, and throwing the hat at the audience.


Audience Question: Is it important to make a distinction between whether characters know they’re making the reference?

MRK: Sure, people making cultural references (e.g. Ready Player One – but the humour depends on the setting, the reference, and the why.

RJS: Spock is a very funny man, way wittier than he lets onto be.

SS: You can not acknowledge the joke.

RJS: Unless it bombs, and then you acknowledge that. (e.g. a joke told that no one gets).


What about the collaborative nature of humour in writing? As a writer, how do you know what works when you use humour?

SS: Like any comedian, you have jokes you can fall back on at reliable times, jokes you know that work. You have to write for yourself. But most of all if you don’t find it funny, the audience won’t find it funny, either.

MRK: Read stuff out loud, see if people laugh. She also uses alpha readers bfore beta readers, asks if anything is boring, confusing, unbelievable, how the story plays, (no sentence-level feedback); whether the humour is tedious. Will read novels aloud and put them on her blog.

RJS: If you want to make money, make sure the joke can translate well to other languages. Spider Robinson – most of what he does is word play. Word play actually isn’t the way to go to make money because they don’t translate well. Douglas Adams and RAH and others don’t use word play. Make sure the jokes don’t depend on puns or word play so your work will be translated. (But oh, is Spider's word play ever so entertaining and that's why he's still one of my favourite authors. Just sayin'.)

MRK: Douglas Adams about is about rhythm and juxtaposition.

SS: The point: A pun makes whoever hears them just a little angry, and if you can’t go for humour go for angry, but the truest humour comes from character, plot, and especially voice. Pop culture references and puns are side jokes, the tips of the hat, the brief mentions. Pirates are funny. So is anything that goes out of or into the body. Et cetera.

Writing 21st Century Fiction (SIWC 2012 Master Class Notes)

Wow, it's October. And while I'd love for my excuse this time to be that I was off partying or traveling or away at a conference again, nope, this time I just caught a really bad cold.

(Okay, there was this one bachelorette party that involved attending the local Theatre Sports event last weekend, and I may have been called up on stage and had the chance to, among other things, play a helmet, dressage trophy, and horse, but hey, the bride was entertained, and I was sick before that, honest!)

The of-course-I've-been-querying-too aside, I've also been plotting and planning my next novel, because I am a firm believer in having an outline. And the magic system for this new book needed serious work. Dang, it feels good to be working on something besides the book I'm trying to sell!

Anyway. Back to my original point: it's October, and the end of the month is one of my favourite events: the Surrey International Writers' Conference. While I still have some notes left to share from ConCarolinas, I just discovered a few gems from last year's SIWC that hadn't been posted. So here's the first one, and to make up for my absence, it's a doozy: the Master Class with amazing literary agent Donald Maass.

The class was called "Writing 21st Century Fiction" and is based on his book of the same title that came out last year. (And speaking as one who owns the book, these notes are just a snapshot of that, because he elaborates on all of what I'm about to share there.) This was an incredible class, and even just editing these notes for posting reminded me of how valuable it was. Enjoy ... and definitely check out the book!


* * *

Writing 21st Century Fiction
Donald Maass
Purpose: To dig into new dimensions of fiction writing.
New book: Writing 21st Century Fiction
- Observed changes in the NYT bestseller list: in recent yrs (during a recession at that when the book industry has struggled) – The hardcover bestseller list looks as usual – lots of thrillers, brand name authors; but the duration numbers have dropped (7 or 8 at the most) – an indication that sales are very front-ended, but Trade paperbacks are different: Trades have extended shelflife – groups of books that have been running for 1 to 2 years, with one exception – and some of them are literary fiction – there’s something odd about this – why are literary fiction selling in such numbers, for such lengths of time? Not just because they’re lit lite, but they’re selling incredibly well week after week. Some have been made into movies, but only long after the book was successful.

What makes them big? What’s between the covers. The stories and what makes them interesting.
E.g. Nancy Picard, Laura Litman both left category fiction and started writing in a different way as writers of standalone fiction. So what makes them so powerful? What are they doing?

1.    Telling terrific stories.
2.    Telling them beautifully.

Great storytelling and beautiful writing are the perfect combination.

So how do you do it? What’s different? How can you write a great story beautifully?

Literary Writers vs. Genre Writers
- The literary world looks at commercial fiction with a sneer – plot is gimmicky, cheap.
- Plot can be gimmicky, contrived, but not always. Likewise, literary fiction isn’t always just pretty words.
- Depends on the writer you are, too – identify yourself as the kind of writer you are.
- Do you identify as a genre writer? Nothing wrong with that. BUT if you work in a particular genre, whether you like it or not you’re putting yourself in a box and will reach for genre tropes, specific character types and language, default choices, stereotypical choices that make that box smaller, familiar.
- Literary writers tend to think they’re original but it’s not the case. There are just as many stereotypes that are true about them, too.
- Basically, you will think and identify in certain kinds of ways depending on what kind of writer you are.
- If you think of yourself as not a novelist but a storyteller, then you probably look at lit world and think “That’s nice, but that doesn’t have anything to do with me”.
- Literary writer trying to capture something that is true, realistic, fresh, you look at the genre world and think: “That’s crap. That’s not real writing.”

Plotters vs. Pantsers
- Other dichotomies in the kinds of writers we are that we need to think about. e.g. are you a Plotter, a Pantser, or somewhere in between?
- Outline writers will have certain advantages in crafting fiction, but certain shortcomings. By following a map you’ll miss detours; by intuiting your way through you might get distracted by the detours and wander too much; exploring is sometimes a way of not focusing. (This is why I'm a huge fan of organic plotting. Best of both worlds!)

Warm Temperature vs. Cold Temperature
- Are you a warm temperature writer or a cold temperature writer?
- Jane Austen vs Ernest Hemingway
- Austen: warm temperature writer: Austen plumbed the depths of the human soul and experience—rich emotional stew, immersion in point of view, the life and times of feelings on the page

- Hemingway: cold temperature writer—evokes feelings on the page with coldness

How Attached Are You?
- Authors who love to be edited, love revisions—that’s where writing really happens
- Others who have such an emotional attachment it makes it difficult for them to see the need for changes
- Agents love authors who love to be edited, who follow directions. (*raises hand* Me-me-me! Yes! The good of the story is what matters!)
- Waiting for agent/editor feedback is about getting their feedback, to see if you managed to accomplish what you intended to do. If you’re looking for a checklist of things to do, that’s wrong.
- If your book is your baby—it’s wise to stand up for your story, but not just “That’s not how I see it” or “My character would never do that”—you put up barriers to your own story, and the perfect story that is in you.

So, we need to delve into these dimensions that we don’t do first, naturally, or well.

The Inner Journey
- Goes hand in hand with the Hero’s Journey.
- The arc of change, how the character grows from one story to another.
- Stories far more powerful when the character transforms.
- Work through the journey that takes character from one place to another
- Story needs to be grounded in the character’s inner struggle.


The Emotional Landscape


Exercise: Emotional Landscape

1. Start with the emotional landscape of the writer. Character feels, is going through something. So whatever your style is, it can work with that.
- Take a deep breath, close your eyes. Just be with yourself in the moment. Then, think: what is too fearful, what is too inappropriate, to messy, to out of bounds, to angry, too trite, too personal with your story?

2. Next, write how it’s going to happen in your story, how you can put it to use. How’s it going to get on the page? What’s the moment when the reader will feel what you feel, be afraid, will experience what you’ve experienced, will go “holy crap”? What’s that moment that you’ll make such a mess you won’t know how to get out? You want the readers to feel that, heighten the “how is this character going to get out of it?" feeling for the reader?
- This begins to open the emotional landscape, the feeling of authentic experience.
- When you write what you think you should write, you are thinking in a box. You are preventing yourself from doing things that will make your story your story. You have to get inside of you.

3. Next: What’s an emotion that’s new in your life and experience? Something in the last year that you’ve felt that came upon you and was new, a revelation? Death of anger, a specific kind of hope, sth you discovered about yourself? What new understanding or insight? In what way are you new?

4. Next: When is your character going to have that same feeling, of being new, of understanding one’s self, a death or depth of a familiar emotion?
- Here we’re thinking about what we feel. The point? To bring to our fiction an emotional life and richness. That depth of righteous anger, that outrage we feel. We need characterss who feel strongly about things.

5. What’s the last scene you were working on in your WIP? Or that you seriously revised? Write down the strongest emotion your character feels in that scene.
- Write down two other things that s/he also feels.
- Out of these two, pick the one that’s most interesting.
- Take a look at this feeling. Why is it a good feeling to have right now? Or, why is it a bad, unhelpful feeling to have? How does it lead your protagonist down the wrong path? Or, how does it point your character in the right direction? Do they feel glad or not? Why? What is good or bad about this feeling?
- How does your character own the feeling, or how are they avoiding it? Why does your character have a right to this feeling? Or, why do they not have  a right to this feeling or feeling this way? If this is an emotion your character would normally suppress, write down why. If this is a feeling your character feels too easily, then why do they feel entitled or ashamed of going to this emotional place so readily? Why is it a weakness?
- What colour is this emotion? What hue, what shade?
- Give yourself some space for a few minutes to write about the emotion you’ve identified. This secondary, also-felt emotion. Describe what is good or bad or both? Why it’s an entitlement or shame. Is it welcome or abhorrent – what does it make your character felt? How do you make this character feel this? Then write a paragraph about how this emotion, this experience is conveyed. What happens?
- Is this passage just about the feeling? Do you like what you wrote? Does it have a place on the page, in this scene? Is this not your style?
- What if you did this exercise in twelve scenes? What if you had twelve passages like this where the rich, nuanced, deep and yet not necessarily obvious that you’re blowing up and pulling out?
- Why did we pick a secondary emotion? Because the primary emotions are the neon emotions.

6. Write down: rage, fear, desire, joy, grief, happiness, anguish, gut, twisted, (or phrase guts twisted).
- Why these words? Because they’re obvious emotions. Neon emotions – it’s not that we don’t feel these, it’s that on the page these are obvious emotions, easy emotions. To get your reader to feel something, they need to be surprised. So the character needs to be surprised by the emotions. So you’ve got to surprise yourself.
- Find something that’s true but less expected. Magnify it, and make it a predominant emotion, so your reader will feel something that is new, surprising, fresh, and it will grab their heart in a way that “rage” will not because it’s lost its teeth.
- Work with this rich emotional landscape.

Why is it that we would bother to work on this at all? Isn’t stuff like this on the page the stuff they tell you to cut because it doesn’t move the action along, is extra wallowy self-indulgent unnecessary stuff that drags the pace of the novel down?
- No, it adds depth. Depth of emotion, depth of character.

What do we mean by depth?
- The unique, nuanced, experience of the character that immerses us in the world and the point of view and the feelings they have – we’re drawing the reader into it.
- Mile-a-minute action isn’t what hooks us. What hooks us is what we feel.
- The emotional experience of the characters is as important as the action they undergo, the themes of the book, the world they find themselves in and what they see there. The issues in play in the story. Even their own feelings.
- What we feel is fascinating to us (and not just to women). It’s deeply absorbing and we want our readers to feel that. Replace the neon words with secondary emotions. Give your characters feelings about anything.


Exercise: Objects and Feelings

1. Pick say, 6 scenes.

2. In each scene, pick an object in the environment in the scene and write a paragraph about character’s feelings about that object) – part of storytelling is creating the world in which our character is in. What feelings do they have about this thing? How does it reflect on their lives? What does it make them think about? The protagonist’s feelings about all of these things are part of that world, they’re important, they need to be on the page.

3. If you found this exercise difficult, there are other ways to work with the emotional life of our characters. So write this down:

In the story as a whole, what is the predominant feeling that your protagonist has? The dominant, unshakable feeling that drives them through the story?


Exercise: Showing Your Character

1. Make your main character mute. They cannot speak. What is the one thing they must do or can do that he or she feels this way, that would show everybody exactly what is in his or her heart? Either tear something down or build something up. Take up arms or lay them down. Give a gift or an act of retribution.

2. What you just wrote, is it in the manuscript already? If not, what are you waiting for? Put it in. Why aren’t they doing that thing? Do it! Your story will be so much better.

3. You can also adapt this. For those of you who are cool-temperature writers and have trouble exploring emotions, pick six other scenes, find out what the strongest emotion this character feels in this scene, and don’t have them say it internally or externally but the reader will pick up on it and it will be very obvious by what they do. Then go back and look at that scene. There may be some talking and exposition you can take out. Probably also some gesture or action the character can do that will show the reader what we need to know.


Strengthen Your Weak Spots

All of this is about working on the things we aren’t good at. What we don’t do naturally and well. The hope is that the writing blends action and rich landscape. When you blend all of this together seamlessly in a story, that’s what the experience want the reader to have when they read. Great fiction gives us that.

We’re really only just beginning here, to approach the inner journey, the transformative arc. The experience needs to go somewhere. We need our characters to change over the story, to grapple with things.


Exercise: Bad Habits

1. What is your protagonist’s worst habit, weakness, or blind spot? Why aren’t they able to control that?
- Example: are they compassionate to a fault, or so quick to blame others? Why? Where does that habit come from?
- Maybe it’s because to see people as they really are would be unbearable, because there is so much negativity in the world? Does your sunshine character have a black hole inside? Terrible fear, terrible anger, comes from somewhere.

2. What’s the first time in the chronology of the story that the character surrenders to it, cannot control though they wants to? What’s a very inconvenient moement? What’s the first moment thtat it would be important for character *not* to indulge in this bad habit or weakness?

3. What’s the second moment they give in to or surrenders control to bad habit or weakness? Who notices? Who sees? Who winces? Who’s disappointed? How will we know that another character has seen something of the bad or weak side of the protagonist?
- Who is the worst person to notice or see this?
- Who is the last person your protagonist wants to disappoint?

4. What’s the third moment your protagonist gives into this flaw, and this time it costs him or her? Hurts them how? What can they lose? Whose good opinion is destroyed? Who is let down maybe for the last time? Is there something you can take away from your protagonist in this moment? (In crime novels this is the “You’re off the case” moment.)

5. What’s the worst mistake your protagonist can make, when this blind spot or bad habit or weakness on their part really bites them? When does your protagonist fail themself, because they have this flaw or weakness?
- Having shamed themselves, what does your character realize? Why? Where does this flaw come from?
- What’s the hidden emotion? What’s been repressed?
- Having bottomed out, having faced themself, what is the first thing they do that shows he or she has changed? What do they need to do? To whom do they need to say something? An apology, a truth, a confession, just something humble? Maybe something as simple as “I have a problem, I’m sorry.”

We often think of change as an upward rising curve, but it can also be from failing, not just from succeeding.

If we’ve anchored the protagonist properly in the beginning, if the reader’s connected to the character, we can put them through a heck of a lot and the reader will keep reading.

The part we’re not necessarily conscious of is “I’m so glad the author did that” even though we’re thinking “I wish the author hadn’t done that”. Because it means the author has done a good job.


Transformitive Arcs

There are lots of ways to put a character through an arc of change, of transformation. The problem Maass sees the most is that he doesn’t see enough steps, doesn’t see that inner struggle.


Exercises: Deepen the Inner Journey

Consider the following: 
- What is it that your protagonist has never told anyone?
- What was his or her worst mistake (betrayal, etc)?
- What secret is your main character keeping. Or if they don’t have a secret to keep, make one up.
- What would be painful for you protagonist to be concealing?
- What would be the kind of thing that your protagonist would hope he or she would never do, or have on his or her conscience?
- What is your character or protagonist the most ashamed of?
- What is something that other people would never guess about your main character? What is he or she hiding?
- Who does your protagonist never ever want to let down?
- Whom does your protagonist find impossible to forgive?
- Whom does your protagonist hate? The kind of hatred that is pleasure? The kind of hatred that is defining, shaping, that makes it part of who you are, defines who you are?

Secrets and shame, grudges and resentments, mistakes … all are rich material, so helpful for storytelling. So let’s do some things with it.

1. What’s the greatest length that your protagonist goes to keep the secret, conceal the shame, nurture the hatred, avoid a truth? What’s the most extreme thing that they can or will do because they’re carrying it around inside?

2. Who in the story has a vested interest in digging out of your protagonist what they’re hiding? The secret, the shame?

3. Who would like the protagonist to change? Who needs forgiveness? Who needs the protagonist to forgive?

4. What’s the biggest way this secret or shame or resentment or whatever it is is weighing down your protagonist?

5. In what way does it hurt your protagonist the most? In what way does it cost your protag? In what is it getting in the way?

6. Why does the secret need to come out, the shame be confessed? What would change? Can I make this more critical, more vital, in at least one way?
- If there’s someone your protagonist doesn’t want to let down, then disappoint them. It costs more if it hurts more.
- E.g. build up the high regard the other character has for protagonist,  so that the let down is a bigger let down. Can your protagonist be a hero to someone else, so that the let down for that person is so very much?
- What breaks open this lock, what causes the secret to come out, the shame to be exposed, the disappointment to occur, the grudge to reach its critical mass? The hatred to explode? What brings it to a head, whatever is simmering inside your protagonist? How can you make that event bigger, more ill-timed, inconvenient, more painful? How can you make the catharsis hurt more?
7. Along with this, is there something your protagonist can learn that he or she didn’t know before? Who in the story can tell your protagonist something eh or she did not know before? Who already knows your protagonist’s secret or shame? Who has made a similar or worse mistake than your protagonist?  What does your protagonist know about him or herself about what happened about who is involved that they can now reveal?

Note: What we’re looking to do is take what’s secret or painful and make it deeper. Effects that this secret or shame has on other people, on the protagonist (how are they suffering), who they’ll disappoint, how they can make this more dramatic, worse?
- If the protagonist is nurturing a hatred, for example, what was the episode that created this hatred, this resentment? What was done wrong, done to your protagonist, that hurt them, that planted a seed of darkness or anger? Find one way to make what happened more unjust, more undeserved, more cruel, more unforgivable.

8. What was the worst thing about this worst thing that happened to the protagonist that makes it exquisitely more awful? The timing, the context? How can you recall or echo that event, that worst thing about the worst thing, in one or two places in the other story? How can something similar be said? Or what are two things that trigger that old hatred, that old injustice, in your protagonist?

9. Then write down one thing your protagonist doesn’t know about the person that hurt them. Explanatory, perhaps, or at least unknown or human? Something unseen in this other person. If your protagonist needs to forgive something, who sees that need in your protagonist before they do? Who can say that before they want to hear it?

10. What triggers the deepest injury towards the end of the story that will cause protagonist to bring his or her hatred/anger to a head? When is he or she the angriest, most wounded, injured, hurt? How can your character explode at that moment and what’s the worst, biggest thing that can happen? How can you create a big, messy, catharsis? How does your protagonist act out?

11. Having done all that, who can deliver to your protagonist what he or she didn’t know? This would be a good moment to release that information.

12. How does your protagonist know that he or she has changed inside, that they’re ready to change, that something been has let go? What’s the most dramatic way your protagonist can use to forgive the unforgivable?
- Change is hard but in story terms it’s only hard if we make it hard. So let’s make it hard (for the character).
- Every character is different. All of these things are good, durable, useful, transformative – you can
- At the end of this story what’s the hardest action your character will have to physically do, the most painful, truthful thing they’ll have to say?

13. Now, go back to the beginning of the story so that it’s something the protagonist has sworn he or she will never do or say. Find a way in the story to test that conviction twice, and have your character succeed. We know this is part of who they are, a defining characteristic, until they *do* do or say it at the end.
- What causes your character to change is important too.
- What provokes them? Make it bigger.
- How much will it take to provoke them? Make it even more.

14. What’s the most important thing the protagonist needs to know about themself? What is he or she trying to understand?
- Come up with reasons why they don’t care, why it’s not of interest or significance, think others can deal with it. Then you can tear those reasons, those excuses down, so that each of those excuses can be ruined. This is what other characters are for – to force on your protagonist what they’re avoiding. Who can force on your character what they’re avoiding, make hard decisions, make impossible decisions they must make? Why does it become critical, unavoidable?

15. What is a truth that your protagonist clings to that she or he believes absolutely, a truth, a principle that is rock solid for your protag? Reinforce it three times, tis truth, this understanding or conviction – show it to be true three times. Then destroy it. How will your protagonist discover, know, understand that what she or he believed was wrong (dead wrong)? How can you shatter that truth? Take away from your protagonist that which he or she beieves, has had faith in – how can you remove that? And what replaces it?

16. What’s your protagonist’s gratest hope, dream? Where do they want to get to? What do they want to create, bring about? How can you make that hope more necessary, more beautiful? Who shares that hope, dreams that dream, is persuaded by that protagonist, can enforce that hope (yes you’re right, you’ll get there, don’t give up)? Write down how it is that your protagonist’s hope is naïve, that what she or he dreams of can never be, that the place he or she wants to get to doesn’t exist – not exactly. It’s flawed, it’s wrong, or it simply can’t be. Shatter the hope, shoot that dream out of the sky. It’s naïve. Childish. And what replaces it?


Change is Good

When your protagonist learns something or has his or her eyes opened, finds a different way, a better, stronger, more mature way of looking at things, a deeper understanding – that is growth. That is change. Good change.
- Bad setbacks and disasters lead to positive change and necessary growth.
- The worst things that happen to us are the best things that happen to us. Every mistake and disappointment has made us better or stronger, something we’re glad for.

Growth is good, but growth comes at a cost. It comes from hard experience, from growing up, from disappointments. These are ways of looking at how to bring your character through change.
- Change in relationships, outlook, the way they regard themselves, understanding, all these things can change.
- Change is good, change is story. Change is emotional, change is dramatic.

Two of the most emotional moments in any story: the moments of saying goodbye, letting something go  and  “hello, welcome home” (forgiveness) – healing, reconciliation – these are story at its best. Get your reader to feel these things and you’ve got a good story.

Sometimes to get where you want to go quicker, you’ve got to spend more time getting there.


The Business of Writing Beautifully

There are ways in which to tell a story and work with a story that go beyond mere imagery. Terrific metaphors and sparkling moments, capturing a moment with crystal clarity, bringing something vividly alive – skillful and artful writing, but there are a lot of ways in which we can give our stories resonance, meaning, beauty.


Exercise: Parallels

1. Pick any one event that happens in your story that is done to your protagonist or that they witness, do, provoke (something we can visualize, not just an internal journey) and then find one other way or place in the story where the same thing can happen in a smaller or bigger way. When in the story can the same thing happen (maybe not in as dramatic a way, or more, but nevertheless)? How many other times do similar things happen? Look for parallel ways in which the same thing can happen. Make a list of things that are analogous to, similar to, what you wrote down – come up with two or three, maybe more. How can you echo these images?
- Building up parallels to something that happens enrichens the story.
2. Think about the climax of your story, the high point in your novel – think about where it happens, the environment of climactic events. Take a look around at where this action is actually happening. Pick out one object. What’s there? Find at least three other places where we can see that object or something like it tree or four other times in the story.

3. What is the meaning of this image? Then plant it in other places, build up the symbolic value of that image. That symbol has resonance, carries meaning. It creates connections. Parallels, associativeness – called resonance. Echoes, ripples, mirrors … we can make those things. Not necessarily an accident. Something we can engineer into our story.
- What matters is that the association is made.

Exercise: Flash Symbols

Pick any scene in your book. What’s the most essential change that happens in that scene? What’s different? Pick something visual in that scene that reflects the change. Something small that represents that.
- E.g. Summer Sottage by Susan Wiggs – the half-finished house, the car fishtails (loses its way), the mailbox knocked over as she leaves (also the fluid doesn’t squirt, the windshield – can’t see, etc). The scene is so effective. She uses symbols like that through the novel. More symbolism throughout.

You cannot overdo these symbols and parallels. They feel contrived, and most readers don’t pick up on them, but they work. These connections enrich, resonate, even if the reader isn’t writing a term paper, it’s there, working on the reader.


Exercise: Parallels

In your story is there someone whose fortunes fall? Romance becomes impossible, healing becomes out of reach, seems to be increasing difficulty or failure? Is there a journey toward failure that someone has? Well, whose fortunes can rise? They succeed at something they’ve never been good at, meet the man of their dreams, get somewhere or get something that the’ve  been struggling with? Can someone find an elusive faith?
- Sometimes parallels are the same thing happening in a different way, sometimes it’s a reversal.

- E.g. If something is lost, can something else be found? If someone dies, can someone be born?

Parallels and symbols – all part of beautiful writing, don’t require a gift with words. If you dthat, the Novel can become more resonant, more shapely, more brautifully crafted, more meaningful, more powerful.


Beautiful writing can also be …


Exercise: Milleu

Think about the milleu of your story. What kind of world does your story take place in? A small town, a fantasy realm, a time and place in history, the world of particle physics? Write down two or three things that protagonist sees about this world, place, time that no one else does.

What is one thing that the protagonist finds ironic about this world?

What is the one thing supremely beautiful, delicious about this world, that your character finds? Craft beer? Bread? What’s not to like about this world?

What’s one thing that is unbearable about this world? How can we possibly stand to live in a world in which ___ is present?

Think about the landscape, the environment, the surroundings? What is one unchanging feature that is always there, has been there, for aeons, or at least a long time? What meaning does your protagonist see in this thing that other people do not?

What is the place of fear, the dark place, the place you don’t go, the place you get warned about, the place where terrible things happen, the place of death? What is the cellar, the cave, the place of deepest fears? And when is your protagonist going to go there? And what happens, or doesn’t? What does she discover, or not? What secret is hiding there, is deepened?
- e.g. The Virgin of Small Plains – Nancy Picard – past mystery that comes to the forefront, secrets will come out, etc – gravesite becomes a place of events happening there, and a tornado sweeps through town – so many interconnections. (this book is the source of his class, “The Tornado Effect”) – A catharctic scene that seems like it’ll be the climax of the story, but then tops it with an even stronger climax


In Conclusion

The world of the story – more importantly, the protagonist’s experience of the world she sees and feels and inhabits.

Throw “Description” out of the writer’s toolbox. Often it’s flat, something that readers skim. Nothing dynamic about it. The tool you need is Point of View Description – the unique way in which your point of view characters appropriate, experience, notice, infer about the world around them. The solid world we can see, the sounds, the temperature – the tangible world around us – but *also* the intangible things that we can see, taste, smell, touch, feel – the cruelty of the ATM machine that eats your plastic card because it’s expired and you needed $60. The irrational exhuberance and the horrible beastiality of Canucks Fans. Even the feeling in a crowd. If the character experiences that tangibility, then you’re recreating the world around us. We each experience it in different ways. We need the way our characters experience things on the page. Feelings, ironies, etc. We’re not just describing a place, we’re capturing a world. That’s beautiful writing.

Writing 21st Century Fiction is packed with prompts, tools, to help you develop and get more out of the story to try to draw something out, make it more powerful, give it greater impact.

Everything We Know is Sexist. Now What? (PAX Prime 2013 Panel Notes)

 

August was a fun month of weddings, traveling, and general mayhem. I sent off some queries to agents for the novel I'm trying to sell; did a *lot* of reading in my subgenre (YA High Fantasy); and got ready for Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle, where I, as usual, had a blast. I didn't catch con crud, thankfully, but I went back to the dayjob on Wednesday and am still catching up on sleep. Regardless, the convention was worth it. So many good things happened. It made stuff like receiving rejections on queries while *at* PAX just a tiny bit easier. I even took some notes!

And that's what I have to share today.

Before we go any further, yes, I am aware of the recent kerfuffle. (Understatement? Perhaps. But I like to keep things polite here.) As for how I feel about it? Let's just say that M.C. Frontalot, brilliant nerdcore hiphop artist and someone I have admired since meeting him at PAX '09, said it best.

So with that in mind, let's talk about non-standard representation in video games. Or rather, the lack thereof...

Everything We Know is Sexist. Now What?

Regina Buenaobra (Community Manager, ArenaNet); Jessica Price (Project Manager, Paizo Publishing); John Sutherland (Writer, VidGameStory), Anna Megill (Narrative Designer, Airtight Games), Matthew Moore (Game Designer, ArenaNet, Cameron Harris (Editor & Story Consultant, Freelance), Tom Abernathy (Writer & Narrative Designer, Freelance) 

Note: Matthew Moore was kind enough to give me a copy of the slides from the presentation, so the following notes include those, but also include a lot of the elaboration that happened at the panel. I was delighted that all of the panelists encouraged me to share this. 

Note from the Panelists: We are about to present opinions that are our own and not necessarily those of our employers (even when they probably should be)

What’s the problem?
-    Sexism, for one …
-    Though we’re also talking about issues of race, sexual orientation, etc.

Problem:
-    The 2012 game player gender (market) is 55% male, 45% female.
-    The gender of protagonists in games from 2012, however, is 51% male, 45% choice, and only 4% female. (This number is closer to the number of people working in the game industry.)
-    The potential game player market in the US is 51% male, 49% female.

Human beings have a tendency to do their creative work from their own thoughts, needs, and life experience.

When recently creating a game, one panelist sought ideas for vignettes for NPCs, and every suggestion was sexist. The people making the suggestions resorted to stereotypical situations without even being aware of it.

Why do we care? Why should we?
-    Lack of diversity in general.
-    There’s a creative side to it as well: new takes make it more interesting.
-    Creative consequences of the same old stuff: boredom, lack of expansive information. Not unrelated.
-    Who’s making these games really has an impact on how they get made and the broadness of the vision.
-    We don’t want to read and see and experience the same thing again and again and again. That won’t happen if we keep relying on our tropes.
-    Hollywood is telling fresh perspectives of stories.
-    Stories about a straight, white, male are getting old.
-    The gender of protagonists in movies from 2012: 65% male, 19% female, and 16% mixed ensemble.
-    The gender of protagonists in books from 2012 is much better: 43% male, 41% female, and 16% mixed ensemble.
-    The TV market is getting better, splintering, targeting small groups and bringing those to life. And they’re reaching wide audiences because of it.

Why else we should care: Video game dollar sales are slightly, steadily down from 2010.
-    Not growing.
-    Not reaching out to new audiences.
-    Probably because they’re not trying new things.
-    We don’t want video games to become a niche medium.

Furthermore: Lack of diversity in viewpoints, characterizations, plots, story structure, etc. limits the potential of games as an art form.
-    Game consumers are artistically malnourished.
-    Art that gives its power to  move us is commonality, but also diverse experiences.
-    Sexism hurts everyone.
-    It hurts men too, because the typical male protagonist presented is a man who’s physically strong, the ideal man. Marketing executives point to and justify how much money that stuff makes and assume the game will sell better with it.
-    On a professional level: Paternity leave, child care issues; sometimes men have issues that are perceived as falling in the female realm that aren’t extended to them because they’re men and not women.
-    We need more interesting characters with diverse backgrounds. It doesn’t make it easier to make them if we stick to the tropes.
-    If you like shooters, they are still making them. The number of action and shooter games offered at the launch of each new X-Box has increased.
-    Most importantly: Making more types of games doesn’t mean less of games people already like (the core game types) will decrease. Just that it makes more options available to consumers.

So, what should we do?

1.  Check our assumptions and our perceptions.
-    Look around at the crowd in this room, at the number of people here. How many are women? Turns out that there were 3 men for every 2 women were present at this panel. (Even though most attendees thought there were either more women, or that it was a 50-50 split.)
-    This is important because our perceptions of what is fair are now off.
-    Geena Davis Institute: “We just heard a fascinating and disturbing study, where they looked at the ratio of men and women in groups. And they found that if there’s 17 percent women, the men in the group think it’s 50-50. And if there’s 33 percent women, the men perceive that as there being more women in the room than men.”
-    In games, even when the lines were divided equally, the men had the more important lines. That’s the first step you have to take.
-    Use the Bechdel Test: Find a movie with two women talking and if it’s not about a man, then that passes the test. Observation. How many of them actually pass? Games pass it even less. Think about this test. Do you have women in it, do they have names, do they talk to each other? Is it about a man, a relationship, parenting, shopping? This is a good rule of thumb, the lowest bar you can clear, when dealing with diversity in video games.

2.  Read, watch, and play things made by people who aren’t like us.
-    The canon English literature: almost all of it is by men. Shapes how we write. This becomes problematic because even women learn how to write women from men because our perception has been shaped by male writers. Literary voices have been shaped by male writers. It’s been changing. The best way you can learn to write those characters is if you learn from the horse’s mouth. So, read people who aren’t like you.

3.  Learn to recognize tropes.
-    Trope: A literary or narrative device.
-    Cultures have common sets of tropes. Tropes have baggage.
-    A trope is not evil or bad. They can be useful. Just use them mindfully.
-    Do it in a way that subverts the trope, or defend to your league so they know why you’re using the trope as is.
-    Marketing wants quick story hooks.
-    The more you know what a trope is, the better you can put it into a game and sell it and make your vision happen.

4.  Ask ourselves why we like the things we like.
-    Rather than just mindlessly liking them.
-    What is it that you actually like about it? Can you get things without mindlessly importing all the details (like with pulp)?
-    The presenters aren’t saying these stories can’t be told, just that we need to think about this stuff.
-    And think about who the perceived audience is. Who is the character designed to appeal to?
-    (Aside: Google “Lawrence Croft”)
-    (Aside: Google “100 Sexiest Men Alive”. Turns out they’re not the muscle-bound men we see in video games.)

5.  Improve our work!
-    Try to be inclusive (even when we are afraid we’ll suck at it.)
-    Look over your work. Does everyone have to be (straight, white, male, etc?)
-    Make sure you interrogate yourself while you do your craft.
-    Practice “flipping” exercises with gender, orientation, race, etc. What happens if this character is a man / woman / different race / gay / trans / etc?
-    This has often resulted in stories that are more moving, more interesting.
-    Experiment with trope subversion.
-    Constantly ask yourself, is this what I want it to be, or is this just intellctiual comfort zone stuff, tropes too well worn, or The Unexpected Choice? That moment you take readers/customers in a direction where they think they know you’re going, then change trajectory: it’s important. If you do that, you’ll constantly be surprising people. And the more you do it, the less you’ll find yourselves having to revise your choices.
-    Show your work to people from different groups to critique.
-    Friends, family, people you trust. Generally you can recognize the broad strokes. But words have baggage. E.g. Calling a woman “frigid”, or an African American person “articulate”.
-    Don’t let “perfect” be the enemy of “good”.
-    Complaint from male writers who don’t know how to write women so they don’t bother trying
-    Writing anything is this: trying to make something knew, exploring the scary white page and trying to fill it up with stuff.
-    If you are not secure expressing the experience of those you don’t know much about, get to know them.

6. Address issues.
-    Support inclusivity; be an ally to undeserved groups and those who are working for change.
-    If you see it,  you don’t have to be the person being victimized to take that issue on.
-    Speak up when something is troubling.
-    Listen to the people who are telling you it’s a problem, and do something about it.
-    Address the issue vs. trying to appease the people coming to you. Not “Should I put in more women characters”, but “Fix the dialogue.”
-    Be aware. If you’re the creator, it’s hard to step back and look at what you’re doing, but it’s worth it.

Choosing the Right Words (ConCarolinas 2013 Writing Panel Notes)

    Choosing the Right Words: A Magical Words Panel
David B. Coe/D.B. Jackson, Faith Hunter, Misty Massey

The Magical Words Team – Created MagicalWords.net, a group blog that discusses writing and publishing issues for fantasy authors, with a focus on traditional publishing. (Come check them out! It's a great community.)

Choosing the right words: You see a lot of times people writing, and you think, really, you used that word? You don’t have to choose the right word the first time Important that you get it right when you finally turn it in. Important to paint an accurate picture of what you’re trying to tell someone about. Choosing the right words is vital, to tell a story and get across an idea that’s clear in our heads that accurately enters the readers.


Recommendations:

MM: Don’t just rush out and buy a thesaurus to fancy up your writing.

DB: Has a dictionary and thesaurus and uses them regularly.

FH: Uses the online stuff (e.g. Dictionary.com/Thesaurus.com) and highlights a word if it doesn’t satisfy, then comes back. Moves on.

DBC: Can’t move on to the next sentence if the sentence writing isn’t kind of satisfying. Has to know right away. Checks definitions of words to be sure of meaning; checks dates words was in use first because otherwise it doesn’t jive. E.g.  “paranoid” is a 19th Century word. A medieval character could feel panic, unease, but not paranoia.

FH: Can’t have dialogue with historical characters talking the way we talk, because they didn’t talk  like that.

FH: Words to use all the time: he said / she said. (Aside: when dealing with copy editors, writing “stet” is Latin for “let it stand”, when the editor suggests a change. Also use sparingly, unless the copy editor has done something atrocious with your work.)

MM: Also don’t use he said / she said after every single line of dialogue. Identify who’s speaking. Break it up. If you’ve set up who’s talking and the order, then it’s more about the dialogue and less about the reader figuring out who’s saying what.

DB: You can also use facial tics, actions instead of “said” (Elaborated on this MagicalWords post).

FH: This is especially good if you have more than two people talking. She writes dialogue then goes back to add in gestures, tics, and saids.

MM: if two people are of same gender, use names.


What to avoid?

MM: Avoid said-bookisms – the term for elaborate words like rasped/snarled/griped/opined, etc, used in place of “said”. Don’t use them.

DB: Dune has a terrible case of said-bookisms. But they were in fashion at the time. Same with Tigana (Kay), which does head-hopping. Omniscient narrator. Again, they were in fashion at the time.

FH: It’s happening more again, but possibly because editors have less staff to work with. More stuff to throw against the wall.

MM: Avoid purple language/prose. Flowery old-fashioned language you’d see in Austen or Dickens. The  most pretentious words. Sometimes there’s a moment for that, but most of the time you don’t want it. You want the writing.


DB: What about word choice in narrative context?

MM: In a fight scene: not slow. Words should reflect that the scene is fast, brutal, sharp, quick. Quick sentences, quick words, strong words. Likewise, tender scenes: not typically fast. Soft, gentle, hot. Not brutal or sharp or hard.


Audience: Depends on what website you’re looking at.

FH: Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum, when she finally gets with Ranger: six lines, very effective. Nothing graphic, absolutely short and sweet.

MM: If you’re going to write, you’ve got to read. Even if it’s just “I can do better than this.” You’ll come across the kind of writing that’s like what you want to do, and you can emulate.

DB: There is no right way to do this. Depends on the character, the story, the scene.

FH: The emotional connotations of the character change.

MM: “Her hair fell like grace exhausted to her shoulders.” – William Gibson – The words that make your heart respond are the words that you should use.


Audience question: Going back and double-checking your words: How often do you go back and go, “Oh, that doesn’t work?”

Everyone: All the time.

FH: If something’s wrong, and she doesn’t know what it is, she’ll come back to it.

MM/DB: Hits a place, can’t find the right word, will not move forward without it.

FH: Yes, especially when the scene is emotionally explosive and needs the character to deal with emotion.


Audience comment: Reading your work aloud – when the reader uses different word than what you’ve written down, that’s often the right word.

FH: Reading aloud, especially if someone else is reading it, can help you spot errors.

MM: Regardless of who’s reading it, sometimes hearing it aloud helps you figure out what needs work.

MM: When using words, know what they mean, know how they’re pronounced. The reader will hear it in their head. If you’ve used a word that doesn’t flow how you’ve decided it sounds and they’ll throw the book. Don’t use Nubian draped across the couch when you mean Afghan. Also don’t use a phrase wrong like “begs the question”, instead of “suggests the question”.

DB: Or Phelps’ “loss of words” instead of “loss for words” – ‘could of’ instead of could have – Remember we don’t write how we speak. Be sure what you’re writing is grammatically correct or that the grammatical problems are consistent across point of view so that voice comes across and is clear.

FH: Author’s narrative and character speaking – shouldn’t overlap all the time.


Audience question: What about word choice based on the book’s target audience?

FH: Don’t dumb it down.

MM: Kids will either go to an adult, look it up, or take the word as “I don’t know” and move on. It exposes kids to these words.

DB: Kids would rather confront word challenges than be written down to.


Audience question: With editors being stretched thin these days, does the onus then fall to us to put out the best we can?

FH: Yes, they do think the  onus is more upon us. The opportunity to use independent editors is there now, look for it. Put out the best you can. Outside editors are way more in use, especially for the self-publishing market.


Audience question: Does the influx of terrible self-published fiction

FH: Readers coming back to traditional publishing because they can get better quality. The backlash is now driving people back to traditionally pub work.

DB: Learning to be an effective editor of your own work is an absolutely essential part of being a writer. Recognize your crutches, words you repeat without thinking, look at your writing fresh, finding ways to correct yourself, is so important. Internal editor is valuable, too.


What’s the best ways to spot flaws?

DB: distance from manuscript – puts away for as long as he can (4-6 weeks), different format (digital to printed paper), read aloud also helps – changing the experience and not just replicating the writing – also, go back and read old work. You’ll find 1) it’s not nearly as bad as you think, there’s good stuff there; and 2) you’ll recognize fundamental flaws in your writing that go way back that you can now look for.

MM: Great to have a writing network – find out what strengths your writing friends have, and exploit them.


What about slang and real life references?

FH Books have longer shelf life than they used to

MM Tech goes in and out, so do popular businesses. If you put these things in, they might not be there in five years.

ES: Can use the reverse of that if you’re using the refs to ground a period piece (eg. Ready Player One).

MM: If you’re writing in a fantasy world, don’t make the slang twee – super ultra sweet. Make sure slang has a basis in your world, and sounds like a world you’d spit out. Otherwise it sounds contrived.

DB: Cursing done well can be absolutely poetic.

Tiger-Milking 201

 

 

So, it's been awhile since I updated this recipe. However, my tiger-butter making techniques have changed since I posted about this last, mostly for one reason:

This fudge has become *very* popular.

It's crazy to be saying this, but I think I went through nearly 15 kilograms of white chocolate melting wafers  between October (when I make a batch for SIWC) and June (when I cart another batch to ConCarolinas). This is typically a holiday treat, but here we are at the beginning of August, and I was invited to an online release-party last Thursday for A.J. Hartley's DARWEN ARKWRIGHT AND THE SCHOOL OF SHADOWS and I shared the above pic. Hey, why not? For me, writing events aren't complete without sharing my signature treat.

My point being, I had to hone my skills in order to produce quickly, efficiently, and still come out with this awesome edible art that looks gorgeous but doesn't take away too much from my writing time. So here's the updated recipe [and for variants and allergy-friendly versions, click here]:

Laura's Tiger Butter

Supplies:
1-2 baking sheets with edges, depending on size of sheet and desired thickness of tiger butter
Aluminum foil

Ingredients:
4-5 cups white chocolate melting wafers
1/2 cup milk chocolate melting wafers
1 1/4 cups regular peanut butter, smooth

TIP 1: Please note that the above supplies and ingredients are for a *single* batch. Given the treat's popularity and the demand for it, I tend to make it in much larger double-batches. (Doubles, I can manage. I tried making a quadruple batch once. That was not a good idea because I was racing around trying to catch the fudge before it all set. Lesson learned.)
  
TIP 2: Before mixing, ensure that the kitchen is warm, as colder conditions can make the freshly melted chocolate set too quickly.

TIP 3: Best if made on a full stomach.

TIP 4: Better if made in an empty house before certain sweet-toothed partners can "sample".

1. Line the cookie sheets with aluminum foil. Previously, I said waxed paper, but I found that it stuck sometimes. With foil, the finished product came away much more easily. Okay, the fact that I was out of waxed paper the first time I tried this and was forced to give it a shot may have been an impetus for the switch, but I am pleased with the new technique.

2. Next, melt the white chocolate wafers with 1 cup of the peanut butter. If you are blessed enough to own a double boiler, congratulations. Since I, like a lot of folks, don't, I melt it directly on the stove in a stainless steel pot on very low, stirring frequently so that the sugar doesn't crystallize. If it does it makes for crunchy tiger butter, and the smoothness of the product is one of its selling points, IMO.

3. Once the mix seems to be nearly there, melt the milk chocolate wafers with 1/4 cup of the peanut butter, also on low, also stirring frequently. This smaller mixture melts a lot faster than the white chocolate behemoth, which is why you should wait to start it until the white is nearly ready. 

4. Pour the melted white chocolate into the pans first, being sure to evenly (at least sort of) distribute the mix between the pans. Be sure to spread the mix to the edges of the pan. Over four pans with my double batch, I can usually get a nice, regular but not too thick result.

5. Then, pour the milk chocolate over the white in lines (as globby as you like).

6. As quickly as possible, drag a spatula through the lines, swirling the milk chocolate in the white to create fancy random designs, as shown in the above photo. Do not over-swirl, as the chocolate eventually blurs together and messes up the design. Unless you like blurriness. Maybe that's your style. When done, if the surface of the mixture seems uneven, give the pans a gentle horizontal jostle so that the chocolate flattens out.

7. Place finished trays in freezer. This is to help the chocolate set quickly. In a pinch, the fridge could work, but not for the next three steps.

8. After waiting at least an hour (though more doesn't hurt) while working on your novel or query letter, or while catching up on your reading, remove from the freezer and place in a plastic bag.

9. Then drop the pan on the floor.

10. Now that the fudge has been artfully shattered, break the rest of the pieces into more manageable bites. (If you don't approve of violence, or decided to go the fridge route, a sharp knife drawn through the hardened candy works, too. But hey, this is art, right? And every artist's interpretation is different.

11. Variations:

a. Depending on how much of a swirl or blend you want, you could change the white chocolate / milk chocolate ratio. This will change the flavour.

b. Likewise, changing the peanut butter / chocolate ratio will also change the flavour. I like a nice balance that isn't *too* heavy on the PB, but isn't too light, either. In the previous rendition of the recipe, I used unsweetened/unsalted peanut butter for the milk chocolate portion, but frankly (and this goes back to the mass production situation in which I now find myself) I didn't find it made enough of a difference to bother. Gourmands and picky chefs, feel free to go to town with it.

I love to joke with people who make comments about the finished product. When asked how long it takes to make it, I answer, "Oh, I slaved over it for a day and a night." After their requisite sagely nod, I add, "I'm kidding. It takes half an hour."

12. Arrange neatly on a platter (see above).

13. Share!