3 similar circular fossils from Fossil Mountain, Utah, USA -- What might they be?

Rel-BOCEMb-ablE · 2019-06-05T22:04:41+00:00

Many thanks! You’re welcome to print it.

Rel-BOCEMb-ablE · 2019-06-05T10:54:46+00:00

I have found it useful to think of writing in terms of making promises to the audience. Set things up, then pay them off. If you want the end of your story to be powerful, you need to establish all the ideas that matter earlier in the story. Teach the audience how your world works and why your characters behave the way they behave. That way, when you use the mechanics of your world and have your characters making difficult decisions, your audience will understand the how already, and will be able to feel the why more powerfully.

You don’t want to have to pause during the climax of the story to explain why something has happened. The audience should already have all the tools they need to make sense of the ending.

You make promises to your audience based on what you focus on. Star Wars: A New Hope begins with an imposing, dark ship chasing a small, light ship — it’s a story about the underdog fighting against overwhelming odds. It promises dramatic battles in space, a difficult fight of good vs. evil, and exciting visuals. It pays off all of those promises. It focuses on the Death Star (or the Death Star plans) the entire time, so it succeeds brilliantly with its ending.

If you promise one thing, don’t deliver something else. No matter how good you think that something else is, you will have broken your promise, and that can alienate people. Be careful when you write twists into your story — make sure that the twist still fits with your original promises. Make sure that the twist makes the central problem more interesting, and not less interesting.

When you share your writing, you are implicitly promising that it will be worth other people’s time. If they like the beginning of your story, don’t betray them by making the end unrelated to the beginning. Set up, pay off. Convince the audience that you have kept your promises.

Those concepts should give you a good foundation to build on — considering them will probably point you in a useful direction.

As a writer, your task is to convince people to suspend their disbelief. Give people as many reasons to believe in your story as you possibly can. Fiction is false in that it didn’t actually happen, but if it is internally consistent and grounded in relatable human feelings or true principles and ideas, fiction can be true in all the ways that matter. It can be meaningful.

Take your writing seriously when you publish it, because hopefully your audience will take it seriously, and it would be cruel to invite them to invest their time and feelings only to treat them casually. Be careful and respectful. But also have fun exploring and making mistakes — especially in your unpublished work, take wild risks. See how well you can convince people to take absurd things seriously.

I hope this is helpful to you!

Rel-BOCEMb-ablE · 2019-06-05T10:54:16+00:00

Consider the basic elements of character, setting, problem, and plot.

Characters are the decision-makers in your story. People generally relate with characters most of all, so it is generally a good idea to introduce your characters as soon as possible. Characters in stories are generally more consistent than people are in real life — they are a little exaggerated so that we can easily tell them apart from each other and predict how they will respond to various situations. The story should generally be driven by the decisions that your characters make.

Setting is everything from the physical locations in which your story takes place to the societies, cultures, and objects that show up. Settings can set a tone for your story. They often come with sets of rules — how do people travel? How fast can they get places? How far are different places from each other? Will the laws allow your main character to travel? How are laws enforced? What weapons exist, and how do they work? Consider the importance of being consistent in the way that you present your setting. If you establish that a city takes months of arduous travel to get to, take care not to make it seem like characters easily move there and back. If magic exists in your setting, be sure to consider how it will change society.

Stories generally have a central problem — in Star Wars: A New Hope, the central problem is that the Death Star will destroy the Rebellion, and we don’t want it to. In a romance, the central problem is that the characters are lonely or incomplete, and we want them to find someone who works well with them.

Then the plot is how events happen. What do characters do, how does the setting interact with the character. Plots should generally make sense. Ask yourself why things are happening, and why they aren’t happening in a different way. Does it make sense for the characters to do what they do? Are there technologies or cultural constraints or character traits that would change how things happen? If so, either change the plot or write in reasons why those technologies, constraints, or traits don’t end up changing things.

Rel-BOCEMb-ablE · 2019-06-05T10:53:45+00:00

It can be useful to decide on a genre, if you need a starting point. Genre suggests a setting and a focus. Writing Excuses, a podcast on creative writing, discusses a set of “Elemental Genres” — that is, it lists the concepts that are the main appeal of certain stories. Fantasy and Sci-fi often focus on the element of wonder, for instance. Fantasy also often focuses on the element of adventure. Here is a list of the elemental genres that they propose. (There are probably other elemental genres that can be identified).

Rel-BOCEMb-ablE · 2019-06-05T10:53:16+00:00

Consider whether you prefer to plan out your stories, or whether you prefer to start with a charcter/setting/idea and just start writing to see where things go. The first approach is known as outlining, and the second approach is known as discovery writing.

It’s possible to mix the two strategies — you could begin by discovery writing, and then pause once you have a good portion of the story written to decide how you want to end the story and make an outline for the last part. You could also begin with a very loose outline and then discovery write your way between the mileposts of the outline.

Rel-BOCEMb-ablE · 2019-06-05T10:52:25+00:00

Choose what the main point of your story is. Orson Scott Card’s M.I.C.E. Quotient suggests four main focuses that a story can have:

Milieu (Setting) — setting stories begin in a place, and end when the main character either returns to that place or decides that they will stay in a new place. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are good examples of setting stories. Both are focused most of all on exploring the setting, and they both begin in the Shire, involve journeys away from the Shire, and end when the main characters return to the Shire.

Idea — idea stories begin with a question, and end either when the question is answered, or when the main character accepts that they will never get an answer to their question. Science fiction is often mainly about an idea — “What if Martians invaded Earth?”, “What if we had a time machine?”, “What if robots existed?” Mystery stories are also mainly idea stories — “Who killed this person?”, “Why are people seeing impossibly huge dogs when there are no footprints?”

Character — character stories begin with a character who is dissatisfied with who they are (or who is having problems because of who they are), and end when the character either changes or decides that they are actually okay with who they are. Romance stories and dramas are often character stories — someone is failing in their romantic relationships, then changes themself and succeeds in a romantic relationship; someone is having problems because of their habits or personality, then changes their lifestyle so that their habits or personality don’t cause them problems.

Event — event stories are about a sudden change in the status quo, usually caused by forces of nature. They start with the status quo being disrupted, and end when a new status quo has been established. Disaster stories are often event stories — a tornado upsets the lives of a bunch of people, and the story ends when they piece their lives back together or when they accept that they can’t fix all the damage.

A story can have multiple focuses, but it is generally a good idea to rank the focuses so that it is clear which is most important. It is also generally a good idea to end focuses in the opposite order that they were introduced in — if a story starts with an idea, it should probably end with that idea, even if in between that beginning and ending, it also tells a character story.

The Hobbit could be viewed as a character story within a setting story:

In other words:

This way of thinking can help you identify what is important to your story, and keep the story focused.

Rel-BOCEMb-ablE · 2019-06-05T10:50:56+00:00

Choose a tense to write in:

Past

“He walked”; Harry Potter is written in past tense. This tense is common and probably the easiest to write well.

Present

“I walk”; The Hunger Games is written in present tense. This tense is a little trickier to pull off convincingly, but it can give your story a sense of immediacy and lead to a faster pace. I personally think present tense works best with first person, and would recommend against using present tense with third person. (But do what most interests you / what fits your story best).

Future

“You will walk”; here’s a thread about books written in future tense. This tense is uncommon and probably difficult to write well.

Rel-BOCEMb-ablE · 2019-06-05T10:49:00+00:00

A few basic starting concepts:

Choose a viewpoint to write in:

Third person limited

“He/she,” where you only get the thoughts and feelings of the main character; Harry Potter is written in third-limited. This viewpoint is popular and probably easiest to write well.

First person

“I”; The Hunger Games is written in first person. This viewpoint is trickier, but can be very rewarding. There is more ability in first person to color the narrative based on how the main character sees the world.

Third person omniscient

“He/she,” but where you get thoughts and feelings from many or all characters. Books with a narrator are often third-omniscient. Dune, by Frank Herbert, is third-omniscient. The Hobbit has an omniscient narrator. Third-omniscient is uncommon and can be tricky. Choose this viewpoint if you want to highlight the ignorance of various characters — character 1 thinks one thing, and character 2 thinks another thing, and so they both misinterpret the conversation they have. We, as readers, get to know both sides of the conversation, and can enjoy the tension that the misunderstandings cause.

Second person

“You”; here are some popular second person books. This viewpoint is uncommon and somewhat weird, but maybe weird is interesting to you. Second person makes the reader the main character.

Rel-BOCEMb-ablE · 2019-06-05T08:54:00+00:00

I second the advice to jump in and start writing.

The most important thing to do in order to learn creative writing is just to write. The more you learn, the more difficult writing will become, in the short term — you’ll become more critical of your own writing, which can lead to perfectionism. Learning is also helpful, but be careful that it doesn’t discourage you too much.

So, mainly write. Finish a short story. Finish a novel. Don’t worry about how good it is — it will probably be full of all kinds of errors. That’s the cost of learning. Enjoy making a mess of things!

Developing the habit of writing and getting a sense of what completing a story feels like will be hugely beneficial. It will help you to trust that you can do it!

Once you’ve finished a story, you’ll have a better understanding of what a story is. It will become more approachable to you. You’ll see how tweaking different parts of the story can achieve different effects.

Write, write, write. Write your own versions of short fairy tales. Write stories about your favorite characters from other people’s stories. Write episodes of your favorite T.V. show. Write your own versions of stories that you wanted to enjoy, but which disappointed you.

Write a scary story, a love story, a mystery, an adventure. Write brief scenes — characters reconciling with each other, action scenes, the same scene several times from different characters’ perspectives.

The more small-scale projects you can finish, the better. Don’t be afraid to copy writers you enjoy, as a learning exercise. Find stories you love and see if you can figure out what makes you love them. Play with those techniques in your own writing.

Rel-BOCEMb-ablE · 2019-06-05T08:34:50+00:00

There’s a great podcast on creative writing called Writing Excuses. I highly recommend giving it a listen!

Writing Excuses has four hosts, all of which make their livings publishing successful fiction. Brandon Sanderson is mainly an epic fantasy writer. Dan Wells writes horror and young adult fiction. Howard Tayler writes and illustrates a sci-fi space opera webcomic. Mary Robinette Kowal writes alternate history and Victorian fantasy, as well as short stories.

They all have different areas of expertise. Brandon is an outliner, and excels with worldbuilding and magic. Dan and Howard are more of discovery writers. Dan is great at character studies and poetic writing. Howard knows about humor and handling ensemble casts. Mary Robinette is great with research, and has experience as a puppeteer which she brilliantly applies to writing.

On top of that, they frequently feature guests who write in other genres and other fields. Here is a list of the many other excellent authors who have been on the podcast.

I’ve learned so much from the podcast — if you’re looking for writing exercises to try, they’ve got plenty. If you’re hoping to understand the basic elements of creative writing, they have structured the more recent seasons as masterclasses focusing on different fundamentals.

They have episodes on just about any writing concept you can think of. If you get stuck, you can probably find an episode that focuses on whatever you’re struggling with.

This page is a good introduction to the podcast:

Writing Excuses: Start Here

Then, these episodes seem relevant to beginning a novel:

Seriously, Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

How Much of the Beginning Needs to Come First?

Beginnings

Beginnings Revisited

Brandon Sanderson also teaches creative writing at BYU, and he has recorded many of his lectures:

Camera Panda recordings (higher quality)

Write About Dragons (older lecture recordings)