Christine Amsden

I’m going to be presenting a month-long workshop in August at Savvy Authors. The title is “Bringing New Worlds to Life in Science Fiction and Fantasy.” It began as an expansion of my World Building workshop, but it has morphed into quite a bit more than that. When I started brainstorming, it didn’t take long for me to realize that after planning your world, the things you need to know to bring it to life are exactly the same things you need to know in order to write a compelling story in general. The workshop focuses on issues inherent in writing science fiction and fantasy, but many of these concepts cross genre boundaries. We’ll go over beginning a story, choosing the right point of view character, showing vs telling, and many other topics. There will be writing assignments and personal feedback to try to personalize the course to each writer’s needs.

I’ve decided to do a new series of blog posts on creativity. So far, it’s a work in progress, but I thought I’d share something I have learned recently to get the ball rolling.

In November of 2008, I finished “The Immortality Virus” and had no idea what I wanted to do next. I had pushed myself to write every day, using the old BIC (butt in chair) advice as I trudged through three different revisions and subsequent editing. At the same time, “Touch of Fate” had been out for a year and promotional opportunities were dwindling.  Basically, I was burned out. (You may have noticeda huge gap in blog entries.) I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be a writer anymore.

So I made a momentous decision. I would quit writing for a year, with te alternate goal of reading one book each week (on average) in 2009.

For three months, I followed this plan to the letter, but then something strange happened. I began to miss writing.

It started as a little niggling in the back of my mind, but the more I pushed writing away, the more insistent it became. Finally, one day, lying on the floor of the nursey playing with my then 9-month-old daughter, I had an idea.

I sat bolt upright, startling Celeste, as the details began to fill in. It was a character — the heroine (for a few minutes, she was a he) was a paranormal investigator who didn’t have any magical powers. Who was she? Where did she live? Did she have any romantic interests? The ideas began to snowball until Celeste finally went down for her nap and I could type them out properly.

Over the next two months, with no goals, no BIC requirements, and no pressure, I outlined my entire 4-book series. Then, again without any pressure, I began to write.

Book one literally spilled from my fingertips. I have never in my life been so actively engaged in a book. It drove me. I wrote thousands of words a day and had a draft of it in less than a month, a draft worth of critique a month after that.

Then do you know what I did? I sent it off to my readres and went back to reading books. At least one a week (usually more to make up for my 4-month gap).

By the end of 2009, not only had I read more than 50 books, but I had a complete, marketable novel and an early draft of its sequel. (The sequel is currently out with critiquers.)

Do I have a point? Yes — I’m getting there!

Creativity stiffles when you try to force it. If you’re meant to be a writer, then you’re going to write. The story won’t let you do anything else. That’s not to say that BIC doesn’t have its place (especially in the editing and marketing phases), but there has to be a balcne. Writing a novel is not a fully quantitative process. Word count goals are meaningless if the worrds coming out are crap.

One of the 50+ books I read was “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron. I love the ideas she had for learning to enjoy life and to reignite that creative spark. I intend to use some of her suggestions as I put together some ideas on creativity — what it is, where it comes from, and how to unlock it.

Stay tuned!

There’s an age-old bit of writing advice that goes “Write what you know.” I’m going to turn it on its head and suggest that rather than writing what you know, you should know what you write.

The difference is subtle but important. If you only write what you know, your stories are truly limited. Maybe you’ve had powerful experiences in your life to draw from, but even if you do, can you write every word of your story with only the details in your head? If you can, is that the best story you can tell, or might it be better if you were able to add some details you aren’t entirely familiar with, but can learn about.

It’s up to you to decide if every aspect of everything you write comes from your head or not, but take the shackles off. As long as you spend the time to do the research, you can write about almost anything. What you can’t do, is try to pretend you know something you don’t. If you haven’t done your homework, it will show.

A short story I wrote many, many years ago has finally seen print this month! “Betrayal” was the audition story I wrote for Orson Scott Card’s Boot Camp in 2003. Since Boot Camp was such an awesome experience for me, this story has some sentimental value for me and I am thrilled to finally see it in print.

Beginning authors, take note: Perseverance pays off. At least half a dozen magazines returned this story to me with a note saying, “Very good, but not for us.” I took them at their word and kept on trying until I figured out who it was for.

In “Betrayal,” a college freshman discovers that her roommate is an alien and vows to keep that secret — at least until aliens attack Earth.

You can purchase a copy of the magazine here.

You’ve probably heard it before, but I want to share a recent reminder of how important it is to, “Show. Don’t Tell!”

This past weekend my husband and I watched the miniseries that began the first season of “Battlestar Galactica.” A number of our friends enjoy the show and as science fiction fans, we decided we should give such a popular show a chance. But the miniseries came very close to losing us. In the beginning, the enemies attack many human colony worlds with nuclear devices that kill countless millions. We see the explosions from space and hear about the disaster through radio communications, but we never get an up-close look at the disasters. We never see the people just before the first explosion hits or the mass hysteria after. We are kept at a distance and I can honestly say I have never been so bored watching millions of people die.

The miniseries did (just barely) manage to pique our interest at the end and we put the show on probation as we watched the next few episodes (which were also good, and we now plan to watch the show) but it got me thinking about the old writer’s advice that you hear so often that you might not even know what it means.

Showing means to put me in the middle of the action. It means that I want to see the details and really know what the characters are going through. I don’t want you to tell me that Susie is afraid. I want you to show Susie cowering in a bomb shelter with her mom, wondering if her father is dead, feeling the earth shake with multiple violent explosions. Show me that and you don’t have to tell me Susie is afraid — I’m afraid for her.

Tell means summarizing events or emotions, stating rather than evoking. It has its place in writing. We don’t usually need to follow characters around through every second of their day. They can usually use the toilet in private. They can fall asleep and wake up the next morning. At that point you can tell us that they fell asleep quickly or slept poorly.

I think telling is very good for tying together necessary gaps in the passage of time.

But what “Battlestar Galactica” did wrong, in my opinion, goes to the heart of what we mean by the old advice. When something is happening, make it happen. Make us live it with your characters. Get into the details, even if they hurt….no, especially if they hurt.

When I write, I do not simply want my reader to know how my characters are feeling; I want them to feel that way, too. I want them to share in the joys and pains, the triumphs and defeats.

The way I do this is through a specific application of the old advice, “Show, don’t tell.” Instead of using emotional keywords such as happy, sad, ecstatic, angry, or grumpy, I show facial expressions, attitudes, and actions.

Human emotion is complex. Even if I say, “Bill is angry,” you may not understand the depths of his anger. Each experience of anger is qualitatively different from the next and not just because the situation that evoked the anger is different – each person reacts slightly differently.

Example one:

“Yeah, I slept with your wife.” Sam said with a mocking half-smile on his pale face.

Bill had never felt angrier in his life.

Example two:

“Yeah, I slept with your wife,” Sam said with a mocking half-smile on his pale face.

Bill’s fists clenched into tight balls. He wanted to pound that smirk off Sam’s ugly face.

Example three:

“Yeah, I slept with your wife,” Sam said with a mocking half-smile on his pale face.

Bill drew back a fist and landed it hard on the side of Sam’s nose, which gave way with a satisfying crunch.

Saying “Bill had never felt angrier in his life,” is not a lot of information, especially if the reader has just met Bill. Is he the type of person who gets angry a lot?

The second two examples give us ways in which Bill might react, depending upon what kind of person he is and exactly how angry he is. Notice, however, that I did not use the word “angry” in either of the last two examples but I bet you understood that Bill felt angry.

If you want your reader to experience your story rather than simply read it, letting them feel what the character feels is a great technique. It may take a lot of practice and false tries, so don’t forget the value of critique in determining if you have been successful.

After finishing the Immortality Virus I planned on moving on to a new rough draft — Born of Two Worlds. Instead, I suffered 3 months of pure, agonizing writer’s block. I couldn’t force myself to put a single word on the page.I don’t want to get into a long discussion of writer’s block today. There are many causes and just as many solutions. For me, this time, the solution was to gtive the first two chapters of “Born of Two Worlds” to a friend who gave me a few tips and assured me that this version i far superior to the original.

Now I’ve written 4 chapters in 2 weeks (and those weeks included Christmas and New Year’s). Sometimes, you need a little outside perspective to help you see the way through.

There are some who, to varying degrees, suggest eliminating being verbs from your prose. Since being is such a pivotal part of our language, a building block really, why would anyone suggest such a thing?

This is one of those “so-called rules of writing” that I mentioned in a previous article. In other words, there are no rules, there are only actions and consequences.

The consequence of using a being verb is that it is motionless. It can create a sense of standing still, especially when overused. In strong fiction (and in many other types of writing) you want a sense of movement to keep readers turning pages. Moreover, you want flavor and diversity to your language that the overuse of *any* word can squash.

For example:

“The train is on time.”
“The museum is crowded.”

In contrast, you can make these ideas move by putting active verbs in them.

“The train pulled into the station on time.”
“People stood elbow to elbow in the museum.”

The sentences without being verbs in them not only move, but also create a more vivid image.

Of course, sometimes things simply are. In those cases, you can draw unfavorable attention to convoluted sentences attempting to wind their way around being.

For example:

“The couch exudes greenness.”

Ouch!

How much is too much? That is largely a matter of style. I don’t think it is a bad exercise for beginning writers to try, for a little while, to remove as many being verbs as possible. This isn’t because their finished drafts should be free of being, but rather because the exercise challenges you to think of more active and powerful alternatives that can make your writing shine. When you force yourself to think of them, you’ll find that most being verbs can go. Even that green couch doesn’t have to “be” green. You can combine it with another sentence and tell us something interesting about it, such as, “No one had ever cleaned the smelly green couch.”

So strive to make your writing move by not making everything simply be, but don’t drive yourself crazy over it when things simply are.

This article is my word of caution: take any writing advice, including mine, with a grain of salt. There are no rules; there are only actions and consequences. Educate yourself on the consequences so you know which actions are worth taking.

Like many of you, I have been writing since I was a child. I became serious about it when, in 2002, I got up the nerve to show my writing to someone else and get some feedback. I followed up that traumatic experience with “how to” books on writing and a trip to North Caroline, where Orson Scott Card gave me his take on writing. Through all that, and through practice, practice, practice, I’ve learned a lot of the ins and outs of writing. I understand how overusing the verb “to be” can make your writing flat and how adverbs tend to be heavy handed and uninspiring. I’ve learned that starting a story with a line of dialogue is not usually a good idea and that withholding information from the reader tends to be annoying rather than mysterious.

I’ve learned all that – but more important than the WHAT is the WHY. Whenever you learn a new “rule” or technique, don’t just do it blindly. Get to the bottom of it. What does it do for your story? How does it help it come alive? What happens if you don’t do it?

Any rule can be broken. Any rule. You can break rules of grammar in certain situations. In case you missed it, I just did. “Any rule” is not a complete sentence. By breaking that rule, I may have caused some people to question my knowledge of basic grammar. I may have ruined my credibility as a writer. Why did I take that risk? I took it because sometimes, a sentence fragment can be used as a way of emphasizing a point. In this case, when I said, “Any rule can be broken,” I meant, “Any rule.”

You can be sure that when you choose an action, you will turn off a certain group of readers with that choice. Typically, if you want to sell your fiction, you are looking to eliminate as few readers as possible while still turning out a story you can take pride in.

A word of caution: In case you missed it, this article is not a permission slip to forget the rules. In fact, I am telling you just the opposite. To properly break the rules, you need to know them inside and out.

As I continue my series of articles on tips for writers, I will do my best to talk about consequences and the WHY of it instead of just the WHAT.

One of the most common questions I hear from new writers is: “How much description should I use?” The truth is, that’s the wrong question. Your story may require a ton of description or almost none at all. The question should be: What type of description should I use? The answer: relevant description.

Imagine that you’ve just walked into a living room. It’s your living room. You’ve walked into it every day for the past five years. Do you spend time thinking about the floral pattern on the sofa you’ve owned for twenty years? Do you study the lampshade you bought when you moved into the house? Probably not. You’re more likely to notice your kids running at you with news about school, the dog barking up a storm, and your husband asking how your day was.

Even then, are you likely to stop and describe your husband? If you’ve been married for ten years, then why would you stop and think about his square jaw, thick brown hair, and blue eyes? Unless your son has a black eye, why would you notice that his are blue like his father’s?

Now, let’s rewind and walk into the living room again. The floral sofa, the one your Aunt Ross gave you as a house warming gift and you wish you had the money to replace, is gone. In its place is a brand new leather sofa with a bright red bow on top. The children and the dog are only noticeable by their absence, and romantic music is playing on the stereo. Suddenly, it’s a whole new living room, one worthy of note and description. Something is about to happen here – probably something romantic – and it is set in motion by the very things you see when you step into that room.

Let’s step into a different living room now. This time it’s not yours, it’s your sisters, and you haven’t seen or heard from her in ten years. Cockroaches scatter when you turn on the light and the room smells of beer and marijuana. Your sister isn’t home yet, but from this description you have a horrible idea of what you might expect.

RELEVANT details are details that are either important to the story or to the character – preferably both. Description should move the story forward rather than slow it down. It should work with the action rather than against it. Description can tell a story on its own if you let it do its work properly.

The other thing about relevant description is that it doesn’t tend to saturate your brain all at once. If it takes a realistic character some time to notice important details then it will take your readers the same amount of time. Many readers will skim a paragraph that tries to hit them with all the details all at once. It’s just too much.

Let’s say that you walk into a sports arena. You may notice the excitement of the crowd, the noise, and the sticky concrete floor as you search for your seat. When you find it, you may notice that it’s orange or red or blue. After you sit down and chat with your friend you may notice the vender coming but to sell drinks or cotton candy. The announcer may come on and ask you to direct your attention to the scoreboard – which may be the first time you really notice that scoreboard.

How will the reader know what your settings and characters look like if you only give them details that are relevant to the plot? Well, they have imaginations too. As writers, we have to accept that our stories will take on a life of their own in the minds of our readers and we need to work with that rather than against that. There will be aspects that need to be envisioned a certain way, but do I really need to know that the sofa is blue? When I can fill in the less important parts of your story with things from my own life, like the green sofa I’m sitting on right now, then the details not only become relevant to your story, but they also become relevant to me.

Use descriptions. Bring out details to make the story come alive, but make it all relevant so that the details help tell the story rather than take over the story.