traits – House of Error

The Traits of the Working Writer – Part 3: Understanding and Awareness

Here we are—the end of this series on the Traits of the Working Writer. And I’m glad; I’ve been getting way too metaphysical with these articles and I’m eager to get back to casual stuff; articles about Star Wars and video games.

But there’s no reason I can’t be casual, direct, and practical about this last set of Traits, so, in that spirit, let’s get right to it.

These last two Traits are at odds, just like the first two pairs. I saved this pair for last, however, because one of these traits… is something most writers are lacking—even professionals.

I’ll get to the Understanding that not everyone will love your work.

But first, I want to talk about…

The Awareness that You Might Be Infatuated with Your Work…

A young writer comes up with an idea. And they know it’s a good idea. They totally love it and that’s cool; why would anyone not love their work? Why would any writer not love their characters? After all, if they didn’t, how could their readers possibly love them? No, a writer’s love of their characters, their setting, their world isn’t the problem.

The problem comes when a writer isn’t Aware… how much they love their work. Because there are, of course, degrees to how big of a crush a writer can have on their projects. A writer may really like an idea but relegate it to a short story because they know they won’t be able to carry it as a full novel. A writer may create something they love enough to dedicate one novel to it. One may love an idea so much that they decide to make a series out of it. And, of course, all of that is totally fine.

But someone may also love a single idea, detail, concept or—even—a sentence so much that it’s destructive. To say it directly, a writer can be totally infatuated with their writing to the point where they have absolutely no gauge for what makes it good anymore. Or, more painfully, they have no way to tell if it’s actually good at all. And that is totally, totally horrible. And sad. Bulletball horrible and sad. And if you don’t know what Bulletball is, don’t look it up. Just understand that it’s really, seriously, very sad!

Suffice it to say, you need to be Aware of how into your stories you are. All writers need to be Aware that they can take that love too far, particularly because it’s easy to become infatuated with any part of your work at any time. On the plot level, you may be so in love with an event that you refuse to get rid of it no matter how little it serves your story. On the character level (and I’ve already talked about this as a Fiction Sin), it’s incredibly easy to shove your favorite character into scenes they shouldn’t be in because you want to see them there—to the extent that it becomes incredibly cloying when you, inevitably, start wedging them into every moment of the story. And, as I mentioned before, on just the level of execution, a writer can be so in love with a sentence—no, we’re taking this a step further—so in love with a slight nuance in gesture (“He shook his head with rare disapproval.”) that they would sacrifice the strength of their voice and the flow of their prose for it (instead of just, “He shook his head no,” and letting the character’s penchant for agreeing speak through his previous actions).

Any of these degrees of infatuation can strike at any moment. But not if you’re Aware that they might. Not if you give your work to fellow writers and actually read their comments. It is, of course, a slippery slope because some people just really, really suck at reading your work (other writers in particular, so go with someone you trust), but unless someone’s a total douchebag, their comments will always be based on an honest reflex. That is to say, if you suspect you’re infatuated with your work, the best way to find out is to give your work to someone else who you know will actually read it and actually criticize it. If when it comes back, you find yourself refuting absolutely everything they said, you’re probably infatuated. Because, I promise, there’s always something wrong with a work in progress. Even published works have mistakes.

And even outside of mistakes—even if your reader is just expressing a difference in preferences—there’s also something to learn from that. Namely…

… the Understanding that Not Everyone Will Love Your Work.

So, one of my friends is a man of many talents; he just naturally picks up hobbies and, somehow, does all of them well. I have no idea why or how, but the point is, one of his main hobbies when I met him was Fantasy writing. We eventually got to shopping work to each other, and he quickly warned, “I’m going to write every thought that comes to mind when I read your stuff. It’s just the way I do it.”

And man was he totally not lying. At first, it was really defeating; I’d already started to accept that my writing wasn’t perfect at that point, but this friend of mine was the one of the few to not resort to the “What manuscript?” Shuffle (Step 1: Give Friend Manuscript – Step 2: Meet Up with Friend and Watch Them Talk About Everything Under the Sun Except for Your Manuscript). So, getting pages back that were, symbolically, all red, was totally defeating. That was, of course, an extremely helpful experience though (I’m here writing this article, once again being insanely open about how bad of a writer I was, because his critiques made me honest [and actually, seriously, led me to stop being infatuated with the first version of my book]). But, there was something else that I realized in his critiques.

He really did write down every criticism that came to mind. So, naturally, a lot of it… wound up being matters of taste. And, somehow, that was extremely reassuring. Yes, the one short story had an extremely mixed up intro that absolutely confused readers; that was a clear, undeniable mistake that I learned from. But, “I really don’t dig this one character’s name,” was almost… liberating to read. Because, of course he didn’t like that name—dude was totally George R. R. Martin-centric, so of course he didn’t (my character’s name definitely wasn’t sharp, concise, and straight-forward like Martin’s are), but that didn’t mean my character’s name was actually wrong.

And that reinforced an Understanding I’d already come to from the others’ opinions of my early work (particularly in college workshops); you really cannot ever… please everyone. You will try and you will maybe assume that writing the perfect book means that you have to make everyone happy. You will, no matter what you do, reflexively want everyone to love your work and you will possible turn a colder shoulder to people who aren’t interested (maybe [we’re Fantasy writers after all, so you have to be ready for some people to not care about your writing period]).

But regardless of all of those reflexes, it is completely impossible for everyone in the world to love your writing. As I’ve said before, there’s enough dissention between two people to make universal ideas—about anything—absolutely impossible. That’s a little much, but the point is, even fans of your work won’t like a particular event in your story. Some might not like a scene or a character. Some might think one line of dialogue is painful.

The point is, nothing will ever be perfect for anyone.

And that’s not bad!

It sounds like the worst thing in the world, but it is, literally, natural; you will never escape criticism because it is part of how humanity works. That means that you cannot—ever—let the fear of criticism stop you.

This should be another paradox. The Fear Paradox?… I just want to write about Dark Souls. Seriously.

Finding the Balance

So, fuck it. Right? Why not write the story you want to write? There’s seriously nothing holding you back from choosing names and scenes and creating until your ______(s) fall(s) off.

But no! Of course there are. There are the rules of the craft itself. The wit to make tasteful decisions for your story. The devotion to practice. There’s the grace to have reverence for other writers’ work but respect for your own. There’s the need to appease your drive for perfection while also nurturing your ability to be decisive. There’s the ability to be aware when you’re crushing on your own work and the understanding that it will never be loved by everyone.

And, of course, there’s the need to realize that writing is always a give and take; it’s always a battle of balances. There are decisions everywhere—at every step of the process—and they will all impact your work, and the only person who’s qualified to make those decisions is you. A self-consciously confident, manically focused you.

Good luck! : D

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Well, that’ll about do it. Thanks for reading this article (double thanks if you read all three [triple thanks if you… I thought I’d have a joke by the time I got here [I didn’t])]). I hope this series has helped and that you enjoyed reading. If you did, drop me a Like. And maybe Subscribe for more content like this… and maybe Share this article. : )

Regardless though, thanks again and, as always, write well!

The Traits of the Working Writer – Part 2: Drive and Decisiveness

Last month, we started talking about what I think of as the Traits of the Working Writer. In case you missed that post, here’s a link . To quickly recap, these Traits are what I consider the cornerstones to being a successful writer; probably not absolutely essential… but still really great personality Traits for any writer to have, I think, and ones that you’ll likely acquire at some point on the long, long road to getting published (if you haven’t acquired them already).

Last time, we opened with Reverence for other writers’ work and Respect for your own. And, although I didn’t really focus on it, I think it was clear in that post how these two Traits are at odds. To put it clearly, Reverence and Respect really butt heads during the editing process, when you want to take influence (critiques) from other writers but also want to stay true to your own style.

The head butting intensifies in this post with the Drive to edit your work to perfection … and the Decisiveness that it takes to stop editing your work to death.

The Drive for Perfection…

Right.

Okay…

I have no idea where to even begin with Drive.

To my knowledge… there is no other Trait in a writer that is both necessary for success and completely and totally defeating. As an old friend once told me, “I thought about writing a novel once… But then I never started because I felt foolish.” It was my first day of training at Borders, and the training supervisor at the time shook his head as he said it, looking away. When I asked him what he meant, he said that he just didn’t feel like he’d be able to get it right—that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to tell the story he wanted to.

Now, that’s an extreme example of the negative side of the Drive for perfection; a well spoken, intelligent old man didn’t even want to start writing his novel. But, Drive is a Trait that is always—always—hyper-active in writers and exists in countless forms on every level of the writing process.

Forms like…

… having the one story you’ve been planning for ages. You’ve cycled through several timelines, magic systems, races, and even general plot ideas, all in the name of making it absolutely perfect. Also, you’ve been doing this, and not actually writing the story, for 20 years. Or…

… having the one story you’ve actually written that you’ve since been editing and editing… and maybe rewriting and editing some more because you just know—you just know—that it can still be better.

I can keep going (straight on through Weird Psychoses Town [I personally cannot stop adding / changing monsters in the world of War of Exiles (because there’s always a cooler monster)]), but I think I’ll just stop here. Because, you get the point, of course. But also…

… because the Drive for perfection is definitely not completely bad or else it wouldn’t be on this list of invaluable Traits. It’s really important to acknowledge how far we can let ourselves go with editing and planning but the alternative is just kinda shrugging. Shrugging and looking down at the pizzas stains on your shirt and being all, “Shu’s good enough. Print it. Don care.”

To say it in a better way… as insane as it probably is for me to keep changing monsters (we’re talking full on, vehemently deleting the original version of a monster because the newer monster’s got like, “Ooooh! Like a bunch of eyes!” which I actually said aloud to myself last night, out of the blue), I do it because I honestly think that the new ideas I’m getting are superior and I always—always—want to put superior ideas in my work. So, the writer who’s tweaking that timeline, changing events, is doing it because they know that the new timeline is better—that the new events are more mature or make more sense. The fine editor waits on that manuscript because they know there’s still something that’s off about it.

And, really, that aspiration for high quality is always awesome. Why would it ever be better to just throw in the towel and shove a collection of first ideas at an editor? (“This is the… Adventure of Garry! I dunno… Look… money now?”) Of course, there are people who can very quickly produce fiction without a problem. But, for most of us… ideas seriously aren’t just perfect… immediately—especially not at the start. Seriously, how many of us are big on place-holder names? How many people have just scrawled in an exhausted, “Fart Town” on their map before taking a night or a week or a month to figure out something better? I’d like to think most of us have… not with “Fart Town” exactly, but… you get it.

The Drive for perfection in one’s work is invaluable to a successful writer.

Just like the ability to not take that Drive too far and actually… make decisions.

… and the Decisiveness Necessary to Move on.

There are three things I can immediately say about Decisiveness.

First, Decisiveness is in direct, heated conflict with Drive at all times. I don’t want to go right back into how bad it is to nurse a story to death because we’ve already talked about it. Suffice it to say, Decisiveness is completely reliant on Drive for its description; Decisiveness is anti-Drive—the ability to let go and let a story be and let characters speak and perhaps accept a particular name (or, ya know, monster—whatever) instead of stubbornly searching for a better one despite finding nothing. Essentially, it’s realizing that there is an end to how healthy Drive can be, and it’s right on the corner of Neuroses and Nit-Pick Way. Decisiveness, put most simply, is the ability to decide on elements in your story and stand by them.

Second, it’s incredibly important to foster Decisiveness so that you can be comfortable with moving on to the next step with your projects (whether it’s from planning to writing, writing to sharing, or sharing to submitting) and actually grow as a writer. Because going in too hard with Drive can happen at every turn in the writing process. It can, and often does, play on a sentence level; I know I’m not alone in just hating one sentence and walking away from my work for hours because I just can’t figure it out. I really, really wish I had a statistic for how many times the solution was going back and just deleting that sentence, scene, or chapter altogether and starting fresh. But the point is, there’s always another entity—a third party in the battle between you and the outline or you and the manuscript. And, in my experience, that third entity is always just a point of view. That point of view should be Decisiveness stepping in and being all, “… You sure that ending isn’t okay?” and, most commonly for me, “If you don’t like this scene, delete it all and start again after you decide the optimal angle to take it from.”

Third,… and most dramatic,… at some point, Acceptance may mean that you just have to call it. Literally, at some point, time may completely run out for you and you may just have to face the music and—just—decide. Not because someone’s holding a gun to your head, but because you’re like me and want to be a novelist first and foremost and you know that the Successful Novelist window is one that absolutely closes. Whether for financial reasons or family reasons or what have you, time eventually just runs out or becomes so narrow and cluttered with everything else in life that it’s way, way less possible to get through it. It doesn’t mean you can’t still be published, but putting out a series of books absolutely requires a large portion of time. And, for us, that really, really means actual writing time—actual years spent punching keys and finishing stories (all the more difficult for us Fantasy writers with our 300-900 page manuscripts). Maybe this sounds over-dramatic, but, to be honest, it’s taken me 9 years to finish the one book. I have 11 more planned at this point. That math doesn’t add up to normal human years.

Which means that, for me, the time has come. Decision time.

Finding the Balance

The very best that I can give you when it comes to balancing Drive and Acceptance is a summary of how I decide on things now. Because I have always been crazy about letting ideas mature, but, as I said, I have no time for slow, casual months of idle brainstorming now.

So, for me, there is no more contemplating the pros and cons of a particular name for weeks—no more wondering if maaaaybe I want the one city to look old or swanky. No, it’s down to one shot decision making time based entirely on theme, plot, character, and every other element that makes up a story. It’s down to “What name works with this character’s personality/power/theme?” paired with, “What do I think sounds awesome?” Very often, I find myself looking at something I’m not sure about and bringing Reverence and Respect into it; “Do I not like this because it’s too much like someone else’s work?” or, more often, “Can I live with this being my style, published under my name?”

Whatever decisions are made like this, they’re made in tandem with my editing and are worked in—quickly—where they belong; and, of course, it’s important to note “quickly” because, for me, part of Drive having such a stranglehold on my process was the idea that making whatever finite decisions and subsequent changes would take a ton of work. It doesn’t; the start of my editing session a few days ago was changing the name of one science from Alchemy to Mnemography. Making that change, along with changes for related nouns (“Alchemicals,” “Alchemical Belt,” etc.) took a grand total of two minutes. In total, from realizing “Alchemy” didn’t make sense to deciding that I like “Mnemography” a lot more, I probably spent about ten minutes trying out different names, five minutes looking up “mnemo” to figure out why my brain threw it at me, and twenty minutes shooting an email about it to another writer, during the writing of which I decided I loved it… regardless of asking that other writer for opinions about it (“Which dress do you think I should wear? This one, or thiiiis one?”). Maybe this is cheating, but I also decided all of the related nouns for the science in that email. So, overall, from Drive to Decisiveness and execution, it took about thirty seven minutes. It’s not always this smooth, of course, but the goal is always to have as little time between deliberation and execution as possible.

And on the note of it not always being easy, maybe you noticed that I’m saying all of this after talking about neurotically changing monsters. And, obviously yes, I totally am still Driven to make things perfect, but the key is that I don’t let Drive stop me anymore—I don’t write in a monster that I hate and then get salty about it and ignore my story for a while; I have a full cast of monsters already in the book that I already like, but when an alternative idea for one comes up, I dive in and change it as quickly as I can, or, if the stars align and Escribyr, the Dwarven God of Writing, smiles down on me (up at me?), the monster isn’t actually in my book and I just spend twenty minutes editing one entry in my world glossary file and I’m done.

And I don’t want to keep ranting about this, so, the point is, Drive should never, ever stop a writer, and the way to make sure it doesn’t is to be Decisive.

If you are the kind of writer who second-guesses everything—if you are a slave to Drive like I’ve been—then just know that the decisions you’re considering and the changes you’re putting off making can be done in seconds. Those elements you aren’t sure about that are keeping you from actually writing your story can be sorted out in an afternoon. All it takes is devotion to finding an answer, some Acceptance, a little sprinkle of Respect for your own work on top, and a side of You Don’t Have Forever, Dammit—Write Already.

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By the way, yes, Escribyr does wield a quill pen that has a massive warhammer on its feather end. How does that even work? I’ll let you decide.

As always, thanks for reading! And come back around the middle of the month for the final article in this series, in which I’ll discuss the Understanding that not everyone will love your work… and the Awareness that you might be infatuated with your own story. It’s gonna be good!

If you want to be sure you don’t miss it, Subscribe and you’ll get an email when I publish it! Or just pass by again later in the month and you’ll find it here. As always, Likes and Shares are appreciated, but regardless, thanks again just for showing up and have a good one!

The Traits of the Working Writer – Part 1: Reverence and Respect

June has already been pretty interesting. It’s been rife with me hanging out and talking with other writers, which I suppose is normal for me now. As is my gleaning things from those conversations that I always want to bring back here. Things like that, hey, maybe my protagonist is emo (which, of course, led to an instant freak out [prematurely though, as I remembered that no, Lethe is just really weird]).

But more constructive than that were the casual conversations that led to this series of posts about what I’m calling the Traits of the Working Writer. Now, I can’t tell you exactly which conversation the following ideas came from, but they were ingrained somewhere in the way Justine Manzano agreed that, yes, being an amateur Fantasy writer is brutally ousting. Or maybe it was the way another friend admitted she was down about working on a detail of her world that readers will never actually experience.

Either way, these Traits are what I believe are the foundation of any writer. Some of these come naturally, but some also have to be learned and (oh man, can I tell you) maintained. And although I don’t think it’s impossible to be a writer without having these Traits, I do think it’s harder to be a legitimately good, patient writer without them.

Here, we’ll start with just two (I was originally planning to do all six in one article, but it felt like I was glossing over too much). And we’re doing two because each pair of Traits balance each other out (because, for me, writing is slowly turning into a game of balances [and I’ll endeavor to explain why in the next few weeks, with these posts]).

For now, let’s start with Reverence for other writer’s work but Respect for your own.

Reverence for Other Writers’ Work…

We’re starting off easy here.

I’ve talked about this plenty of times on this site, but I can never say enough that one of the most important Traits of a good writer is Reverence for other writer’s work.

Which, of course, is funny for me to say, because if you knew me from anywhere between… oh… 1982 and 2013, you’d know that maaaaan was I the last person to respect other writer’s work. Actually, to be more accurate about it, I was the first person to complain about everything I watched, read or played.

Do you know that kind of person? You must know that kind of person; the kind who isn’t necessarily wrong when he or she says, “Oh, that scene in that one movie was so stupid!” but who always goes right in with those criticisms so quickly and so… so often that it kind of becomes their thing? You can’t watch a movie with them without being emotionally prepared to listen to a million reasons why it’s horrible or not on par with another movie that they like? And everyone else loves the movie / book / whatever that they’re criticizing regardless, so they eventually feel like they’re on a holy quest to correct everyone’s opinions about everything? Yes. I was that guy. And, in case you’ve never experienced that kind of person (and you’re a gamer) Egoraptor is the best example I can give you of that kind of person (don’t crucify me; I don’t hate him—he’s just immediately, damningly critical of games that are great regardless of their flaws).

And that’s the heart of the problem right there; being that kind of person… means that you’re incredibly, unforgivably critical of everything, no matter how awesome it is. That. Is. A horrible way to live. As a person in general (it’s miserable) and especially dangerous for a writer.

Because, for a writer, thinking like this, about everything, makes you the most close-minded person in the world. It makes it impossible for you to expand your concept of what works when it comes to creating or, at least, it seriously narrows your definition of “good” to “not [my personal definition of] terrible,” which is probably insanely strict.

And, of course, it’s not bad to have a discerning taste; I absolutely don’t want anyone to come away from this post thinking that. It’s just ridiculously bad for a writer’s only concept of “good” to be Lord of the Rings and “what I’m writing, because it’s like Lord of the Rings.”

I’ll end here by adding that this… is absolutely one of those Traits you have to maintain. At least it is for me; maybe it’s easier for other writers, but I grew up following this example, so, even though I’m way, way better now about being overly, needlessly critical of things, there are still cases where I just… can’t see the good in something (Avatar). And, that’s okay, but I suppose just remember to always at least acknowledge there is good in any creative endeavor. Try to train yourself to observe what works first. You’ll know you’ve made it when instead of saying, “This movie sucks,” you say, “I liked _______, but this just isn’t my kind of movie.”

Now, as an example (and being dangerously open about past critiques), in The Dark Knight, the Joker’s conversation with Harvey Dent in the hospital is amazing and probably one of my favorite Batman moments on film, ever. That was not hard… even though I definitely don’t think The Dark Knight is nearly as good as everyone said it was (at the very least, it’s very flawed). But that hospital conversation, and, actually, a bunch of other things in that movie were really awesome.

Okay, actually ending now, all I’ll add is, if you have any creative property that you hate, try looking at it and seeing the good in it—first. Especially if it’s extremely popular. Because, if it is really, really popular, realize the obvious: it’s doing something very, very right and, as a writer, you need to at least understand what that is, even if you don’t agree with it.

… But Respect for Your Own Work

Now, while all of this respecting other people’s work and learning from it and broadening your view of “good,” is awesome, there’s a really important counterpoint you have to keep in mind.

If you are not the hyper-critical type mentioned above, great. But if you’re a hyper-loving, super fan, you’re possibly adapting everyone else’s writing style. And that’s bad.

That’s actually… worse than being hyper-critical; because if you only consider one or a handful of things to be good and you mold yourself tightly around that one style, at least you have a composed style (you’re like Tolkien). But, assuming that you see the good in everyone’s work, there’s the possibility that you’ll start pulling ideas and themes and tones from absolutely everywhere and making your stories conflicted, tonal messes.

Now, if you aren’t this kind of person, great. But if you are… don’t freak out, because creating that tonal mess is just part of every writer’s struggle to find a voice. At least it was for me anyway.

I grew up mimicking a lot—borrowing a ton from other creative properties back in what I think of as the Note-Taking Days of my writing. A new movie would come out and I’d think it was cool and “make up” a new scene that was directly inspired by the one fight scene at the end of whatever movie (“And then, Burly Brawl comes on, and my protagonist grabs a candle stand or something and starts whipping it around like a staff!” … It hurt to write that, and I never actually wrote that as any part of any story I ever worked on… but no matter how hard I try, I can’t forget the countless other things I “wrote” that are way worse than that, so, yeah, my heart hurts. Can’t breathe; too much shame in my lungs). But doing that kind of thing is natural and healthy when you’re young.

But, again, when you’re young.

Because there comes a point when it’s essential to step back from everything else—every kind of influence—and consider the story you want to tell not as something you build with the pieces of someone else’s work… but as something that you build—just you—in whatever way you want with pieces that you can create, from scratch.

And, if this sounds strange to you, but there are many reasons why you might adapt from other writers’ work. Maybe it’s just love.

But maybe it’s because you don’t think that your ideas are good enough. Maybe you don’t have faith in your ability to tell a good story. Maybe you don’t respect your ability to write something awesome, even if you think that you do.

And, just in case you think you do respect your own style or maybe just in case you need a guideline to follow away from the adapting trend, just look at a scene in your story that’s just not working—or an event or idea that you just can’t hammer down—and ask yourself, “Is this my work?” Because… maybe it’s not actually part of that story you’re trying to tell; maybe the source material that inspired that scene is just too different in tone? Regardless, the point is, for whatever reason, you’ll feel it when something doesn’t work with your story. And, in direct contrast, even if you’re still in the Note-Taking Phase, you can stop, think of a moment that works perfectly… and see an idea that is beautifully and simply your own or perfectly and completely your story. You’ll know those ideas because they’ll have halos around them; you’ll feel the glow without even trying—the spark that you’ve probably felt for years now. As cheesy as it sounds, those moments will just feel “perfect” because they absolutely are for your story and your style.

That is your work. That is your voice. And that absolutely deserves your Respect. It is the story that you’ve wanted to tell for ages and it does, naturally (in my experience) have the tone and timber you need it to have if you’re just willing to acknowledge it, listen to it, and respect it. I am starting to sound just… dangerously metaphysical right now, but we’re talking about the theoretical ground zero of a writer’s world. Things are gonna be a little metaphysical.

At the very least, getting back to practicalities, you need to Respect your voice as a safe guard against other writers’ critiques. Because, maybe you already know this, but if you don’t, when Writer A reads Writer B’s work, their reflex is to suggest making Writer B’s work “better” by making it more like Writer A’s work. It’s just… natural, especially in a younger writer, to go that route with critiques and it’s equally likely for a younger writer to accept those kinds of critiques (I’ve definitely accepted, “This character should be funnier!” when I absolutely shouldn’t have).

Of course, that turns into a question of balancing critiques, which, in my mind, is ultimately synonymous with balancing these two character Traits in yourself (so metaphysical).

Finding the Balance

So, where do you draw the line between your admiration and Reverence for other writers and your Respect for your own work? This is one of those times when I can’t provide detailed instructions for how to do this (the same way I obviously can’t provide clear cut instructions on how to find your voice). I can tell you, in very simple, basic terms, not to reflexively copy other writer’s work, but I would add to definitely take inspiration from other writers. I can tell you not to automatically accept and adapt content suggestions that other writers make (like the above-mentioned “This character should be funnier!”), but sometimes, other, skilled writers and editors can absolutely make good content suggestions (the same way that, although they’re generally more acceptable, line suggestions [grammar and punctuation] can also absolutely be wrong and detrimental to your work and style).

So, what do I leave you with? A marker for future reference—a milestone that will make it clear that you’ve made it. Here it is:

You’ll know that you’re balancing Reverence and Respect correctly when you’re reading your favorite author’s work and you spot a really great detail that instantly makes you jealous. But then, because the tones don’t match or because your plot is more simple or for countless other possible reasons that you’re totally fine with, you smile, shake your head and say, “But that would never work in my story.”

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Thanks for reading and come back at the beginning of July when I talk about the next two Working Writer Traits, Drive and Decisiveness! If you want to be sure you don’t miss them, you could always… ya know… could Subscribe is all I’m sayin’. But regardless, thanks again and have a good one!

Louis Santiago’s Fantasy Story Stats – Week 0: An Introduction

Disclaimer: The following ideas are based on the observations of an amateur fantasy writer. These ideas are absolutely not fact and should not be taken as more than suggestions for how to look at your own work—a tool that you use to supplement your writing at best. If you like the ideas you find here and find them useful, awesome. If you find them useful and you immediately want to share them, I only ask that you do so via link to this post.

No matter what though, I don’t want to suggest that fantasy writing should be a rote, meticulous thing with categories and bureaucracy. If you find that these ideas make your writing process feel too mechanical, scale back your reliance on them. Remember, these Stats are just a tool.

An Introduction

I blame absolutely all of this on D&D.

I was fine before I played that game. I was 100% heart when it came to writing and ideas just popped into my head whenever they pleased and assembled themselves into fantastic, towering messes that I barely controlled.

But then D&D came around, and playing it was the unintentional end of that era of my writing career. Oh, I’m sure D&D wasn’t totally to blame—this is also when I finally started to read good fantasy as well—but I can’t help feeling that without D&D, I never would’ve considered a lot of things; a lot of fantasy-relevant things, to be sure, but also the idea that a fantasy world could be broken down into numbers—into categories and lists that made world building incredibly more efficient than it had been. Honestly, it’s probably because I immediately wanted to (and tried to) make my own paper games (I got as far as a character sheet and vague character creation guidelines, but the overall rules eventually escaped me). In the end, I think it’s D&D (and also, prooobably college) that finally made me find a balance between mind and heart when it came to my writing.

Because there’s always that balance, right? Writing is a give and take between ideas you love and your ability to decide when, how, and if you can use them; having a great idea for a story but no idea how to deliver it is as bad as knowing how to deliver stories but having no stories to tell.

Well, that (and a lingering desire to obsessively design more character sheets for absolutely no reason) is what led to this–my list of Fantasy Story Stats. It’s years and years later and I find myself channeling that bureaucratic desire for order into the following list that I hope has some practical use for you.

The Idea

This is a list of story elements that exist for and apply to all fantasy stories. The goal here is to bring important elements to light that may, hopefully, help you take a more composed look at your stories, see where they may be lacking in overall composition, and adjust one or more of their elements so they all fit together optimally. Really, that’s it; this is simply a model for categorizing all fantasy stories (that I’ll spend the next few weeks explaining in pairs). You may figure out a better approach to a subtle facet of your work or you’ll realize that your project is similar to someone else’s and compare them to find out why, how you can change that similarity, or what you can learn from that similar project (all according to your own prerogative and objective).

However, while these Stats are meant to help you hone your story and choose elements that compliment it well, the intent here is absolutely not to suggest that any one type story is superior to all others. If you find yourself using this checklist and thinking that you should completely change your story to make it more like A Game of Thrones, for example, you’re doing a disservice to your own story and misusing these Traits. I would sooner say that this story would serve you better if all you took from it was a confidence that your story’s Stats are cohesive and all complimented each other well (as I believe almost any combination of Stats can).

The Stats (So Far)

1) Genre – Self-explanatory. On this site, it’s always “Fantasy.” I’ll be covering this next week (Week1).

2) Subgenre – A more specific classification for fantasy stories. I’ll also cover this next week (Week 1).

3) Theme – The concept that pulls your entire story together (Week 2).

4) Focus – The very possibly unintentional focus of a story (Week 2).

5) Tone – The weight of a story (Week 3).

6) Spirit – This one seriously sounds like an RPG stat, doesn’t it? This is the degree to which a story involves its audience, however subtly (Week 3).

7) Novelty – The overall originality of a story, more generally applied to its premise (Week 4).

8) Concept – The specific originality of a story, applied to its elements (Week 4).

I should clarify that I obviously didn’t create a lot of these concepts; I absolutely understand that but still present them here as part of my list because they’re important to it. That said, there’s a pretty good chance there’s a similar, widely accepted list out there; if you find that this is true, all I can say is, I didn’t know and I hope that you’ll at least get something out of my Stats (I believe my concept of Spirit will still be useful).

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Well, that’s enough of an introduction, I think. Come back next week for a look at Genre and Subgenre (mostly Subgenre). Again, and as always, thanks for reading.