Adding Complexity to a Story

The July/August 2013 issue of Writer's Digest carries an article by author James Scott Bell entitled "Vitamin C For Your Thriller" (on page 24).  Building on the "C" theme, the article talks about complex characterizations, confrontation (the main conflict in the story), careening (twists and shocks), coronary (heart-touching), and communication (what's the "real message" in your story that you want readers to take away from it?).  Part of the complex characterizations section really resonated with me.

Bell suggested creating a grid listing the characters in your story along both axes.  In each box of the grid, you add possible relationships, secrets, and areas of conflict between the two characters whose names line up there.  For example:

Character	Fred	Dave	Jane
Fred	X	Dave is jealous of Fred for getting the promotion he wanted at work	Jane knows that Fred's wife is having an affair
Dave	Fred considers Dave a good friend, but is tired of covering up for his mistakes at the office	X	Jane saw Dave drinking in the office, and watched Fred throw out the bottle when Dave wasn't looking.
Jane	Fred thinks Jane is a bit nosy and kind of a gossip, which is something he hates	Dave secretly thinks Jane is very attractive, but hasn't trusted her since he saw her take money from the petty cash box and slip it into her purse.	X

Brainstorming all of these points of connection and conflict between the characters could improve the complexity and depth of the relationships depicted in the story.  For example, if Dave tried to make Fred look bad so that management will demote him, Fred might admit that he's been covering up for Dave.  Jane could back Fred's story up, since she's seen him throw out Dave's bottle. 

Or, if we wanted to start an affair between Jane and Fred, the fact that Jane knows Fred's wife is fooling around is a secret she might slip to Dave. Dave could use that to get back at Fred in retaliation for the promotion he thinks he deserved.  By concealing her knowledge of Fred's wife's affair, Jane could engineer situations to be with Fred and console him, improving her chances to catch him "on the rebound".  Of course, if Fred finds out that Jane knew about the affair and didn't tell him, he might want nothing more to do with her.

Michael A. Stackpole describes something very similar in an article on characterization techniques that appears in his The Secrets writing newsletter (Volume 1, Issue 23).  He calls this "Interaction Dynamics" and tells us:

Characters do not operate in a vacuum… once you begin to see how they will function, you have to then compare and contrast them to other folks in that world and other characters in your story.  In essence this is a playtest of how the characters will function inside their world.

You are looking for affinities and oppositions.  Who is this character's natural ally?  Who is her enemy?  Is she willing to compromise on some point of pride to make thins work with this person? What behavior by someone else would turn her against him, or endear her to him?  How will she react if an enemy spares her life or saves it?  

…None of us have a relationship with one person that is unaffected by our relationships with everyone else.  We just don't operate in isolation like that – or if we do, there is some serious pathology that needs to be dealt with. 

…Between and among the major characters… there should be a lot of energy and strength, whether they get along, as passionately in love, or hate each other's guts.

What all this boils down to is that our characters aren't robots, they're people.  They don't necessarily like (let alone love) everyone else in the story.  They may not trust some of the other characters.  They may, even subconsciously, want another to fail.  All of these "connections" can be used in your story where and when they make sense.

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Career Advice from a Successful Author

Today I had the privilege to learn from a New York Times bestselling author, Michael A. Stackpole.  His seminar "Digital Publishing and the Independent Author" at Gen Con Indy 2012 was very well-attended.  Some of the take-aways from the seminar:

• If you're trying to succeed as a writer, your guiding principle should be "Profitable is Good."  Actions you take should ideally contribute to your overall profit.  If you spend $7 a month to host a web site, and that web site generates $10 in sales, it's profitable.
• Just as important as generating a profit is being sensible about what you do.  You shouldn't risk your retirement money or rent money, for example, to fund the printing of a book.  For instance, you might use Amazon's CreateSpace program to print copies on demand, or sell it as an e-Book.
• Success in the world of digital publishing is a moving target.  Techniques that work today may not work tomorrow, or in two years.
• When in doubt about what to do, generate new content.  Everything you write serves as a promotional piece for everything you've already written.  Readers who buy one book you've written and enjoyed it will be more inclined to buy others.
• Every book or short story you publish should contain a 1-2 page list of all the other items you've written (or at least as many as fit on 1-2 pages).  This should appear near the front of your book, so that someone downloading a sample of your book will see this information in the sample.
• Digital sales count for 20-30% of a typical book's sales today.
• Digital self-publishing is a boon to authors.  Traditional publishers paid about 8-10% of a book's cover price to the author, about 6-9 months after the sale was made.  Digital publishing through organizations like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo pay about 70% of the cover price in 60 days after the sale.
• You shouldn't adopt the narrow view that you're "writing a story".  Think of it as "developing an intellectual property".  Think about other ways you could distribute the content (audio books, podcasts, related short stories, etc.).  For your particular content, these could be more profitable venues for you.
• When you choose or create cover artwork, remember that your cover should look good at sizes ranging from postage stamps (as seen in a typical online book listing) all the way to iPad Retina Displays.
• Be sure to hire a good editor and proofreader to look over your work before publishing it.
• In your e-Books, be sure to include a revision number, build number, or other value,  This way, when a reader reports that they've found typos or errors in your work, you can identify the correct draft to look at.

In addition to the industry and self-publishing information, Stackpole also shared important information about building an online presence:

• Remember that different potential readers for your work may not all use a given social media tool.  For example, those who are avid Facebook users may not follow Twitter.  Get your message out to a variety of outlets to reach the most people.
• It's important to think about your online image.  You want to come across as positive, confident, successful, hard-working, persevering, and friendly to your readers.  If you're struggling with characterization, for instance, don't share that.  Do not show yourself "warts and all" to your readers.  This is a recipe for disaster.
• When critics arise, you should generally not respond to them.  There are too many ways it can go badly for you.  For example, you might write a scathing retort to a mean-spirited comment on your blog, only to find that the commenter was a young child.  Suddenly, you've become the author who "beat up" little Janie online.  Not a reputation you want to foster.
• Everything you post online doesn't have to be a story or book.  What is important, though, is that it be entertaining or informative to a reader.  A blog post about how you spent the day trying to overcome writer's block is probably not entertaining.  Telling a story about how your grandmother used to cheer you up when you got stuck by baking you cookies may be entertaining.
• Think of your blogging, tweeting, etc., as building an audience.  You want your audience to see you as a good person who works hard, overcomes problems, and treats others well.  Share some of who you are with them but not everything.  It's like developing yourself as a brand.

When it comes to digital publishing, one of Mike's strongest pieces of advice was that there is no reason whatsoever not to digitally self-publish your work… even if you're trying to sell it to a publisher.  If you succeed in selling it, you can always take the book off the market.  If you don't succeed in selling it, you may at least be earning something from it

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Notes from Stackpole's "Writing in the Post-Paper Era"

At Gen Con 2010, I attended one of author Michael A. Stackpole's seminars entitled "Writing Success in the Post-Paper Era". The seminar description mentions that Stackpole was "the first author to offer fiction on the iPhone/iPod Touch through Apple's App Store" and that he would give attendees "an up to date look at the digital revolution and explain how you can profit and develop your career". He definitely delivered on that. Below are my notes:

• For every hardcopy book sold, two are printed.


• The economics of publishing are such that if 25% of the copies of a book sold are digital, publishers will drop the paper version.


• If you intend to make a living writing, you need a professional web site, a Facebook presence, and a Twitter feed. All of these will help get your name out there and draw people to your work.


• If you do a blog, everything you write, tweet, or post on Facebook should be entertaining. It should also be positive, and professional. All of these things become part of your image, and you want to present the image of an entertaining professional with a pleasant personality. If you come across as a moody jerk, a loser, or a person who sulks over all their rejection slips, that's not going to help your reputation.


• You should be able to generate 500 words on pretty much any topic and make it entertaining. If you can't, you probably shouldn't be looking at writing as a career.


• A good, professional WordPress design will cost you $150-200. You should consider that an investment in your future, and not go with one of the free, cookie-cutter themes on the web. (Like the one I'm using here, I guess...)


• Buy domain names for yourself, your main character names, and book titles. That will make it easier for people to find your site and your work.


• Mr. Stackpole uses Zen Cart on his site to handle payments and shopping cart duty.


• Paypal can provide a good payment option for customers. Make sure you get a merchant account with them, though.


• Put writing samples on your web site. This will help readers who are new to you decide whether or not to buy your work.


• Non-technical documents/books priced at over $10 will pretty much not sell as e-books.


• Pricing recommendations based on his experience: $2 for up to 10,000 words. $3 for 10-40,000 words. $5 for 50,000+ words.


• He recommends a metric over "word count divided by 10,000" to represent "hours of reading enjoyment" for your work. Price based on that metric and describe your content in that terminology. The term "pages" doesn't really apply in a digitial setting. Even describing in "word count" doesn't work. What you're really selling is the hours of enjoyment someone will get from your work.


• Consumers tend to be more concerned about the time cost of entertainment than the money cost.


• We'll start seeing more digital serial stories in the future, similar to TV episodes, that are sold for casual reading sessions and priced as above.


• The three main formats you should consider publishing your works in: PDF (optional), ePub (works for all devices except Kindle), and Kindle format. Those three formats should cover just about any e-reader your customer might have.


• Stackpole recommends "Legend Maker" software on the Mac for creating the eBooks.


• At some point there is probably going to be a "big collapse" of traditional publishing. Until then you have no reason not to submit your work to traditional publishers.


• Physical books will drive readers to your web site. That's good. You get money from your web site faster. Publishers tend to pay 6-9 months after the sale of the book. Payment tends to be around $1.35 from the sale of a $10 paperback. Sell a $2 short story through your web site, and you'll pocket around $1.67... so digital publishing is a better deal for the author. More money, sooner.


• As far as editing and proofing services, for a short story, it's sufficient to have another writer look it over. For a novel, hire a freelance editor.


• A good strategy for offering samples on your site: Put up installments of a serial story free. Take them down after a week or two. Put up the next installment. Near the end, offer a digitial omnibus collection of the entire series, including the as-yet-unpublished installments. People will buy them to get the parts they're missing and read the parts not available yet.


• In the digital age, there are no "established authors" anymore. You are as established as your web store.

Mr. Stackpole offers a "Digital Career Guide" for $30 through his web store that offers more detail, recommendations, and information. I purchased a copy at Gen Con but haven't read it yet. I hope to publish a review when I do.

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Writing Advice from Bestselling Author Michael A. Stackpole

At Origins and Gen Con 2009, I had the opportunity to attend seminars on writing provided by New York Times bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole. Mr. Stackpole appeared at Origins 2010 as well, and once more I had the opportunity to learn from him. As always, his seminars were very informative and professionally delivered.

Due to (in my opinion) a poorly publicized seminar schedule at Origins, Mr. Stackpole's seminars were poorly attended this year. I only found out about them when I saw him in the Exhibit Hall signing autographs. Had I not seen him there, I would have had no idea he was even at Origins. His seminars weren't listed on the site where other seminars and events were listed.

For Mr. Stackpole's "Serial Fiction" seminar, I was the only attendee for the first half or so. Ever the professional, he gave the seminar anyway and I eagerly listened. Later, others showed up. Here's what I took away from that seminar:

• In a typical series of stories, 70% of the material is "case work" - or material that is there as part of the current story only. It isn't used or referred to again in the series. The other 30% is "soap opera" material, or material that shows the growth of the main character(s) over the series and provides a "pay off" for series readers who stick with it.


• Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe mysteries are a good example of series fiction


• Case characters grow much faster in serial fiction than the "mythos" (main) character


• You need to plan out ahead how many stories/books you're going to have. You also want to have some vague idea what's in them, so you can plant clues in the earlier books to use later.


• When planting details in the early books, try to avoid too many concrete details. Say "I came from a big family" rather than "I have 2 sisters and 4 brothers" because you may find when you get to the book where you plan to use that fact, it might make more sense to have 3 sisters or 3 brothers instead.


• Keep track of your world details in a file, even for background characters. That way you'll know what you've established already as you go along, and you won't have to go back to find out those details later.


• It's not necessary in serial fiction to "dot every i" or "cross every t" as far as sub-plots go. It's OK to leave the reader wondering what happened to a minor character or plot line.


• "Soap opera" material should appear in the middle of your main story


• In a 10-part story, the breakdown should be something like this:
  Parts 1-2: Case material
  Part 3: A storyline
  Part 4: More case material
  Part 5: B storyline is resolved
  Part 6: More case material
  Part 7: A storyline
  Parts 8-9: Case material
  Part 10: resolve the case and the A storyline


• Remember that every story in your series is the "first story" to some reader. Make sure that you plant enough information in each story that a reader can pick it up and get up to speed with just that story.


• You may be tempted to do a 100% mythos story, where you explore a "what if" scenario for your main character or resolve some issue from their past. This generally isn't a good idea. It tends to result in too much change for the character to keep them viable or too little story to keep readers interested. Fan fiction is a possible exception.


• Something Mr. Stackpole has done is publish a serial fiction line in ten 1,000 word sections on his web site. This collection of ten stories is approximately "novel-size" and is bundled together and published as a single book or collection. If you start selling the collection before you publish the last stories in the series, some readers will buy the collection to read those last stores (even if you give them away on your web site).


• Burn Notice on USA Network is a good example of series writing, because about 70% of each episode is case material and about 30% of it is "mythos" material. Each season has an "up or down" feel to it.

In his seminar on "21 ways to kill a novel", Mr. Stackpole provided plenty of useful advice:

• Writing to a fad is a bad idea. By the time you recognize a fad, the market is usually saturated.


• Look for "evergreen" areas like Tolkien-style fantasy, "pet fantasy" (kid with a psychic link to an animal), or time travel stories.


• Don't write things you don't enjoy reading. Readers will sense it.


• Make sure you do market research in the field you're choosing to write in. Read the current leaders in that field. See how they tell stories, what they include in the stories, and from this develop a picture of what the audience expects from your story.


• Have a long-term career plan. Know what you're writing next.


• Make sure your characterization is good. Having no (or poor) characterization is the number one way to kill a novel. Write at least two sentences about each character that describes them one way, and one that goes against that. (Example: "Dave was an expert sailor and navigator. Unfortunately, he was unable to swim.")


• Give readers enough time to connect with your characters, or you will distance the reader from them. You want the reader to feel like they can see inside the character's head, especially if they'll be a viewpoint character. Introduce them early on.


• In every book, you need at least one "normal" character, or someone who is relatively normal. If you don't, readers will have difficulty gauging how "crazy" the other characters really are.


• Don't bounce the point of view around. This disorients the reader.


• No "tin" dialogue. Dialogue has to be appropriate to the character, the setting of the novel, and the situation. Listen to how real people talk in a similar situation. Don't repeat things in the dialogue that you say in the narrative.


• Let the characters decide what's going to happen, not the author. If the story in your novel appears to die out, go back about 7,000 words. Somewhere around there you'll probably find that you made the character do something he or she would never have done. Once you fix that, you'll be able to move ahead.


• Characters have to take responsibility for their actions and there must be consequences to the choices they make.


• Characters should grow, not just change. Growth is an attempt to alter behavior based on external factors, and the change made through growth is permanent. It may be some type of experimentation. It may even be a decision not to change something if that change would take the character away from who they are.


• "Nobody cries over change." but they might cry during growth.


• Make sure the story has an emotional "heart". Show the characters reacting to the good and bad things that happen, and how the events affected them.


• Predictability = Boredom


• Your story must have a plot. Even if people don't like your characters, they must be able to latch onto your plot. If they can't, they'll walk away from the story.


• If your research activities are stopping you from writing, you're doing too much research.


• Don't "file the serial numbers off someone else's novel". Don't just re-tell a Shakespeare story. You want the reader to say "I didn't expect THAT to happen!" or "I've never seen THAT before!"


• Make sure you examine the consequences of things in your stories. If you have a device in your story that replicates physical objects easily and cheaply, there's a definite impact on the economy in that world.


• Things in the story, like character and place names, should fit together and flow well.


• Think about how you choose to name things. The word "pope" has a particular meaning to Catholics, but not to other religions. The word "elder" means something to Mormons. The word "league" in reference to measurement has a specific meaning.


• Make sure the cultures and subcultures in your world get along.


• Sticking to your original outline can kill your novel. Make sure you give it a chance to grow naturally.


• Make sure you have an appropriate head-heart-hand mix. The "head" is the puzzle part of the story. The "heart" is the emotional core. The "hand" is the action.


• Try to have sentences of 12 words or less.


• "Show" as much action as possible and "tell" very little.


• Be careful with math and units of measure.


• Make sure the mechanics in the story are right. Don't have characters putting tinfoil in the microwave or talk about the "hammer" on a pistol that uses clips.


• Don't give an editor the opportunity to say "no" to your novel.


• Don't revise as you go. Wait until you have the draft finished.

If you found any of this useful, you'll undoubtedly like the various writing tips and guides Mr. Stackpole sells through his web store. I've purchased a few of these in the past and found them very useful. They generally include a bit more information than is communicated in the seminar, and are distributed in PDF format - which makes them easy to adapt to electronic readers like the iPhone, iPod, iPad, Kindle, and others.

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Michael A. Stackpole’s “The Rules of Writing” Seminar

Michael A. Stackpole is a fairly prolific author, having penned a large number of fantasy-themed books, Star Wars novels, Battletech novels, and other works of fiction. He's had a long and successful career. In other words, the man knows a bit about writing. He runs a web site, stormwolf.com, where he shares (and sells) what he knows and writes. He hosted a seminar at Origins 2009 entitled "The Rules of Writing", in which he shared his top 5 tips to help aspiring fiction writers improve their craft.

I signed up for one of his sessions. After attending, I wished I had signed up for the others. Stackpole not only understands what beginning fiction writers (and experienced ones) struggle with, he also knows how to communicate solutions to those problems effectively. I think I learned more in the 1-hour session with him than I've learned in all the other creative writing education I've had. To give you an idea what to expect, I'm going to share some of what I learned from Stackpole during his Origins 2009 session. Out of respect for the author and a desire not to infringe on his copyrights (he sells a document with his 20 rules of writing) or affect his attendance at seminars, I'm only sharing part of the information here. If you want to learn more, and get more detail, I would encourage you to visit his stormwolf.com site or attend one of his seminars.

Stackpole's first "Rule of Writing" is "Show, Don't Tell". This is something you hear in many creative writing classes, but Stackpole did a great job of illustrating the impact of doing it right. For example, a beginning writer will "tell" you what is going on, such as "Tom was mad." That definitely tells you what's going on, but you don't have to actually think about the words. It's better to "show" your audience how mad Tom is, by saying something like "Tom's face turned red. He gritted his teeth and slammed his fist on the counter." In the second example, you have to visualize what's going on. Not only do you get the point ("Tom is mad"), you can also picture just how mad Tom is.

Stackpole also tells writers to use "Continuity Bolts" in their work to hold the story together and make it seem real. For example, if the main character in your story visits a local bar and has a conversation with the bartender while waiting on a friend to show up, use that conversation and the bartender character elsewhere in the story. Perhaps your main character needs to go to the post office to pick up a package. While he's waiting in line, he might see the bartender buying stamps. This makes your fictional world seem more real. Similarly, if a television in the bar talks about some news story, the main character might hear people talking about that same story in line at the post office. These elements of continuity make your fictional world seem more complete and consistent, and reward readers for paying attention.

The rule that stuck with me the most was "He said, she said". This refers to something I've always struggled with when I write fiction. I knew it sounded horribly awkward, but I just couldn't see a way around it. In about two minutes, Stackpole pushed me right past that block and helped me understand what I should do instead. Lots of beginning writers construct dialogue in their stories like this:

"I don't like it," Tom said. "You spend too much time at that night club."

"Don't be jealous," Jane told him. "I'm only dancing and hanging out with my girlfriends."

Tom asked, "Then why did Fred tell me he saw you sitting with that guy from Accounting?"

All that "said", "told", and "asked" stuff gets repetitive and irritating after a while. But how do you make it obvious who's doing the talking? Stackpole explained that one way you can do that effectively is to give your characters a unique style of speaking. Perhaps one character never uses contractions. Maybe one uses a lot of big words, while another chooses smaller, one-syllable ones. The above example might be rewritten as:

"Ticks me off, you goin' clubbin' like that every night."

"That's silly! I only go to dance and hang out with the girls."

"Fred saw you sittin' with a jerk from Accountin'. Why?"

In that example, Tom tends not to say the "g" at the end of words. He also likes to use shorter, more gutteral sounding sentences. Jane uses more complete sentences and a more formal speech pattern.

Another way to identify speakers is to have them name one another, as in "Oh Tom, you're always saying things like that."

You can also illustrate who is speaking indirectly, by showing actions they take while they're speaking, such as "Tom picked at his fingernails." right before he says something.

You can also hide clues in the context of the characters' speech, such as "Being the chief of police has its advantages, eh?" If three characters are speaking and only one is the chief of police, you know who they're talking to. It's also likely that the next person to speak will be that "chief of police" character. These little clues help the reader figure out who is talking, who's listening, etc., without having to explicitly use the words "he said", "she uttered", "she asked", etc.

For example, another way you might rewrite the original scene:

He gritted his teeth. "Ticks me off, you goin' clubbin' every night, Jane."

"Oh, Tommy! I only go to dance and hang out with my girlfriends."

"Fred saw you sittin' with a jerk from Accountin'. Why?"

In the first line, we know the speaker is male, and he is talking to Jane, even if we don't know who that speaker is. In the next line, Jane tells us it's Tom. Now that we've established that Tom and Jane are talking, the third and subsequent lines can just deliver dialog until someone new enters the conversation or an existing speaker leaves.

(My examples above aren't intended to be great writing, just quick illustrations to get the point across.)

Stackpole also shared suggestions for making scenes and dialog do "double duty" and explained the importance of researching the topics you write about. During the seminar, he recommended authors whose work provides good examples of different areas of fiction writing, such as dialogue, plotting, characterization, and

At his seminars, Stackpole sells CD-ROMs which contain PDF (Adobe Reader) files. I purchased the disc for this particular seminar. The PDF contains the 5 rules Stackpole discussed in the seminar, along with another 15. The disc also contains a copy of a back issue of his "The Secrets" newsletter that covers "timely and classic" writing issues. For example, his June 19, 2009, issue (122) discussed how to prepare documents for the Amazon Kindle device

I'm looking forward to attending Stackpole's seminars at Gen Con Indy 2009 in August and wish him continued success in his career.

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