I can hardly believe I’ve gone this long without devoting a blog to perspective and the respective strengths of the available approaches. The point of perspective is the window through which the reader views the world you create and so it is worth some consideration.

I’ve mentioned before that, when building investment in characters, much of the audience has limited attention/patience. The magic number for characters to engage a reader’s emotional investment is seven but that’s not to limit how many characters you write. Not every reader is going to engage with every character, as a group they should be diverse in their outlooks and personalities to create a dynamic series of relationships and interactions.

First up, First Person. So, when writing in first person perspective you are the character. The attraction of FPP is putting your reader in the MC’s shoes, to ‘feel’ what they feel and see the world through their eyes. Via their perceptions you can influence the reader so, when they respond to a stimulus, the reader shares their responses. Commonly FPP is featured in investigation narratives, crime stories and the like, when you’re limiting the information the reader receives to fall inline with what the investigators are learning. But, writing from a character’s perspective doesn’t mean you have to restrict yourself to writing from one character’s perspective. In order to increase the reader’s emotional investment, to vilify the villain, it often serves to write from the point of view of a victim, whether it’s a kidnap plot or a murder, a citizen on a far planet suffering under an unjust dictator. Gareth Powell, in his Embers of War trilogy, writes first person perspectives for some, but not all, his characters, including the Spaceship and the alien engineer. He doesn’t write as every character, but a selection of mains, in the second book (I’m reading the third at time of writing) there are a total of seven perspectives through the book. Jim Butcher, in his Dresden Files series, reserves writing from the PoV of characters other that Harry Dresden for his accompanying short-stories. Maria V. Snyder’s Study series, The Chronicles of Ixia, drops the reader into a vibrant fantasy world without holding their hand and feeds information to the reader in a steady, almost infuriating drip.

Second Person Perspective was, at one time, a rarely used PoV restricted to ‘choose your own adventure’ books but there is a growing body of work in the mainstream market. What distinguishes Second from First Person perspective is, rather than using ‘I’ the author, in prose, uses ‘You’. Also the entire piece is written in present tense, everything happening to the MC happens ‘now’. Of course, with Second Person, any deviation to write from another PoV could be quite a jarring experience for the reader. To my mind it’s also the hardest perspective to use, which is why I don’t. Personally I’d rather be wrestling over the most evocative way to describe a scene than wrangling every sentence into present tense.

Third Person offers the most scope for observing the characters around the setting. Dan Abnett’s Gaunt’s Ghosts, military SF set in the Warhammer 40k universe, David Weber’s Honour Harrington series. Stories with a larger cast or where events that don’t directly involve the MC that the reader still benefits from knowing about. Some of my favourite sections from the Camelot Trilogy to write were of the Antagonist Morgana le Fay. I won’t apologise for revelling in writing my villains, it’s always satisfying to set them up for an inevitable fall. Third Person lets you follow multiple characters with minimal disruption to the reading experience.

One of my goals as a writer is to submerge the reader in my stories, to get them involved, immersed in the story they are reading. With that in mind I’ve been writing in first person and I’ve tried, while building the respective MC’s personalities, to write from a point of gender neutrality so as to immerse the reader more completely. It’s a risk, gender identity is widely considered a foundation stone of a character’s identity, but why? It’s just another form of stereotype. By identifying the gender of a character there’s an expectation of certain modes of behaviour, subgroups and categories they might adhere to. In bypassing this step I’ve had to make an extra effort to establish the character personality, to stamp their identity in the reader’s awareness. I’ve also gone to lengths, in my space adventure story, to step away from our established gender binary. As my wonderfully insightful editor noted in an outburst worthy of Doctor Bob at the outset, alien species are unlikely to share our biology, why would they share our binary and our societal expectations of gender at all? I’m not exactly knowledgeable enough in the realms of theoretical xeno-biology to delve too deeply but I’ve made a few reasonable references and attempted to minimise use of the he/she pronoun in favour of they as a singular pronoun (the use in which it originally evolved alongside ‘thou’, ‘thine’ and ‘ye’ and ‘yous’).

Writing fiction or fantasy is a blank-slate for exploring other ways of being. Other ways of existing and structuring societies and roles. Why then are so many based in known cultural, societal or gender defined examples? Largely it’s for familiarity, the more familiar the audience is with the setting the less the author has to explain. World building and exposition are most often blamed for slowing the pace but there’s no reason that they can’t be compelling in themselves. As I’ve said before, increasing representation is also important though I’d hesitate to ascribe existing terms used by the trans or non-binary communities to an ‘alien’ race. Even for the purpose of normalising pronouns such as Xe, or Xir the trans community have enough trouble being labelled as ‘other’ by hard-line conservatives without being labelled ‘alien’ by having their terms used for fictional races. It’s another subject I’d have to research at much greater depth and one that is most likely divisive in its own right.

For the time being, as a writer, I support in the ways I know I can. Normalising ‘they’ as a singular pronoun and increasing representation for marginalised communities to the best of my ability.

Hello again! I know it’s been a few weeks but some of the subjects I’d been thinking of blogging about where a lot bigger than I was really prepared for. So I’ve decided to go back to basics for a bit and today I’ll be talking about Writing Exercises.

Firstly, what’s the point of doing writing exercises? Surely it just eats up time you could be devoting to your WiP? Well sure, if you do it excessively, but just like any exercise the goal is to improve. Writing exercises are contained opportunities to step out of your routine, your preferred style, maybe even your comfort zone. On Twitter I often see people engaged daily in specific exercises. Commonly someone shares a picture with a ‘Write a Story in two sentences’ caption. This is a lesson centred around sentence structure and use of language, a lesson in conveying the maximum message with a minimum of words. Of course, in this case there is the accompanying image and that can do a significant amount of scene setting, laying the groundwork for you. Another one I see is the ‘Word of the day’ challenge, the writer is given a word and tasked with building a short narrative around it.

Social media is, in itself a form of writing exercise. We post, arranging words and conveying meaning and recounting events and feelings. As I said before, the very purpose of these exercises is to take you away from your WiP, to refresh, re-enervate and reassess how you structure and use language. Even this blog is a writing exercise, I communicate my thoughts and experiences to you in what is, hopefully, a engaging and entertaining manner.

Any brief search of the internet will get you reams of options, lists of exercises to suit you. Writing in a different style, from a different perspective, the top result when I searched gave me these eight options from Masterclass.com:

8 Creative Writing Exercises

• Let your stream of consciousness run. Start with a blank page. …
• Switch up a story’s POV. …
• Use creative writing prompts. …
• Write a letter to your younger self. …
• Write flash fiction. …
• Write a fake advertisement. …
• Borrow someone else’s story and make it your own. …
• Try blogging.

So, what do I do? Well apart from the blogging which you’ve already been reading I have stumbled into a new exercise. Not long ago I joined a Fantasy Football League, not in the traditional sense. I mean really fantasy football. Games Workshops Blood Bowl on Steam to be precise. Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Goblins all the classic fantasy races plus a few, slugging it out in turn based strategy sports fun. So, how does this become a writing exercise? Well, while we do stream our matches on our Discord channel, for those who miss the games I write an after action report. I try to do it in the vein of a fantasy sports commentator so as to really entertain and sharing it on our group Facebook page. I have to say it is fun. It’s very likely that the Leagues will continue even after the Covid situation resolves (however long that may take) and maybe, once the next season starts, as well as doing my own games I’ll do the others too (some of the players write their own and I’ll leave those to them).

By writing under the guise of a sportscaster, reporting events I have only a little control over I’m actually improving my grasp of writing action scenes involving multiple contributors. I’m also building a team based narrative via the on-pitch events and (should I start writing for the other games) I’ll be able to generate an inter-team narrative for the overall season which will help me to multi-layer my plots. I envision rivalries between players on the same team, vendetta’s and grudges between players in different teams and between teams themselves. The game becomes a basis I can write around without having to dedicate a large measure of my concentration to conceptualising the events I’m depicting.

When choosing an exercise it’s important to consider what aspects of your writing you think need improving. Practising things you’re already good at is kinda self-defeating if you don’t attempt to improve in those areas you are lacking. In analysing yourself for those weak areas you are also increasing your self-awareness (which is a healthy thing to do) and by accepting that you do have flaws you can work to improve those areas before they come under scrutiny. Entering into these writing exercises should be a break from your ongoing work, a refresher, it should be fun and challenging.

It’s been over a fortnight since my last Blog. I haven’t really had the wherewithal to come up with an entry, what with watching the world tumble down around us. Watching the organisations of authority buck against the calls of the marginalised for them to be held to account for their abuses of power. The roll-backs in social progressive legislation, the ‘revelations’ of nepotism, favouritism and widespread corruption taking place daily in the upper echelons of the western world.

This is all largely UK-centric, I’m trying to keep abreast of wider events in the States and Europe but ebb-and-flow of information can be at once overwhelming, misleading and draining. So, what I would like to do in this blog is touch, briefly, on various social factors and constructs that writers can use and, potentially, briefly visit those that are in play today with a few side-notes on how they are misused.

Most of us are familiar with the concept of Democracy. Elected bodies chosen by the population at large based on a plan of governance that suites the majority. Supposedly the system that we in the UK and the States live under. The emergent impression I have, though, is this. While the Conservatives and Republicans hold up this Democratic ideal as ‘what we have/you voted for’, it’s becoming more and more apparent that ‘Democracy’ is just a sham, a smokescreen that they use to hide the idea that they are manipulating the vote to retain power. Gerrymandering (that is manipulating the boundaries of electorate districts to control the outcome of a vote) allows these bodies to win any election on a minority under the ‘First Past the Post’ system as opposed to a proportional representation system. The very idea that ‘every vote counts’ hinges on everyone who is able to vote doing so, it doesn’t account for voter apathy and we haven’t even touched on vote rigging.

Totalitarianism, that is to say Communism, is supposedly the antithesis of the Democratic world. The idea that a government can do what it wants, when it wants to who it wants without regulation or opposition is horrific but, as we’ve seen with the institutionalised oppression of ethnic minorities, the LGBTQ+ communities and, even the inequalities between men and women in the workplace, isn’t that what we have? Dystopian fictions often feature brute squads of government or party Stormtroopers knocking down doors and dragging away dissidents or political opposition but, as has been made clear in UK politics in the last few years, you don’t need to go so far. The right-wing press acted as the Tories stormtroopers to undermine the opposition leadership. This manifestation of Totalitarian Idealism has blunted the social progressionist position of the Left, made it seem unpopular and pushed the opposition party back toward the centre. Totalitarianism is about total control and, whether by force or coercion (whichever suits your narrative purpose better) there are numerous historical and fictional examples to draw on. Starship Troopers was Robert A. Heinlein’s take on militarism and Paul Verhoeven’s film satirizes the Totalitarian/Fascist elements of the original work. Other well-executed examples are 2002’s Equilibrium by Kurt Wimmer and Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta (A Totalitarian Theocracy, a two-fer).

Socialism, widely touted by Right-wing scaremongers as ‘Communism’, is an extension of Marxist Communism. In this case the ‘Commune’ before the ‘ism is a stateless, classless social organisation of mutual support and common ownership. The socialism we espouse today isn’t that. The NHS, a health body established to care for the entire population, free at point of use, paid for by individual tax contributions is rooted in a progressive socialist move by Nye Bevan and Clement Attlee. The idea that healthcare be provided to all regardless of wealth. Gene Roddenberry’s StarTrek is a socialist setting. It’s full of politics, intrigue, espionage and, from time to time, features stories of avarice and abuse of power but, importantly, the Earth that counts amongst the membership of Starfleet works on a moniless system where everyone is provided for. The ideal is that Healthcare, Education and Social Support for those that find themselves out of/unable to work is all in place, that corporations contribute evenly, which leads us to…

Capitalism. I used to number among those who believed that Capitalism was a system whereby you worked in order to earn a fair wage and, the harder you worked or the better your job/qualification the more you were entitled to earn. Oh how wrong I was. Here’s the Oxford Dictionaries definition;

“an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.”

Which runs hand-in-hand with Commercialism or the emphasis on maximising profit. I’m not sure there’s even a word for my belief beyond ‘boundless optimism’. Just to be clear, if you work a job, you’re not a capitalist, you just ultimately work for one. Capitalism itself puts no emphasis on morality. While Capitalism itself isn’t a system of government it is its interaction with government that proves most telling. Capitalist greed goes so well alongside political corruption. Only this week it has emerged a Tory housing minister used his position to alter planning allocation so as to benefit a party contributor to the tune of £50 million in tax savings. What did this cost the private citizen and construction mogul? A mere £14k. So, while a common citizen defying planning and erecting a structure without permission faces having the building demolished, court fees and a hefty fine, all a construction company has to do is drop a fairly megre donation into the government and they can do whatever they like. In 1993’s Demolition Man, Sandra Bullock’s character mentions the ‘Franchise Wars’ which resulted in all restaurants being Taco Bell’s, in Jason X there is a reference to the ‘Microsoft Conflict’ which always titillated me with visions of a story world where affiliation was not to country or party but to Brand.

Of course then there are options in fantasy worlds for Theocracies, a state run by Church, I’ve come across the phrase ‘Magocracy’ which is state run by wizards/mages and Monarchies. Possibly less-known but perfectly suited for Sci-Fi is the Technocracy or a state run by scientist/experts and that one has me at the moment.

How much better might it be if, rather than overstuffed products of the accumulation of hereditary wealth and privilege, our society was guided by people who actually study the aspects of society they are giver oversight of? The leaders of the Brexit Campaign loudly declaimed that ‘The People have had enough of Experts!’ well, guess what? Now one of those men is our PM and, in the face of the Covid19 pandemic, he’s flagrantly ignoring the experts. He doesn’t even attend the Cobra Meetings (safety briefings presenting expert advice) for the situation anymore. What if our economy was overseen by Economists? What if Health and Education was actually guided by people with experience in those areas rather than over-privileged Private School boys whose reason for becoming politicians was the prospect of an over-paid consultancy once they’d ‘served’ a few years?

At some point I might experiment with a story based within a Technocracy but, and this is important and a theme I’ve been struggling with recently, I wouldn’t want to reflect badly on the setting. I mean, currently I’m writing a property where the goal is to tear down the whole rotten, corrupt shooting match. The antagonists are (although not set yet) to my mind extreme left-wing fundamentalists. They’ve become sickened by the strangle-hold of Corporate White Privilege and decided that the only way forward is its absolute and rapid destruction. The arc is driven by my own frustration that, after more than a century of social progression we’re not in a better place. Inequality built on race, gender or economic standing is throttling our potential. How many advances in medicine, technology or ecological sciences have been missed because the mind that could have made them was Black, or Femme, or Poor? But what light does that cast Left-Wing, Socialist Progressives in? Am I hurting my position by writing a book that threatens complete annihilation on the Establishment? Am I over-thinking the entire situation because the book is only likely to attract leftist socialists? Very simply put, you can’t please everyone all the time and a little controversy can be good for sales but I don’t think it’s a sales route I want to go too far down.

This was never meant to be a political blog but, with truth today being stranger and more savage than fiction and with the White House Approved violence currently tearing through the States I couldn’t not put ‘pen to paper’ about what’s going on.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

–Constitution of the United States of America

The American identity hinges so much on cherry-picked ideals that are touted again and again throughout politics and media that, whilst the gory details of the rise of the Union aren’t exactly suppressed, they are certainly overshadowed by them.

“The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave,”

– The Star-Spangled Banner

Not-so-much when you’re a white colonialist facing down the indigenous aboriginal people with the help of black-powder technology and an immunity to smallpox on your side. Or now, when you’re an armed officer of the administration, tasked with upholding the law, given license by a clinical narcissist to shoot unarmed protesters or send your white-supremacist buddies (also officers) out in masks to commit property damage so you can justify shooting unarmed protesters.

“Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

– Declaration of Independence

Likewise the pursuit of chasing photo-ops so that your armed, civil law-enforcement Department is identified with the Miami or Jersey PD who took a knee in fellowship with the protesters only to employ tear gas and so-called ‘mercy’ rounds once the camera’s are gone, a reported tactic in New York and Oregon. Like the POTUS himself chasing a photo-op outside a church (in a pose very much mirroring pictures of other fascist leaders hiding behind religious scriptures, Saddam Hussain and Adolf Hitler) after having the secret-service orchestrate a coordinated strike against protesters outside the White House itself.

 “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.“

“This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.“

– Abraham Lincoln

How did a nation that fought and won (but also lost) a civil war against slavery then kill the civil rights movement for people of colour for a hundred years? Of course the white colonialists and slave-masters thought they were a superior (though morally bankrupt) species to the African tribes people they harvested like so much cotton and used as a disposable resource. And , you know what? The rich, white powers that be still seem to think like that.

Al Jazeera reports that Black Americans make up Thirteen Percent of the population and yet, on average they are two-and-a-half times as likely to be shot by police or die in police custody. In Nevada black people make up ten percent of police related fatalities. The Guardian investigation The Counted, created a database of the One-Thousand-and-Ninety Three Americans killed by police in 2015, that’s three-a-day but the body-count of unarmed Black Civilians killed by the ‘Serve and Protect’ police forces, sheriffs departments and state troopers of America is another fact-of-life that dates back to the execution of slaves in the cotton-fields.

The modern dystopia that is America and the developed, so-called ‘civilised’ west is an increasingly unstable state of commercialist, nationalist and fascist  ‘Us versus Them’ and, the rich and privileged, those hording wealth and influence at the cost of the environment, the economy and the quality of life of the rest of us are hell-bent on fostering divisions of race rather than facing up to the hellscape that their greed and inability to engage with the lives of regular, everyday, empathic people is fostering.

When the masses stand up and say ‘No more!’ the only things that stand between the rich and the poor are the civil defence organisations, the police and national guard and their money. To date those forces have used non-lethal measures but the Cheeto-in-Chief has been feeding the qualities that fascists and bigots thrive on, labelling Antifa as a ‘Terrorist Organisation’ and what does that say about his administration?

How did we arrive at a point where the reality is worse than the fiction? In a time of global pandemic, the resurgence of the fascists that were supposedly defeated in WW2 and increasing economic and racial inequality we’ve learned that one man can actually make a difference. To our horror that man was Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis Police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck until he suffocated, a man arrested, peacefully, for trying to pass a fake $20 bill. The people have stood up and said ‘No More’ and the picture that has emerged is one of rampant racism, opportunism and totalitarianism among the ‘Peace-Officers’ of the ‘Grand Old’ US-of-A. The police and national guard firing rubber-rounds at press and protester alike and even the heroes of last week, the medical professionals so lauded for their work against Covid-19 are now firmly in the gun-sights of the gun-ho guardians of the establishment.

#BlackLivesMatter

Well, that’s understandable. As I’ve said before being actively representative of cultures, orientations and lifestyles that aren’t your own demands research, time and, even then, you open yourself up to a world of criticism. You don’t have to be J.K. Rowling retroactively claiming LGBT representation to line yourself up for accusations of cultural-appropriation, tokenism, stereotyping or other things. So, if you’re not ready to go all out what can you do? Today I want to talk to you, not about representation, or even normalisation of LGBT or Trans people, today I want to talk about the day-to-day ways writers actively exclude the members of these communities without even thinking about it.

So, one of the biggest concerns I have with my current WiP’s is that my so-called ‘diversity’ characters will be seen as ‘token’. I also tend to over-think how I’m bringing awareness of those characters to the audience. Signposting is like begging for a pat on the head and a cookie so I want the whole thing to feel natural. I’m never going to write a ground-breaking Science Fiction centred around gender and sexual fluidity or the experience of trans people because it’s not my experience. In all my writing I want to write characters and if some of them happen to be queer or gender-fluid or trans it’s in no way intended as a gimmick, a joke or an attention grab. ‘Mainstream’ media is still predominantly CIS, Het and White and that is one pale palette to draw from, especially if you’re writing Fantasy or Sci-Fi.

So, how does a humble writer unknowingly exclude whole groups without trying? I’ve written before of the pitfalls of ‘Stereo-Types’, using the ‘everybody knows’ image of a certain ethnicity as a short-cut is how we ended up with Marlon Wayans as ‘Snails’ in the 2000 Dungeons and Dragons movie, personally I’d rather aim for Morgan Freeman in Robinhood: Prince of Thieves, wouldn’t you? When it comes to LGBT and Trans exclusionary language in writing there are a couple of common instances that I want to talk about.

The first is a mainstay expression in all sorts of historical fiction, fantasy and science-fiction, especially in gathering scenes and crowd addresses, big speeches and banquets. I am, of course, referring to the idiomatic phrase “Ladies and Gentlemen”, you’re basically excluding anyone who doesn’t fall or count themselves in the traditional gender-binary and it’s unnecessary. We fall to it’s use because it’s seen as polite and it’s common but, as I said before, completely unnecessary. “Assembled/Honoured guests”, “Fellow warriors/Warriors of…”, “Esteemed counsellors/ambassadors”. Tailor the phrase to the situation but leave gender out of it. Whatever you do don’t just tag “and others” onto the end. How would you feel being an ‘And other’? It treats the entire spectrum of non-CIS identity as an afterthought.

The second is the ongoing argument that ‘they’ cannot be used as a singular, non-gendered term of reference, which is absolute tosh. According to the Oxford dictionary the first singular form of ‘They’ was in a 1375 poem, William and the Werewolf. Employing ‘they’ is a way to normalise a none-gendered pronoun, you can also create a situation where a characters gender-identity is more abstract allowing the reader to introduce their identity in it’s place. Especially when writing Science-Fiction or Fantasy, the idea of forcing a two-dimensional gender binary on mythic or alien cultures and creatures is, frankly, ridiculous. So, maybe you want to employ that as a filter for your representation, one word of advice, don’t us ‘it’ as a pronoun. ‘It’ is beyond dehumanising. Non-gendered pronouns are on the rise so, with some research, it *might* be acceptable to use carefully chose examples to normalise their use. Pronouns like xe, xim or xer. Bear in mind that these pronouns are deeply personal to some people so, like I said, research first.

Coding, oh my word, coding. One of the biggest faults in a lot of modern media is queer-coding villains. Employing effete or stereo-typically ‘queer’ personality traits to the bad guy is a reinforcement that what is different is bad. It’s like enforcing the stereotype that African-Americans are criminals, or that Mexicans are lazy or that people from Norfolk have webbed toes because of incest. It’s cheap, it’s low and, a lot of the time, it’s done without thinking. whether in parody or homage to earlier work. The fact that it’s know as ‘coding’ is a reference to the Comics Code Authority of the 1950’s and early 60’s America. Conservative groups putting pressure on what could acceptably be included in media with a focus on sexuality and gender roles. So the practice of having characters present as gay, using mannerisms and modes of dress recognised by the community, without ever clearly stating that they were was a way to fly under the radar but, more often than not, it was used as a way to present a character as decadent, different or ‘bad’.

Something the Borderlands game series has done is to casually drop in representation in in some of it’s background dialogue. Okay the main characters may not be defined either way but the games are littered with echotapes of male voices pleading for their husbands or female voices referring to their wives. Okay it’s limited, but it’s there and it’s a great queue for the rest of us. The puritan Victorians are largely responsible for much of the ‘conservative’ censure we see today and, over recent history there has been much in the way of erasure of LGBTQ acknowledgement, culture and history. The Nazis took over the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (or Institute of Sexology) of Berlin. An institute studying sexual and gender identity, researching early medical transition procedures and promoting emancipation for women, sex education and  LGBT rights and tolerance. Wth the rise of the fascist right the institutes library of twenty-thousand books, studies and reports was burned. But, let’s not forget that, after the war ended, when the Jews were released from the concentration camps, thousands of gay and trans people were kept locked up by the allied forces for their ‘perversion’.

So, while outright representation might be a step too far for some writers, what is important from the outset is to be aware of exclusionary language. Try to broaden your scope, even if it’s outside your experience, do it among the supporting cast. The variety of the human experience should not be limited to CIS, White, Het, there’s a whole kaleidoscope out there to reference and, as much as it brings variety to a writers work it might also help to make someone else’s life a little brighter, either by familiarising the majority or by allowing them to feel ‘seen’.

So, anyone following this blog regularly will have taken note that the entries have been… sporadic of late. Well, much as I’ve been encouraging you all to stay positive and not worry too much about being productive under these uncertain circumstances I’m afraid to say that I’m guilty of not taking my own advice.

I finally got down and managed a significant progression with one of my ongoing pieces yesterday, after weeks of managing very little. I’ve used pretty much every internal and external excuse I have in an attempt to assuage my own guilt. If it wasn’t for an actual contract that has come my way I wouldn’t have written anything of any substance since the beginning of the lock-down and yet here I am trying to coax, convince and reassure you.

I mean, usually I have my place to myself during the day and now, during the lock-down, there is an excess of distracting persons in ‘my workspace’. Granted they’re trying to work to but still, distracting. Luckily my ‘income’ isn’t relied upon, the dynamic at home is flexible so I procrastinate. I do dishes and housework, I make tea and lunches, I game and watch YouTube videos, all to distract myself from the fact that I’m. Not. Working. It’s only now that I’ve started neglecting my blog that I’m doing something about it (and also with encouragement from my partner).

So, why aren’t I able to be as creative in this at atmosphere? Well, in reading and article on Vox.com (linked by Writing about Writing on Facebook) I’m conveniently reminded that anxiety effects concentration. It doesn’t matter if you don’t think that you’re anxious about this situation, I certainly didn’t, but anxiety doesn’t care what you think it just is. The big thing about anxiety is that the human brain is not designed to be anxious all the time. Anxiety is like a pre-cursor to the ‘Fight or Flight’ reflex, it’s the ‘something is wrong’ warm-up band before the main event. Being in a state of anxiety  for half-an hour is a drain on the body and we’ve been at different levels of anxiety (but constant anxiety none-the-less) for weeks now, no wonder our creativity has suffered. Whether I’m aware of it or not I’m constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. The next dumb idea from the government or to display symptoms because I’ve somehow picked this thing up on one of my brief forays into the outside world.

Well, this situation isn’t going to change anytime soon. I’m not going to get my daily isolation back and I doubt the anxiety, whether I think I feel it or not, is going to go away. so I have to adapt to my situation just as I’m encouraging you to do. But you also have to have an understanding that you might not be able to achieve large chunks of work, you might have to moderate your expectations.

So, next week I’ll actually try and write something with a bit more bearing on actual writing but, for now, be kind to yourselves and stay safe.

 

A couple of blogs ago there was a request for more in-depth advice so here’s a blog about the things I’ve learned to keep in mind while creating and constructing my stories, in fact, let’s create a hypothetical novel together!

First up, concept. A strong concept is the core of any story, whatever genre you’re writing you want to come up with an elevator pitch, a short, punchy way of selling your story to readers or publishers. You might think it’s early days to be thinking about that kind of thing but (even though it might change in the writing) having that defined core concept that encompasses the theme and narrative of where your story’s going and what it’s about in a concise paragraph can really help you when you get stuck. So, let’s pick a genre, how about… Post-Apoc. As a genre Post-Apoc can encompass elements of Sci-fi, Horror, Thriller and others so it’s a nice catch-all for this example.

Once you have a genre you can pick a setting which will inform the cultures, customs and conventions you’re going to be working with and building around. Now it’s no surprise that Western culture dominates the fiction scene, the English speaking and reading market is huge. But it’s also common for western writers to draw on other cultures as inspiration. It’s also common for western writers to get it horribly wrong and inadvertently insult the very culture they’re sourcing so research is key at this point. Of course you can also distil new cultures from existing examples. This works through fantasy and sci-fi as well. Your setting wants to be distinctive and, whether that’s achieved by drawing on a few choice elements and exaggerating/manipulating them or starting the whole build from scratch, that can be one of the hardest parts.

Once you have a landscape and society it’s time to populate if with factions. Something to remember while you work on the ongoing story is to give some thought to what these groups are doing while your protagonists are following their story arc. The simple fact is that, no matter how wide or tight the focus on the MC’s is there are going to be events taking place outside of their scope that will effect their journey. The widest scope would be the meta-plot, this concerns what will often be background events in the world or wider universe. It could be the progress of a military campaign, viral outbreak or environmental crisis, it can encompass the higher authorities reactions to that situation. Then there are the immediate plot elements. The situation your characters find themselves in and the characters they then interact with to resolve their situation.  These are the events that they face on their ‘journey’ be that literal or figurative. Alongside this there is the inter-character dynamic. Whatever external dangers or stresses the characters face their reactions ought to have some impact on their immediate social group and relationships. Now, no matter how wide-scale or dramatic the plot, it’s how it effects the characters that keeps the audience reading.

No matter where your characters fall in the hierarchy all these events will have their impact (who knew that Luke Skywalker would end up bringing down the Empire?). So, whether you’re following ‘the Chosen One’ or the Chief of the Tribe or the Warlord of the Wastes they should be working against and around both the external and internal influences of these plots and sub-plots. The Chief might be preparing for a war against another, aggressive tribe over dwindling water supplies but that doesn’t mean they don’t also have to deal with rebellious teenage offspring desperate to prove their own worth in the face of the oncoming conflict. The leader of that aggressive tribe ought to have a deeper motivation too. Fun as it can be to have a baddy bad-guy who’s bad because they just are, that’s selling to the Pulp crowd and if that’s you’re market you go at it. Of course, if you want to sell your work to the broader market you need antagonists with a little more motive than that.

So, setting, story and characters are prepared, now you’ve got to actually write it. So, a few notes on that.

• Voice; whatever page you turn to, whatever you’re reading should be happening ‘now’. Present tense and active voice at all times (unless it’s a recollection from the MC’s PoV).
• Cause and Effect; It’s always good to include foreshadowing and plot hooks for later but only if they come to something. You may be aiming to write a whole series but that doesn’t mean each book can neglect some form of satisfying resolution. The best multi-layered plots introduce the meta-plot over time alongside a plot-line that can and is resolved over the course of a single book.
• Pacing; Beginning, Middle and End is all well and good but, as a writer you should be thinking in terms of ‘Exposition, introduction, intensify, resolve, intensify, climax, resolution. The characters meet a situation or peril, find some way to survive or resolve the immediate threat but then an influence from the meta-plot intensifies the danger they face in a different way. It’s about increasing the drama, stepping up the danger and urgency. Think of your book like a roller-coaster, you set-up the story in the first chapter or two, that’s the climb, then there’s the drop and the loops and the brief level sections and slow downs, another climb and then the big loop-de-loop before the end.
• Your characters are people too; let the story influence them. One of the most disappointing things to encounter in fiction is characters who don’t learn or develop over time. I calls into question the point of the whole adventure/ordeal. Self-discovery is at the core of fiction, by exploring the effect of events upon a character the reader is prompted to ask ‘What would I do in that situation?’

So, external influences, metaplots, character development, cause-and-effect, resolutions and active voice. That’s my advice to step up your writing and satisfy your audience. So, keep at it, stay creative (or don’t, be kind to yourself) and be safe.

I’ve said it before, art cannot exist in a vacuum but I’m sure, for many of you out there, that’s how you feel right now. Cut-off, quarantined, isolated. That’s not just going to affect your creativity but your mental health so let’s start there.

In my previous blog I talked about ways to maintain social contact as a means to maintain your mental well-being. That’s very important, how can you be creative if you’re stressed or depressed? So many of us have been walking a tightrope of stress for so long, living hand-to-mouth as wages fail to match inflation, struggling to save against emergencies, Politics, Brexit, Family and now… now on top of that we have Covid19. You may or may not realize if you’re succumbing to stress, it can be insidious like that but, aside from being unable to motivate or feeling fatigued you can watch for physical signs. Your skin is a good indicator, anything from breakouts to stress-induced dermatitis or eczema. So, before you put pressure on yourself to create, make sure you’re taking care of yourself.

So, you’re in lock-down and you’re ready to write but your struggling with ‘inspiration’. Again, something I’ve said before, routine trumps inspiration but, you’re routine has likely been interrupted so it’s time to set down a new one. You can read or watch films or books to stir the pot (I’d warn against binging a full series, that way procrastination lies) as long as you are mindful of how much you are being influenced by the works of others. If that fails you use your daily scheduled time to do something that will produce a result. Draw, bake, pick up that musical instrument that’s been sitting in the corner since you bought it, the important part is to encourage that sense of achieving. At this point I’d warn against games, as much as there is narrative and progress and achievement it’s less tangible than, say, baking a cake (and baking is a skill you can take with you anywhere).

I mean, much as it initially sounds hypocritical, the worst thing you can do is to put too much pressure on yourself to write but it’s all about context. If you sit staring at a blank  screen mentally flagellating yourself for not writing then you’ll suffer in the long-run. If you sit, can’t get started and go off and bake some cupcakes and feel a sense of achievement in that then it’s a far healthier outcome that will bring you closer to getting writing again (and now I want cupcakes).

Again, creativity stems from mental wellbeing, and, as much as I can share advice of my own experiences only you can truly say what you need. And it’s important to understand what’s meant by mental wellbeing. You can write when you’re happy, sad, angry, horny,  in every case having emotion to hand makes the writing better. It’s not a case of right  or wrong emotions, it’s about being mentally healthy and having the emotional energy to put into your work. It’s true that, in the past, I’ve spent weeks in my own self-dug creative hole feeling like I could never finish the current WiP, but I did and maybe, with advice like this I would’ve got there sooner. It’s true you shouldn’t pressure yourself to write but you should do something similar, to energize your creativity and give you a boost. I’ve spent far too much time laid out on a sofa in my robe to let you do the same.

For those of you who follow my blog then it comes as no surprise to know that I have been effectively practising for social isolation for the past two years. Ever since I chose to start writing full-time in fact. Now, due to the Covid19 crisis, and in an effort to assist any of you who might be struggling I’m going to share my observations about staying sane in isolation.

Now, while my close friends have joked about my life ‘as a hermit’ I am not, in fact, a total recluse. I have my family around me and, of late I’ve struggled in my productivity because they are around me that much more. I know, it’s odd right? The thing is, when I’m writing I cultivate a comfortable atmosphere that suits me and, while I’m being mindful of my impact on others in the space, I cannot tailor it exactly to my wants and so, this past week and a half, I have had to learn and adapt that environment to work for all of us, not just me.

So, my particular situation aside, many of you are missing your daily interactions, face to face meetings, the commute maybe/maybe not and those familiar aspects of your daily routine and that’s the crux of it, Routine. While your home surroundings are, in a sense, familiar to you, the enforced confinement has interrupted your routine, so it’s time to make a new one. While, at times, I’ve felt inclined to indulge myself and stay in bed or blow off a day it’s these first few weeks where you, as a newly established hermit, have to set the routine and stick to it.

I can recognise the symptoms some of my friends are complaining about online, lethargy, anxiety, inability to tell the days apart. When you remove the traditional working week (and let’s face it, a lot of people are discovering that they can work from home, that those meetings could have been emails) then you have to make a greater effort to recognise and enforce societies structure of time upon yourself.

Whether you are actively working from home or are in another situation you should maintain a pattern to your day. Rise, wash, coffee/tea, breakfast, housework. You need a rhythm, think of your life as a piece of music, without rhythm all you have is chaos. So it is important when you get up and that sets the boundaries of when you go to bed. Falling back into adolescent forms of haphazard sleep patterns is completely beyond my own bodies ability to adapt to and you have to ask yourself whether you can do it anymore.

Beyond the day, setting out a routine for the week is important. Exercise on particular days, whilst the regular activities of meeting friends, family and colleagues and, even shopping, are restricted there are other options. Telephone and video calls can take their place. Put on the kettle, make a brew and Skype or Discord your friends. I know how expensive video calls can be so use the free messenger service alternatives. I know it restricts what formats can be used and where they can be used from but, it’s not like we’re getting out much are we?

I’ve said before how tragic it is that, in the age when we have all this technology to connect us, we seem more distant than ever. I can tell you, from experience that, as good as a few ‘likes’ on your status can feel, it’s the passing satisfaction of a bag of popcorn when compared to the cooked meal of a face-to-face conversation even via the medium of a camera. If you’re truly isolated you might reason that others have their own problems right now and it might not be the time to call or message them. Ignore yourself, isolation is like quicksand, it can, at times, drag you down. You have to be aware of your emotional health at times like this and, if you find yourself trying to talk yourself out of talking to someone else, it might be all the more reason you need to do so.

So, virtual coffee house meet-ups, online gaming, Face-time jam sessions. Now is the time to employ the technology we’ve been handed. It’s time to read those books, learn that instrument, finish that game or that piece of art and, more than ever, it’s time to share that experience with the people close to you. We all need to give each other a boost in this difficult period and, when that call comes in, take it. If you are busy then say so but make the effort to reschedule and actually reschedule. Not the vague, ‘I’ll call you back sometime’, set a time, have the conversation. Humans are social animals and, in this time of social distancing we have to find ways to continue being so.

Talk to each other people.