More Lessons

Okay, Predators was pretty good. Adrian Brody surprisingly sold me on the tough guy merc character.

Now for more lessons learned from Writing Excuses.

Episode 7: Villians

• What makes a good villain?
• Understandable, has something in common with the readers
• Sometimes has flaws, but not always
• Exploits the hero's flaws
• Everyman villain vs. superman villian
• Superman villain is a force of nature, everyman villain is interesting
• Struggle against an all powerful evil is part of us all, but its not necessarily interesting
• Are you looking for an interesting conflict or an interesting villian?
• All powerful villains don't have the connection or the possibility of redemption
• How do you make a flawed, likable villian?
• Make it a hero with opposing goals
• Make it a person in the hero's party who doesn't succeed because of some flaw ex "Boromir"
• Heroes overcome their flaws, villains are overcome BY their flaws
• What is an antihero?
• A villain in a heroic role
• Someone who goes to the extreme of being a flawed hero
• We enjoy antiheroes because the villains are still worse
• Villains think they are the heroes of their own stories
• Good villains are logical
• Consult the Evil Overlord List

Episodes 8: Science Fiction

• Why write Science Fiction?
• Sci Fi is about experiencing and writing new things
• It's about seeing the possible futures
• It's written either optimistically or as a cautionary tale
• It's the genre of "What if?"
• It's didactic (meaning its meant to be instructive)
• It's reflective
• It's idea driven
• What do you need to write good Sci-Fi?
• You need to understand current science, so you can actually be looking beyond it
• You need to understand what has come before, read in the field
• You need something new, unless you are writing YA then your readers are most likely new and you can get away with a little retreading

Episode 9 was about science fiction sub genres. Interesting but nothing worth noting down; if you read sci-fi you know all about it already

Episode 10: Pacing

• What makes good pacing? How do you keep things rolling?
• Snappy dialog
• Cram in the tension
• Lots of conflict
• In late, out early. Jump straight to the conflict
• Pre-write and edit
• Figure out what a scene's purpose it
• Some scenes can be about character or explanation or decompressing; but they still should have some form of tension
• Plot Frameworks:
• Time bomb, set some ever nearing time limit
• Travelouge, go to a series of places. Know where you are heading, track progress on a map
• Countdown, a series of tasks to accomplish. Just don't repeat tasks or undo them
• Readers want to see progress
• When you get to a point and you say "What else do I need to say here?" STOP
• Keep it fast and tense, but let readers breathe every once in a while
• Cram in the conflict and tensions, have multiple goals and objective in a scene
• Pacing is about preperation

Episode 11: Business of Writing

• Changes to make when becoming a professional
• Rethink your schedule, and set an actual work schedule
• To be self employed you must be self motivated
• Make time to write
• Wear the employer and employee hats
• Pro is as Pro does
• Teach your family the rules of "your office"
• Consider quality of life and budget issues
• How do you balance the artist and business man?
• Switch between the two
• Add in as much business as you can without losing the artist
• How do you make yourself work when you don't want to?
• Queue up tasks
• Force yourself to write, even if you just throw it away
• Do other work things to get in the work mood
• BICHOK: Butt in chair, hands on keyboard
• Business person needs to be aware of the business, trends, competition, editors, etc

Episode 12: Submitting to Editors

• Stupid mistakes of submitting
• Not knowing what the particular editor wants
• Not reading the submission guide
• Not submitting to the right market
• How do you act like a professional?
• Don't say "My kid loved it" or "My class loved it"
• Wear a suit, or at least dress nicely
• Be careful about simultaneous submissions
• Simultaneous queries are okay, simultaneous chapters are okay, but after that be careful
• Do your research
• Keep track of where you have sent things
• Don't use stupid tricks like fancy font, fancy paper, gimmicks, etc etc
• Let the WRITING speak for itself
• No one has ever bought a book based on fancy gimmicks, but tons have been rejected because of it
• Make a good cover letter but realize its about the writing itself
• DON'T use rhetorical questions in cover letters!

Episode 13: Submitting to Editors Part 2

• Don't make it difficult for an editor to read your submission
• Don't dress up like a viking and drop off your submission by hand
• Don't call an editor without a previous relationship, use a POLITE e-mail
• Don't gripe about rejection, send a polite thank you note
• Editors are special, they do a lot of work without the fame, money, etc etc
• How do you approach an editor?
• Strike up a normal conversation about other topics, they'll ask if you're a writer at some point most likely
• Ask what THEY are working on

Episode 14: Magic Systems and Rules

• Sanderson's First Law of Magic: The ability of your hero to use magic to solve problems is directly proportional to your readers ability to understand the magic system
• One of the major criticisms of fantasy genre is the idea that with magic I can just do anything I want
• Solutions surfacing at the last moment is cheating
• You want your reader to be excited about your magic system, to believe in it
• Magic has to have rules
• What do you gain when the reader can't understand the rules?
• A sense of wonder and mystery
• Tapping into the feeling of being a small fish in a big pond
• It is okay if you don't use the unknown magic to solve problems
• We're are talking about how the magic works, not the rationale for it (thats world building)
• What do you get when your readers understand the rules?
• You can actually USE the magic
• You can be clever with it
• It captures the readers imagination
• It leads to tools for foreshadowing
• You can have an apprentice character
• There is a different sense of wonder, the wonder of cool things that you can imagine using
• You get the possibility of really interesting takes on magic

Episode 15: Costs and Ramifications of Magic

• Good interesting magic can't be free
• Use of magic should have an equal and opposite reaction
• Even if it isn't explicitly explained there must be a cost
• Cost creates conflict and meaningful decisions
• When you build in limitations it allows the world to make sense
• Think about the effects on the world, the Light spell could put all the candle makers out of business
• Taylor's First Law "If the energy you are getting from your magic is cheaper than letting a donkey do it, your medieval economy just fell apart"
• How do you make the magic system feel "real"? How do you make it not like a video game?
• Break the system. Exploit the hell out of it and then go back and see why it broke and how to rebuild it
• Don't make it too quantifiable
• Defeating a monster can make you a monster
• Fiction can deal with the effects on the character
• It lets us get inside the character and see what they are feeling and what the magic is doing to them
• How do you come up with interesting costs?
• Know what has been done before and don't use it
• Tie costs to ramifications
• Make the costs personal to the character
• Sanderson's Second Law: Magic doesn't happen in a vacuum. It takes place in a world and you have to consider all its effects on the world for it to feel real.

And the next episode has a writing prompt. So I'll do a summary of it and the prompt in a separate post later.