So I started with examples. Now let’s break it down to what all those elements have in common. Reverse-engineering. That way, we can find what base building blocks were used to make the structure. I didn’t come up with any of this–these are all based on my notes. I’m just putting them together into something coherent. First, we have to define what magic is. Sorry to be pretentious, but you need to get your terms down to get a bead on what we’re talking about. IMO, magic is power. It’s the ability to do something you wouldn’t normally be able to do in real life. That means starting from some…
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Magic Systems: What You Need to Know (Part 1)
I’ve been thinking about magic systems lately. A little bit for fun and a little bit because I potentially need to for an upcoming novel. Most of my knowledge comes from video games (usually RPGs), which are magic systems applied, but based around numbers and probabilities and statistics (mathmagic?). Most use “fuel” or “mana meter” in the same way that HP is a rough representation of your health and consciousness. When it’s gone, your agency is removed and the result will likely be a game over. In the same way, not enough fuel for your magic, and you can’t do it. Or you can think of it like currency. The…
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I’m Not Even Sure I Want to Be an Author Anymore
These days I don’t even know how much I want to keep going. And by “keep going” I mean continue the dream of becoming a published author. And it’s probably because I came across this… I can’t do that. I don’t want to do that. And all that’s WITH the publisher doing its fair share. $30,000 out of your own account? Money is supposed to flow toward the writer, not out. 90% chance he did not make money from this book. And yes, this is an established author, but it’s also not part of a series, so I’ve got to believe it’s close to what a debut author would have…
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Writers – Don’t Ever Use This Trope
I didn’t have to use such a click-baity headline, but I have an AI plugin that tells me how “engaging” my post title is and it always falls below 50%. And even this one it doesn’t like–it gives me 48/100. I hate fake-out endings. Only now did I realize just how much I hated them. I watched Cell with John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson, a bad movie to be sure, but I’d read the book a long time ago so nothing was spoiled. Except the ending deviates quite a bit, even though it was written by the same guy (Stephen King). I can totally understand why an ending might…
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The Year of Short Stories: The Last Quarterly Check-In
Well, the work has continued. The study lingers. I still feel like a novice, but a practiced novice. Is that an intermediate? An amateur? An apprentice? I feel like I understand seventy-five percent of what a short story looks like in today’s world and how to make one. My skill is improving, but I’m still looking forward to getting this done and getting back to novels. There have been some… interesting stuff spewing out of the factory lately, but I feel like there has been quality improvement, especially if I look back at when I started this gig. But here’s the question I keep bumping into. I don’t think I’m…
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We Need to Stop Using the “Strong” in “Strong Female Protagonist”
Or at least we need to change what it means. I think the trip-up is on the word strong. We say strong and we think this: We keep equating “strong” with “powerful”. Which is fine… ish. Women with atypical powers or abilities is good, in the same way that men with atypical powers or abilities is good. But the women above, even though they are powerful, still exist in service/subordination of men. Batman and Superman and Iron Man and the like are power fantasies. Black Widow and Catwoman and Black Cat are sex fantasies. They are intended to appeal to men and men only. When we say “powerful” female antagonists,…
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How Much World-Building Is Too Much?
This Tumblr post asks an interesting question that I’ve always wondered about — how much world-building is too much? World-building is a big part of fantasy, the idea of an alternate Earth is fascinating. The problem is that, if Earth did evolve differently, that world would be so alien it would be incomprehensible. There is a line where the world goes beyond one’s grasp. Now some people like that sort of thing. But how do you market something like that? I read a blurb recently from a self-published fantasy novel, one of a billion, that was full of jargon. “The world is under control of the Zorbos, an only a…
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Like Tears in the Rain
This scares me. I’m already scared of dying. And I know that, when I die, I’m probably going to be in the middle of a book (either writing one or reading one, probably both). I don’t even read 50 books a year and I’m a writer. I can manage about 30-35, so I won’t even get to 3,500. I can take some solace that I know I read more than what Goodreads accounts for–graphic novels, children’s books, comic collections, Star Trek novels, and all sorts of other books I’ve forgotten. And the average bookstore has 30,000! Now, granted, most of those I probably don’t want to read–atlases and how to…
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Actors vs. Writers: Who’s Right When It Comes to Character?
I don’t agree with this. Granted I’ve never worked with actors or adaptations of my book. I could be talking out of my ass. But movies, unlike books, are collaborative creations. Everyone’s got to share the same vision or it won’t work. When it comes together, you get Star Wars. When you don’t, you get Dune (the David Lynch one). Art works best when a single person is driving the vision, the idea. That’s why bands like Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, etc. persist. Even though the art they make needs all of them together, one single person writes the music and lyrics (usually). It’s also…
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Stories Have Fates Too
And then sometimes God just doesn’t want a story to be written… I’m working on a Han Solo-pastiche short story and twice I’ve lost my previous day’s progress. Once I lost my entire collection of story notes, and at first I thought “Well, that’s it — everything I thought of is gone.” But somehow I recreated it. Then the second time, in my draft, which is very drafty, I accidentally hit “Don’t Save” instead of “Save” and lost all that with no backup. Sometimes I feel that fate is doing something to prevent me from being a writer because it will screw up his plans or invoke something devastating on…
