Ephemera: Where the Story Begins

The germination of story—where does it begin?

How does your story come to you? Does it gallop in out of nowhere?

Hangaku Gozen by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi

Does it begin with an image, a flash of insight, a half-remembered dream?

Viking Woman Warrior by Hans Splinter.
Licensed under CC by 2.0. Cropped from original.

Does it begin when you are passionate, relaxed, ecstatic, miserable?

Does this describe your mood when you've thought of a new story idea?

These are most common ways that the magic of story germination happens for me:

• A storyline stays in my conscious mind from a dream or a half-dream

• A complex idea pops into my relaxed, contented mind, seemingly from nowhere

• A striking image will inspire a character or a situation

A perfect example of this phenomenon is the story J.K. Rowling tells of how Harry Potter popped, fully formed, into her mind. That's the magic of inspiration at work, one which built a real-world story empire.

All of these flashes or situations need narration built upon them, which becomes the conscious mind's work. After I've received these inspirations, I love to let them germinate in my mind for a few days before I even write them down. While they're still thoughts in my head, I feel like the story has infinite possibilities. Writing the words down seem like they take on a permanence that concretizes them into a certain shape.

I can explain how I get inspiration. Yet, these flashes of inspiration themselves are the magic—the ephemera, if you will—that is inexplicable. It's the unconscious mind at work in ways that we can never predict or control.

I'd love to hear about how your story germinations take place.

Small Challenges

Why Challenging Other Writers Can Be Great For Productivity

WiFi at Moulin de la Galette by Mike Licht.
 Licensed under CC by 2.0. Thought bubble added to original.

Are you in the middle of a project (or even at the beginning of one) and you just can't seem to get yourself into a writing groove?

Enlist your writing friends to help by challenging them to a word-count goal! Say, 1,000 words per day for one week, or perhaps 2 hours of editing time per day... whatever works for your project and your schedule.

Not only will you have the edge of competitiveness added to your work, but you will also have your friend's support and encouragement as you proceed in the challenge.

This can even work cross-discipline, as in, you don't have to both be writers. You can have a goal of 1,000 words per day, and your artist friend can commit to work on her painting for 1 hour per day. Anything goes in the search for inspiration.

Over the past few weeks, I've been distracted by vacation and visiting relatives. To combat my dwindling writing production, I challenged one of my friends. Both of us committed to write 1,000 words a day for one week. We're both doing great. The best part? I'm going to count this blog post as part of my daily word count!

But, you say, what if you're in the middle of a creative person's desert? If you're the only writer you know IRL, you can always find a community of writers online. Try such sites as WritersCafe or Goodreads. Or you could always challenge yourself, and promise yourself a reward at the end of your successful challenge.

For most of us, a challenge will get our competitive nature going, and the more successful days strung together, the less willing we are to break that chain of success. Anything that spurs us to write is a good thing, and sometimes enlisting other writers is the best motivator of all.

Inspiration: It's Everywhere

These are some things that inspire my writing.

Reading

Reading and writing are inextricably linked for me

New books are always being written, thankfully. I am constantly amazed and gratified about how many books there are available in the English language. I feel happiest when I have at least 3 or 4 books in my queue that I am really excited about reading.

Sometimes reading a really great book will inspire my writing intensely.


Travel

Different locations are always inspiring. I love travel, and I love to put my characters into new situations and new landscapes. It's always interesting when they come across something they've never experienced. What will they do? They don't know, and neither do I most of the time!

From the oceans off the west coast of the U.S.A.... 

...to the red southwestern deserts...

...to the verdancy of the east...

...to the grandeur of old European cities, it's all inspiration for me.

After a childhood and early adulthood of no travel, over the last several years I have been lucky enough to have traveled quite a bit. Whenever I do, I keep a part of my mind aware and open for inspiration. It could be anything, from a building with interesting architecture, to someone with an interesting personality, to a grand landscape. Anything is fodder for me.


Fellow Book Lovers

Fellow book lovers unite!

Every time I can talk with someone about books (either virtually or in person) I feel great inspiration. There's nothing like finding a fellow book lover whose life is informed and enriched by fiction.


For me, inspiration can be found anywhere. These are three of my favorites. I'd love to hear about yours.

Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear: A Review

Karen Memery kicks some Old West butt.

Elizabeth Bear’s newest novel is a steampunk romp through the fictitious northwest U.S. town of Rapid City.

The obvious star of this novel is the title character, Karen Memery. Her voice is fresh and immediate, and draws you in from the very first lines:

You ain’t gonna like what I have to tell you, but I’m gonna tell you anyway. See, my name is Karen Memery… and I’m one of the girls what works in the Hôtel Mon Cherie on Amity street. “Hôtel” has a little hat over that o like that. It’s French, so Beatrice tells me.

Delightful, fresh takes on steampunk tropes include steam-powered mechas; rootin’-tootin’ ladies of the night seamstresses-cum-U.S. Marshal deputies; and mind control.

Bear’s skillful narrative style, tight plot and fertile imagination bring us along effortlessly. Through Karen’s eyes, we see the crazy jumble caused by Rapid City’s hasty growth, the unregulated west, quite a few crazy mechanical inventions, and backdoor political maneuverings.

As I would expect from an Elizabeth Bear novel, these Rapid City women don’t wait for the U.S. Marshals to save their city, although they happily greet them as allies. Yet this book is not stuffed full of gun-toting women whose only purpose is to wield a six-shooter and belt back a shot of rot-gut. Bear’s main characters are fully realized with the ability to surprise the reader.

Though I truly enjoyed this novel, one thing disappointed me: the tired plot device known as the prostitute serial killer. In my opinion, any additional urgency this plot device engendered, its location in the story arc of the novel, and the satisfaction of the eventual discovery of the protagonist did not warrant its inclusion into what was otherwise a truly original tale.

In short, I give this book 4.8 out of 5 stars.

If you are looking for a fast read during your summer vacation, this book is one to put on your reading list.

Elizabeth Bear

Title: Karen Memory

Author: Elizabeth Bear

Publisher: Tor Books (February 3, 2015)

Dialogue: Do All Your Characters Sound The Same?

Don't Put Your Readers To Sleep!
Image by artist Steve Lambert.

Character One: "How are you this morning?"
Character Two: "I am fine, how are you?"
Character One: "I am fine as well. Did you sleep well?"
Character Two: "Why, yes, I did. How about yourself?"
Character One: "I slept fine as well."
Character Three: "Hello, how are you both this morning?"
Character One: "I am fine, how are you?"

Reader: Zzzzzzzz.

There's a disease in the world of fiction—or even non-fiction—that plagues some writers. It seems that all their characters sound the same.

The same inflection, sentence structure, vocabulary. Even if slang is used, it is all the same slang words, used by all the characters interchangeably.

"Allow your characters to speak for themselves!"

Having all your characters speak the same is just as if you were having them all look the same or have all the same interests and opinions. Why is this acceptable?

The answer, of course, is it's not acceptable! A skilled craftsperson will be so adept at writing dialogue unique for each character, that she will not even need dialogue tags half the time, because readers will know exactly who is speaking by the carefully crafted dialogue itself.

A true master of this craft is the author Jan Karon. Her characters for her Mitford series are almost all uniquely identified by their dialogue alone.

Here is a sample of her dialogue, in which I've taken the liberty of editing out dialogue tags and some narration:

"Dearest?"
"Ummm?"
"Shall we bring the armoire over this Saturday?"
"This Saturday, I'm taking you for a little... recreation."
"I love recreation! What are we going to do?"
"It'll be a surprise."
"Good! I love surprises!"
"What don't you love?"
"Exhaust fumes, movies made for TV, and cakes baked from mix."

In this long series (up to ten novels at this writing), there are two central characters. The first character is a stick-in-the-mud bachelor of 60-odd years. The second is an artist, a lover of life, an embracer of new things. In the dialogue above, it is easy to understand which character is which.

Karon takes these traits and weaves them into her dialogue, revealing and strengthening her characters', well, characters! One of her more masterful talents is to establish her two central characters' conversational habits, and track their evolution. As an example, at the beginning of their relationship the bachelor—Tim—is fascinated by the artist's—Cynthia's—joie de vivre. She often proclaims her love for whatever is going to happen or is happening in her life. As the novels progress, Tim will respond to her proclamations of love by saying, "Cynthia, Cynthia, what don't you love?" and she will answer by listing three things she doesn't love (as in the example above, exhaust fumes, TV movies and cake mixes).

Karon's minor characters also have had this care and attention lavished upon them. Each one has unique sayings that belong to themselves alone. If you listen, you'll hear this proclivity in your own real life acquaintances. What better way to develop your characters than to individualize their speech patterns?

That said, this is not the easiest craft to master. Dialogue is almost effortless to write when our characters think and speak like ourselves. Allowing your characters to speak in their own voices takes patience and familiarity with their personalities and quirks. Most of all, it takes the willingness to get out of your characters' way.

Individualized dialogue takes work, but the worth to your readers is almost immeasurable. It will make all your characters seem like personal friends (or enemies!) It's another way to get your readers to trust you with their reading time and energy. Allow your characters to speak for themselves, and they may surprise you with their individuality.

Narrative: Do You Overuse It?

Does This Character Frequent Your Fiction?

Narrative! It's very useful in its place, but as SF/F fans we've all read those behemoths whose narrator is the most prevalent—and the most boring—character in the novel.

Don't get me wrong; I love detailed, long, involved novels. However, length shouldn't be a license to spew every detail of every happening in every country or planet of your universe all over the page. Instead, length should be used to develop your actual characters and reveal the plot.

"You don't have to hit your readers over the head with a huge iron chunk of narration to prove you've thoroughly conceived your world."

So, how to know if you're overutilizing The Evil Narrator?

Well, take a look at your first chapter, especially your first several pages. Are there huge chunks of paragraph? Is there no dialogue in sight? Then you may be overusing narrative. When does your MC—or any character—show up? If your answer is the first page, then you are probably getting right to your story. If there's no character for your readers to engage with, then you may want to rethink your first chapter approach.

In some ways, especially at the beginning stages of writing a novel, I find narrative to be easiest to write. I will sit down at the keyboard and out comes all this detail. It's fascinating, and I have a great time writing it, but in the end most of this narration is never used in the finished work. I'll either reveal the details in dialogue and action, or I'll keep it in mind to explain the structure of the world.

If you are confident in the structure and sense of your own SF/F world, your readers will trust you. You don't have to hit them over the head with a huge iron chunk of narration to prove you've thoroughly conceived your world. The most amazing novels are ones where the details of the worlds are revealed throughout the entire novel or novels. This takes patience and aforethought.

An example of excellence in world- (or galaxy-) building is Jack Vance's Oikumene. This galaxial structure is revealed throughout the five Demon Princes novels he wrote over the course of 17 years. A specific example of Vance's patience is the Rigel Concourse: 26 habitable planets orbiting the sun Rigel. Since such a solar system is probably impossible even in our vast galaxy, Vance explains it by saying that the planets were towed into perfect orbits by some advanced, now-vanished race. Yet, instead of instantly telling us ad nauseam about all the planets in the Concourse, he saves details of many of them for subsequent novels.

This patience can also be a gift to you, the writer. By leaving a few, choice details nebulous in your own mind, you can have the luxury of filling in those informational gaps with details that will best suit your evolving story.

Narration. Is it fun to write? Yes of course! All that creativity without the bossy characters getting in there and mucking around messing things up. Is it necessary? Yes, at some points narration is definitely vital. Yet, it's better to use characters and action to reveal most details of your well-conceived world rather than having your narrator brag all about it. Narration is best when it's a minor character.

Flashback: Keeping it 'Offpage'

This is the third post in a series entitled Backstory: You Need It More Than Your Readers Do

Yes, flashbacks can actually be useful!

Yes, here is that dreaded word, flashback!

And yes, I think it can be used to advantage in stories. Especially in SF/F where the backstory is huge and sometimes crucial to what is going on in the present.

I do use flashbacks, sometimes as a character's musings about the past, less often as an actual flashback plopped into the story (this is the least effective and smooth option, in my opinion, but also useful at certain points). The most elegant solution, though is employing a flashback the way it naturally occurs in your own daily life.

Does this ever happen to you? You're walking down the street with a friend. You see a car parked on the side of the street that looks exactly like the first car you owned. Suddenly you're transported to the past for a full five minutes, remembering the first time you drove alone, that sense of freedom you gained when you were able to go wherever you pleased, or that time you ran out of gas. Meanwhile, your friend is standing there bored out of his skull because you're immersed in your flashback—immobile, unresponsive, lifeless. Does it?

Well, of course not. This doesn't happen in real life. Why should it in your novels?

What really happens:

Tim and Helen were walking down the street one evening in June, on the way to their favorite pizza place. Helen paused beside a rusted Pontiac, shaking her head and smiling.

"What's up?" Tim asked.

"That's the same as my first car," Helen said, motioning with her chin.

"It's an old beater."

"No kidding. Once I got pulled over for driving without a back license plate. Turns out the bolts had rusted through and the plate fell off without me noticing. My dad had put the fear of God into me about never being pulled over, and yet here I was being cited. Don't laugh! It wasn't funny."

"Yes ma'am." He made a mock serious face.

She nudged his arm with her shoulder. "Come on. I'm hungry."

This sample scene is relatively benign in its topic. Yet this technique could be used for all sorts of important reveals. Dialogue is a speedy way to reveal past events, for it's natural for people to talk to others about important things that happened in their past.

If your character is alone, though, or with people that she doesn't trust, then she can think about past events instead of speaking about them. However, to keep this from becoming a dreaded info-dump, it's crucial for your character to think about these past events in relation to what's going on in the present moment!

"The most elegant solution is employing a flashback the way it naturally occurs in your own daily life."

There are many ways to weave the past into the present in your novel or story. Honest to goodness flashbacks, however, are not always—and I would posit not usually—necessary. Revealing the past while keeping the immediacy of the present is always good writing.



Backstory: You Need It More Than Your Readers Do is a series of posts that will explore how much you need to know about your story versus how much you need to tell. It's that old show versus tell conundrum explored in a new way.

Danielle Ste. Just is the author of several short stories including The Forgottens and The Effect-Displacement Assassin. Her new novel, Lethe, is forthcoming.