The Universal Truth About Writing

OrcaDesignStudios · Posted: Sun May 09, 2004 6:35 pm Post subject: The Universal Truth About Writing

All right, since I'm now a moderator of this forum, there will be a dress code in effect -- everyone wears a kilt and a tam at all times, understood? Also, I've decided to start this thread, in which I will post my thoughts on writing, development of characters, what makes for good entertainment and how I go about crafting a story. As most of you will have figured out, the title of this thread is a joke -- there is no universal truth about anything, least of all writing.

Some of the stuff I'll be posting here will been culled from a short writing workshop I did about four years ago. Some of it will be culled from a short writing workshop I started on another site, but got too busy with exams to finish. Some will be original stuff and some I'll just pull out of thin air when inspiration strikes.

Of course, one and all are free to add to the discussion in any constructive way they see fit. As long as they remember I'm usually right. :wink:

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Jim Harnock - ODS
www.OrcaDesignStudios.com

OrcaDesignStudios

I figure I should start by giving you a bit of my personal history.

In terms of writing, I began at a very early age, primarily writing fan fiction based on Star Wars. That's me -- part of the Star Wars Generation. Writing had always been a hobby of mine and I actually started my first novel -- a fantasy epic inspired by the work of David Eddings (still haven't read beyond chapter 3 of LotR, believe it or not) -- in grade 10. I re-read a chunk of this unfinished "masterpiece" a few weeks ago and WOW did I ever suck. Some great ideas nestled in amongst many mediocre ones, all of which were burried in a writing style murkier than Loch Ness. Luckily, I improved with age. I began to get much more serious about writing in my OAC year. For the non-Ontarians out there, OAC stands for Ontario Academic Credit -- when I was in high school, OAC was an optional "grade 13" that you could enroll in to better prepare you for post-secondary education. Often colleges and universities would accept OAC grads before grade 12 grads. In college, I majored in film and television and worked in that industry in various capacities while I kept writing. I got to do some rewrites on a hockey show when I was in my final year of school, which was great, since it involved writing and hockey -- two of my favourite things in life, right up there with redheads. I was doing a lot of partnership writing (screenwriting) at this point with a close friend named Eve, and we managed to get our work considered by companies like Tribeca, Alliance-Atlantis and the SciFi Channel. We were also in the running for a few episodes of the now-defunct scifi show LEXX. In amongst all this, I started working for Hockey's Future, doing prospect reports on AHL players and had a short story published. Eve and I are currently working on the third round of edits for our first co-written novel (trying to get the page count below 600

), while I finish off an honours double-major in history and law at York University. Surprisingly, I'm finding academic writing pretty enjoyable, too

I was thinking about putting a couple of my better essays online, but the theft rate for university papers is unbelievable -- you'd think paying THAT much for tuition would make people feel obligated to be honest.

Currently, in the small amount of time I'm not doing readings or research, I'm developing three stories, two of which are designed to be comic format.
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Jim Harnock - ODS
www.OrcaDesignStudios.com

Ariah81 · Posted: Tue May 11, 2004 9:55 am Post subject:

Great choice of topic, Orca! I'll be glad to read Your 'tips and tricks'

Maybe I'll add a few things about my literary background...

Started writing and drawing in primary school, making up my own stories (fantasy, sf) and doing stories 'on license' for those of my friends who didn't want to write themselves. Did a comic with members of my class as superheroines;) manga style. Quite a hit.

Anyway, won a contest for a novel in 2000.
Published a short story 'Lady Locksley' in August 2002.
Published a novel 'The Seal' in February 2003.
Published a short story 'Untranslatable' in January 2004.
One novel on the schedule, one in writing. All of that in Polish, my native language.

Plus WindWeaver (since 2001) and Mortal Coil (recently down due to some host manipulations)

Will be gla dto add my 2 cents anytime You want;)
_________________
----
battle not with monsters
lest ye become a monster
and if you gaze into the abyss
the abyss gazes into you

Friedrich Nietzche

OrcaDesignStudios

Grounding your stories in reality

By grounding your plot in reality, I don’t mean you need to set it in the present day or in a real city or have it revolve around everyday occurrences (though that is, of course, an option). What I mean is you should give the reader something to connect with, something that keeps the story from floating away to a place where they no longer care about it. This starts with the hero. An infallible hero with no weaknesses who does nothing but easily beat aliens all day is boring. Interesting heroes who bring interesting stories are flawed, have weaknesses and perhaps most importantly, they have arch villains who could possibly defeat or even kill them. That doesn’t mean that every time the hero fights, he needs to get his ass kicked; you just need to leave open the possibility that he could get his ass kicked. And every hero needs a weakness. Achilles had his heel, Superman has Kryptonite, Youngblood has its creator. Weaknesses don’t need to be objects, like Kryptonite -- they can be substance abuse problems, like when Iron Man was an alcoholic or when Speedy was addicted to heroin. They can also be psychological problems, like Hal Jordan’s guilt over killing his friends in the GL Corps or the psychological trauma suffered by Martian Manhunter as mentioned in Kingdom Come. Creating a great villain for your story is perhaps even more important than creating the hero himself. One of the knocks on Superman is that he’s just too powerful and that none of his enemies can really stand up to him. Darkseid can -- that’s what he was created for -- and Doomsday obviously could (but he’s about as one-dimensional as any first-generation Image character), but other than that, what villains could really match up against Superman? Lex Luthor is a perfect foil. He hasn’t a single super power -- he’s a criminal mastermind of the first degree who has innumerable resources as his disposal. Superman can’t deal with Luthor the same way he would deal with, say, Brainiac or Solomon Grundy. By bringing a villain like Luthor into the story, you force your hero into a different circumstance, one he is not accustomed to, assuming you don’t overuse said villain.
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Jim Harnock - ODS
www.OrcaDesignStudios.com

Ratteler · Forum Member Joined: Jun 10, 2002 Posts: 534 Location: NYC

I think this is my first post here. So Hi everyone!

My little trick for writing villians... is make them the hero.

In real life the WORST person in the world still thinks he/she is doing the right thing.

In the real world sometimes the only thing seperating a "hero" from a villian is "spin".

Saddam Hussain used to be a buddy of America. He was at the time a rightous leader of his country helping to defending it against the Communist threat. 20 Years later, he's Hitler 2.0.

The crazy sucide bomber is also a man of such devote faith that he is willing to die for what he belives in.

To many times I see maniacal laughing villians who are just so happy they are being evil, and we KNOW they are evil because they do such terrible things. But a character like that just won't ring true. Unless you're doing the Hulk, you're hero has to get inside the villians head to stop them just like any FBI Profiler would try to. That means YOU have to get there first.

For me the best example of a comic book villian is the 80's version of Magneto. He's seen mankinds oppression firsthand in WWII and truely belives that in order to stop the genocide of mutant kind they must show the world the terrible price of trying to get rid of them.

Remeber, without a GREAT villian, your "Hero" IS the villian.

Navel · Moderator Joined: Mar 28, 2003 Posts: 34

Welcome Ratteler! Jim Starlin did a superb story that directly addressed those ideas back in the 70's (originally in Strange Tales #178), featuring Adam Warlock vs. Magus.

Shae · Forum Newbie Joined: May 05, 2004 Posts: 1

Okay... something about myself...

I've started writing ever since I can remember. As a kid I was already making stories, if simple and childlike. I have a couple of 'books' left, I made the pictures, and my mom wrote down the sentences for me. "Pim is a rabbit." Next page. "Pim has a friend." Next page. Then around the age of ten I started writing myself... I always began stories, but never made anything longer than the first two pages of chapter one. When I was thirteen, I started writing in English, and I actually wrote a whole chapter! Yay me! Since I was maturing fast, as most people do at that age, the whole chapter seemed silly after two years. So, being fourteen-and-a-half, I began writing Shae Draka (later renamed it 'Torn'). As it is at the moment, I have about 52 pages written, in twelve chapters, and am around a fourth of the story. The first nine chapters I made in about a year, and then it took year by year to make the rest. When I was eighteen, I decided to make a comic. Now that is taking up most of my time, and I hardly ever write anything on Torn again, which is a pity.

As for what I know about stories: it's not much. My trick is to know the world everything is written in as if I would know this one. Every inch of it is as real as can be. My world is believable and vivid. Every person in the story lives his or her own life, never throwing themselves in harm's way just because it is convenient to the story and/or hero. In real life, a stranger on the street will be the center of his own story, not yours. He will not turn to me and say: "Hey hero, how can I help you today?" Even if I would be famous, that would be something very unlikely. Every person in my story has his or her own life, his or her own thoughts, and their stories do not change just because my hero comes along, unless, of course, they are befriended. For instance, a farmer asks some money for a place in the hay, his wife tries to talk the hero into working for them in the fields, because their own boy is not strong enough, and the boy tells him that he wants to become a great hero one day. When my hero saves the life of a young girl, she is greatful, but she does not throw away her own dreams, just to please the man who saved her.

Another thing I think is very important for a realistic story, is, indeed, a villain who does not think "I'm evil, I want to do evil things, muahahahahaha!" In fact, I'd say there is not a single 'true' villain in my whole story. Though some complain that my villain is too soft, my story is not about the struggle between good and evil, my story is about the struggle within yourself between good and evil. No person is pure and pure hate or evil, and if he or she is, there must be something that has lead him or her to this. Only insane people can be very evil, because their view of the world is so distorted, normal people can't. Normal people will commit evil for the people they love, etc. But not ever ever just like that. Never just because they want to be evil.

My trick to actually continueing a piece of work, and not bumping into a writer's block, is to have 'stepping stones'. I know where the story starts, the couple of stones that are the middle piece, and a vague idea of an ending. That way, I write from 'stone to stone' which is easier than just writing into nothingness... if I do that, I get to a point where I don't know what I want to do with the story anymore. I'm bored... I've done it before. The characters don't seem so great anymore... I don't like it anymore, I stop. With stepping stones I have something to hold onto in moments when I don't feel like writing anymore. I only have to write until the next stone.

Well.. that's me.

Navel · Moderator Joined: Mar 28, 2003 Posts: 34

Nice to have a 'stoner' in the group! 8-)

Looking forward to seeing your stories.

Kathyrne

Oddly, I have to agree with Shae's technique, though not in exactly the same way as it was stated. I also write in "steps" but it is because if I plot out an entire story and have all the details laid in place, i get bored with it. Why do I have to tell the stroy again? I already did it. For that reason, i never make a complete or comples outline. I like to know ultimately where I intend to go, but I am n ot married to it, and will change the story as my character's tell me to as it goes.

Though unpublished, I have completed my first two novels. In the first, I had been convinced I know what one of my character's motivation was. When I actually got to the scene where she explained her background, i discovered that what I had thought wasn't the real story after all.

And that is another poit that I feel is important. Your characters have to come alive for you. If they are just a collection of words on a page, then they are not real, do not have their own thoughts and feelings for you and will never be anything more than a one-dimensional cut-out. For me, if I can not see the story unfolding in my mind's eye, if it is not like wtching a movie unfold, then I have failed at what I was trying to do, and anything I write will sound flat.

OrcaDesignStudios · Posted: Mon Jun 14, 2004 5:47 pm Post subject:

Great input everyone! Now, time for a topic switch...

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Jim Harnock - ODS
www.OrcaDesignStudios.com

OrcaDesignStudios

THEMES

Often, the biggest problem faced by young or beginning writers is the lack of a common thread binding together all elements of their story. I know that in my case, I didn't really get the hang of themes and figure out how to incorporate them without whacking the reader over the head with my themes until I was in college. Of course, that was a fairly natural progression for me -- before college, my primary interest was in hardcore scifi and action stories, which aren't exactly known for well-crafted and well-handled themes. Still, I have a filing cabinet drawer half-filled with half-finished stories that I'd set aside because they lacked the cohesiveness that a strong theme provides. Actually, some of them are there because the ideas suck, but most are there because they don't have anything holding them together

In college, my screenwriting teacher claimed that unless you could articulate your theme as "if X, then Y" (i.e. "if a villain falls in love with a regular girl, then he will become a better person"), then you don't really know what your theme is. She was a really nice lady and actually won a Governor-General's Award for one of her plays (the GG's pretty much the highest artistic award presented in Canada -- soptra like the Nobel Prize of Canadian artistic endeavours), but I disgree completely with her on this point. To me, a theme can be as simple as "power corrupts," or as complex as one of my current favourite ideas -- this is a quotation from 19th century moral philosopher John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism:

"It is noble to be capable of resigning entirely one's own portion of happiness, or chances of it: but, after all, this self-sacrifice must be for some end; it is not its own end; and if we are told that its end is not happiness, but virtue, which is better than happiness, I ask, would the sacrifice be made if the hero or martyr did not believe that it would earn for others immunity from similar sacrifices? ... All honour to those who can abnegate for themselves the personal enjoyment of life, when by such resignation they contribute worthily to increase the amount of happiness in the world; but he who does it, or professes to do it, for any other purpose, is no more deserving of admiration than the ascetic mounted on his pillar. He may be an inspiring proof of what men can do, but assuredly not an example of what they should."

In other words, why do heroes do what they do? If they do it for any other reason than to improve the lives of humanity, are they really heroes? What exactly makes a hero a hero?
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Jim Harnock - ODS
www.OrcaDesignStudios.com

cleasterwood · Forum Newbie Joined: Jul 05, 2007 Posts: 5

First, here's a free theme generator. http://www.seventhsanctum.com/generate.php?Genname=quicktheme
There's also some other good generators for storytellers.

Your basic conflicts fall into one of five:
Man VS Nature
Man VS Self
Man VS Man
Man VS Society
Man VS God
Of course these can be combined by the use of sub-plots. Once you have the basic conflict and a scant outline of your plot, the motives of your antagonist and protagonist become clearer.

Theme for my story as an example: Twins must save the world from evil Egyptian gods and keep the balance between good and evil. (Women VS Gods).

Later in my prose writing, I found the characters telling me their motives.

Just my 2 cents worth,
C. L.
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Check out the graphic novel script for Ra's Warrior! Also has a list of links for writers and research. http://talismansoftime.wetpaint.com

Also see my forum question: http://www.animotions.com/postt2915.html