Summer Writing Lessons

This summer feels like it has lasted way longer than three months. An entire month was spent studying and preparing for my qualifying exam, but it paid off and I passed!! I cannot express how much of a relief that is. But that's not what you are here for; this blog is about writing. I've done a lot of that too.

July was all about writing short stories. Sometimes it felt like I wasn't even reading what I wrote. I've looked back and I hardly remember writing some of the things from the beginning of the month. It was a race to put out as many short stories as possible to get points. Amidst the madness of earning points, I ending up refining my writing in ways I hadn't anticipated.

Short stories are hard for me. I love my soaring epic fantasy plots and so challenging me to write things under 500 words is a challenge indeed. It forced me to focus on one, maybe two, instants in time. It is a snapshot of a story, yet it must also tell a story by itself. This is a little bit easier in fanfiction when you can use established characters that readers will know, but when you start going into more bizarre AUs, they might as well be original characters. It forces me to think carefully about indirect characterization. Can I hint at their personality in the way they speak? Not just their word choice, but what they notice. What about body language while they speak, or even describing the surroundings they find themselves in.

Possibly the story I did that best in was The Warlock's Creation. In these few lines I hoped to tell you about the protagonist's feeling of being an outsider, not belonging. His longing to find a world where he could be appreciated for what he had rather than mocked for what he lacked. I think I did alright.

For all his cleverness, he had forgotten his umbrella. He was quite sure his grandmother would scold him and send him for a hot shower when he got home. ... Someday he would step through a painting. Vanish into a world where magic was but a legend. He kicked his feet as he walked, splashing water everywhere.

As part of our friendly competition during July, we had prompt tables. I've done this previous summers and I barely managed to finish one 9 prompt square. But I am competitive and those earn me bonus points so I stretched myself. It was still hard, but I found this easier to create the short stories. The crazy prompts weren't inspiring any plot for a grand story, but I could come up with ideas about what characters were like, what they valued, and how they acted. And for a short story, sometimes that was all I needed.

While this ability to write to a prompt might not be useful when I am working on novel length stories, I do have side characters. Previously I would just throw out a name for a person who worked in the kitchens and maybe one small defining detail, but this doesn't do them justice. As an author, I should know more about that character than the reader knows. In the future, I aim to pause when I need a new side character and write 300 words about them. No strict fields to fill in, just anything that comes to mind to give them a bit more life, even though they may only appear for one page in a story and then potentially get edited out in a later draft. If I have learned anything while writing Twin Tales it's that small characters keep wanting to return.

My month of short stories is over, but I hope I can use these lessons to improve my longer stories. After all, what is a novel but a collection of short scenes.

Character Details

Oh shoot, it's been a while since my last post. I've been busy. Particularly I've been busy revising the characters in my story.

On a recent Writing Excuses episode they talked about aksing multiple questions of your characters. A couple they suggested were favourite swear, what scares them, how would you describe them in 10 words. My friend and I have both been trying to improve our character writing so we sat down with our main characters and interviewed them using the following questions.

• How would they curse?
• Boil them down into ten descriptive words (Oily, strong, hungry, etc.)
• What is their opinion and history with magic?
• In what ways do they hold power over others?
• How would they describe their backstory to a friend? To a stranger?
• How do they react in emergencies? What would make them stop in their tracks?
• Who do they have allegiance to and why? Who is their best friend?
• What is their driver’s license appearance? Height, build, hair color?
• What do they do for fun when the plot isn’t looking? Guilty pleasures? Snacks?
• How do they decorate their personal spaces?
• What are they truly scared of losing? Certain people dying, sure, but what other things?
• Are they religious, spiritual, superstitious, realists, etc.? I.e. “Bad things always come in threes.”

It was a lot of work. More than I thought. There were times that I had to stop myself from saying that I'll just write on and see what comes up, my usual method. However, at the end, it was completely worth it. I feel like I can actually tell apart the knights of the round table and they feel more alive than just names on a page. Also writing Gwaine telling his backstory was so much fun.

Of course now I am in the process of going back through the story and making sure that what I have written reflects these choices. Not to mention using the opportunity to flesh them out now that I do know them better. It's proving interesting and self-consistency as I edit the early chapters while writing new chapters is going to be hard. Next steps is to do an abridged version of this for my secondary characters.


Favourite writing from this week:

“You know, he spoke often of you in his letters,” Nathaniel said. “He told me how you were a bright young lad with an aptitude for creative problem solving. And poor research techniques, but those could be improved upon.”

“It’s harder when you don’t already know every book in the library,” Merlin groused.
Nathaniel smiled quickly, but then looked more serious. “It made me wonder if you noticed the flaw in the mage hunter’s plan today?”

Merlin froze with his spoon still in his mouth. Flaw? What had he overlooked? Could Nathaniel tell it had been his own illusion? Merlin lowered the spoon and swallowed his mouthful of soup. Did he notice the slight burns left on Merlin’s wrists? Did he realise Merlin hadn’t slept in his room last night? William would’ve noticed, but he didn’t think Nathaniel would ever wait up for him to come home.

“Besides the illusion dropping when the ropes were untied?” Merlin asked, glad his voice sounded light, untroubled.

“True, that wasn’t particularly wise either. Though I think it was more foolish to imprison a member of the court. If I was trying to tell the king I captured a sorcerer, I would grab a lone peasant in the woods. Someone without a sword.” He stood and brought his bowl over to the basin for dirty dishes. “Although I suppose if I was better at illusionary magic and I had been captured, I would let him continue to court and only escape at the last minute so that he did meet his justice.”

Merlin felt his heart skip. He knew. Maybe not the whole truth but he knew. Hold on, he had said “If you were better at illusionary magic?” Merlin repeated. “You have the gift?”

“It’s very slight. My mother was a hedge witch.” He returned to the table. “And am I right in guessing that you have the gift too?”

Merlin nodded. He trusted William’s childhood friend, but it was still hard to say the words out loud.

On Timelines

Are you writing a story in which time is important? Are you writing a story in which you don't think time is really important but takes place over the course of more than a month? Have you written a timeline yet? Do it now.

I thought I could get away with just keeping track of seasons in this long Merlin fic, but I can't. So 121k words in, I have made a timeline. And oh my gosh it's a mess. I had to totally re-evaluate when evens happened or, more often, how much time passed between chapters. I had tried to avoid putting specific dates in, but every once in a while I found a date, or a day of the week and had to adjust. I should've done this ages ago. I thought I had learned this lesson after NaNoWriMo 2014, but apparently not.

Now I still have to figure out more precise dates on events that happened before the story, but I have an anchor point so this really helps. I expect next week will be a lot of fixing numbers mentioned in the story.

Favourite writing from this week:

Merlin and Aldrich appeared with their horses in a clearing two hours ride from Ealdor. It felt a bit weird, bringing someone else with to visit his mother. Arthur and Gwen had visited once. But that was Arthur’s idea. It was really more of a patrol that happened to take a slight detour. Otherwise, he travelled alone.

“I didn’t know you grew up so far from the city,” Aldrich said.

“It’s not even within Camelot.” Merlin laughed. “Technically Arthur’s not my king.”

“Residency within Camelot for ten years doesn’t change that?”

“Huh. It might.” Merlin thought for a few minutes, mentally running his fingers along the books in the library and flipping through pages. “Yeah, residency in Camelot for seven years makes be a subject of Camelot. Darn. I can’t tease Arthur about that any more.”

After two hours of talking and laughing and riding, they reached the edges of Ealdor. The crops were short as they rode through, but the sprouts looked strong. Merlin let his magic wash over the land and provide a little extra encouragement.

Attuned to the feel of his magic better than anyone else, Hunith immediately came out of her house and ran toward Merlin. He smiled and leapt off his horse to run to meet her.

“Merlin! It’s been so long.” She grabbed him in a tight embrace and ran her hand through his hair.

“Mother. I’ve missed you so much.” He, in turn, rested his cheek on the top of her head.
Then she pushed him away and raised a finger at him. “You have been slacking in your letter writing,’ she scolded. “Gilli has written me more than you have.”

“What?”

“And I had to hear from Gwaine about Arthur’s wedding. Yes, Gwaine wrote me a letter.” Hunith lowered her finger and placed both hands on her hips. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Ah yes, the question for which there was no right answer. He could claim he was busy, she would ask if that meant too busy for his mother. He could say it got lost in transit, she would say he should’ve found another way to send it. He could say any number of things and she would have an instant rebuttal. Better to switch topics altogether. “I brought someone new this time,’ he said, beckoning Aldrich over.

He approached warily, knowing very well the look of the scolding mother.

“This is Aldrich,” Merlin introduced. “He is from Iseildur’s camp. Aldrich, this is my mother.”

“A pleasure to meet you, my lady.” He took the back of her hand and kissed it.

She blushed. “That’s really not, I’m no lady. Look around you.”

Merlin smiled. “Took me three years to stop him from regularly calling me ‘my lord’. I suggest you get used to it.”

#Name of Castle

Prompt: What is your favorite word? Write a scene around that word.

I was going to talk about my extensive planning this weekend and connect it to the word "therefore" since that is how we planned, x must happen, therefore y must happen first, and I'm not lying when I say therefore is a great word (it makes you sound intelligent and there are so many ways to stress it), but then I realized I could use a different word: harmony. A word invoking thoughts of peace, but also of music. Specifically all my happy memories as one of the Second Soprano Smoothie Sisters. As a bonus, I had actually already written this into my story this week. So what follows is a longer section of my writing this week because I am super proud of it.

But first a quick background. It takes place in the far future. They are on a quest to restore these temples across the star system. Spades is highly keyed into nature magic and is fiercely defending this place.

You will also notice a couple #'s in the text. I do this a lot for this I want to come back to since it is easily searchable. That being said, if you have any ideas for castle names leave them in the comments below!

Favourite writing from this week: 

   It was an unusual sight to be sure. Spinning columns of flame nearly seven feet high in a small range of warm colours surrounded the group. A deep blue flame was directly in front of them and seemed to be slightly taller than the others. Remarkably, the flames were not nearly as hot as they had assumed. Spades took one quick glance around them and decided she was not going to be intimidated.
   “What in the mustquaed do you think you are doing?” she demanded, marching right up to the blue one and stabbing her spoon in its direction.
   “Spades get away!” Nadir called frantically. “You are going to combust.”
   She paid him no mind. “You were charged with protecting this place. And look at it! No one takes care of it, there are holes in the roof, and now there are workers at this very moment setting explosives to decimate this temple. I had to activate the Doomsday protection. And where we you?”
   There was silence in the forest as Spades waited for an answer.
   “Spades,” Dr. Kear said hesitantly. “Those are just flames; I don’t think they can--”
   “We were watching.” It was a harmony of three voices that sounded in their minds. “We brought you here.” A major chord spread across three different octaves, it wasn’t hard to tell this was no mortal creature speaking. “We are but elementals, servants of the Great Mother. Our physical bodies died long ago. No mortal form has been strong enough to contain us.”
   “But you can move into any form?” Spades asked.
   “Yes. You would not survive though.”
   “I’m not thinking of myself.” She smiled and reached into her pocket, pulling out a small pouch. “These were given to me by the Goddess Kim. I believe they were meant for you.” She untied the string and flung the seeds out in front of her. As if time meant nothing, the seeds shot through early life stages before their eyes and transformed into strong birch trees.


   The elementals said nothing but one of the bright yellow flames zipped towards the closest tree and disappeared inside. The white bark faded to become the same bright yellow, but nothing else changed until it moved.
   The branches shivered and began waving about, testing their limits of motion. “It is stable.” A different chord, only in one octave, for this new speaker. “It will last.”
   The other flames now also merged into trees, creating a colourful and dynamic forest like none of them had seen before. Branches swayed and twisted, the trunks uprooted themselves and seemed to glide through the ground as if it were a liquid. The forest of flames began moving back towards the temple.
   “We thank you for the gift, Lady Spades of #name of castle.” The blue flame infused tree bent low and extended a thin branch towards her. It had a single vibrant cerulean leaf. “Take this leaf and use it to call my kin if you ever have need.”
   Spades plucked the leaf and carefully slipped it between two pages of a book in her bag. #does she even have a bag? I know Hannah and Ari do#
   The Seekers and Dr. Kear watched the leader move off to join his kin in chasing off the scientists and undoing the damage they had wrought.
   A round of yawns reminded them all that they had hardly slept since the morning and there was no reason for them to remain out here. Dr. Kear set off in the direction of her old home, hoping to see her parents, and the others begged Hannah to portal them back to the hotel as soon as they were alone. She rolled her eyes but was too tired to deny that a shortcut seemed best. She spread the paper on the forest floor, they all linked hands, and on the count of three they jumped.