Author: A.L. Buehrer

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writing for Christ

Writing for Christ: Writing Non-Christian Characters

My series on writing Christian fiction continues today with a very important and too often neglected subject. We’re here to discuss the non-Christian characters that appear in the stories we write. If you write enough books and stories, some time or another you’re going to want to include a character who is a non-believer. You should, actually. It will grow you as a writer and as a Christian.

Something extremely important to remember is that you absolutely must respect your character. This can be hard with a character that disagrees with the most important thing in your life, I know. But I can tell when an author, screenplay-writer, or even an actor doesn’t respect their character. The result is painful. The character becomes a flat, burlesqued caricature devoid of life and dignity that only exists so to be a scapegoat for all the artist’s bile against certain viewpoints, characteristics, and ideas. They are never fully realized as a character.

No matter how much you disagree with a character’s religious views, you have to find some way to respect them in spite of it. Think about real people in your life. You probably know some real people who are strongly non-Christian. Maybe some of those people are actually pretty awful and you can’t find it in you to respect them. I get this. Everyone does, even though, as Christians we know we are required not only to respect these jerks, but somehow to actually love them.

We’ll set those really nasty people aside for a second and consider the nice atheist next door that cuts tulips from her garden for you every April or May. What about your hilarious uncle who quit going to church before you were born? The genius doctor who’s looking for answers in all the wrong places? You do respect these people, don’t you?

Yeah, you do. You probably even love them. That’s because they’re real to you. They’re not just a set of beliefs you disagree with. They’re unique humans that God created. To create truly powerful fiction, all your characters need to be this real. It’s only fair.

So here are my tips for respecting your non-Christian characters.

Things to avoid:

  • Not giving them a conscience. God instilled a sense of right and wrong even in those who don’t know where it came from. Atheism does not automatically make you a psychopath. If you let your non-Christian character kill anybody they don’t like just because they don’t believe in God, you’re creating a strawman and sapping the credibility from your whole story. There are ways that Christianity clarifies morality where common-sense—or what society thinks is common-sense—can’t so well. I found this out in a secular ethics class during college. But nobody is going to go around killing people simply because they aren’t Christian enough to feel bad about it. Don’t be ridiculous.
  • Letting them be too easily challenged. Other points of view also have very strong faith in what they think is true. And there is a ton of authority behind the atheist POV. I’ve read a lot of atheist writers and they are very convinced of what they believe. Please, please don’t let some scrub-faced Bob-Joneser freshman stand up in Philosophy 101 and launch into a debate with his nine-PhD-toting atheist professor and stun him to silence with challenging questions. That’s not going to happen in real life. Ever. You’re not going to argue the average atheist on the street into questioning their faith in one encounter. Don’t let anything crazier happen in your fiction.
  • Having another character preach at them. Similarly, this is going to be ineffective and painful to read. You might have a truly watertight argument for a point you would love to make to an atheist, but I would highly recommend that you don’t use it. Okay, do what you want at Thanksgiving, but don’t use your fiction as wish-fulfilment. It’s going to seem fake, and your atheist character probably isn’t going to listen. (Neither is your hilarious uncle, but that’s none of my business.)

Things to remember:

  • You’re not required to convert every non-believing character. I know this is hard. Particularly if you actually ended up really liking said character. (In which case, congratulations. You’re doing great.) But if you can’t fit it into your plot, don’t force it. You could add something to suggest there is hope for this character in the future, if you want to send that message, but you don’t have to cram a whole conversion process into a story that isn’t built for it.

 

  • Find a way to identify with them. If you can find a way to identify with a character, you’re well on your way to creating a character you can respect. Anytime you have a character that is different from you in some drastic way, try to find one thing about them that you understand. You can use it as a key to open up all the inner workings of their character, and it’s sure to add a note of realism.
  • They might wish there was no religion to separate them from their Christian friends. Many atheists see religion as something that divides humanity and turns it against itself. Sometimes they’re not going to feel like arguing. Chances are, they have some Christian friends that they really like and wish there wasn’t tension between them.
  • They’re going to need a substitute for God. Bob Dylan was right about having to serve somebody. Or something. People have to have something to live for, or at least be in search of something to live for. Without God, people will build idols. Money, success, security, entertainment, the “good life.” It can even be something positive like family, or justice, or love. It’s not the thing itself that is the problem so much as the positioning of it. Sooner or later, all idols disappoint.

I hope this gets you brainstorming on how to craft believable non-Christian characters that will strengthen your story. Maybe all this was obvious to you, but maybe not. Just remember, all your characters need to be depicted as real people. All your characters need to be given a fair chance and to operate by a logic that is internally consistent. All your characters will benefit from you viewing them compassionately and respectfully. It might not be easy with some, but it will pay off.

Your thoughts? Have you written any non-Christian characters? Have you ever stood up in Philosophy 101 and stunned your professor to silence with challenging questions?

Stay tuned for the next post in which we’ll talk about how to add variety to the types of Christian characters in your book. Afterall, not all Christians are the same.

Categories
writing for Christ

Writing for Christ: Including the Gospel

 

We now continue with our series on writing Christian fiction. Welcome back. I hope you got something out of the first post on how to write a realistic conversion arc. This post is about how and when to insert the whole Gospel into a story. As we’ll see, there’s a right and a wrong way to do it, and there are times when it isn’t even the best thing for your book.

I think there’s some debate about the role of Christian authors. Actually, there’s some debate about the role of Christians, period. There’s a camp that seems to assume that the singular goal of everything a Christian does is to win souls. Evangelism is the ultimate calling for everyone, always. Though I believe reaching out to the lost is massively important, especially in these times, I also believe presenting the whole plan of salvation in one dose isn’t always the best way to do it.

Not all of us are preachers. And preaching a message can sometimes overpower the better interests of a writer who’s trying to create a soul-touching piece of art. But what is the best way to bring Jesus into our stories without simply rehashing Romans Road in a fictionalized setting?

There are different ways. Sometimes we are simply called to create beauty and wonder in a world that abhors beauty. Sometimes we’re called to encourage and empower fellow believers. Sometimes we’re called to challenge and expose lies that have crept in amongst us. And, yes, sometimes we’re called to evangelize.

But how be we do this without turning a story and a work of nuanced art into a cheap throwaway tract, boring to Christians and meaningless to non-Christians? It’s all about using the gift that God gave you–storytelling.

  • Have a character demonstrate the love of God. God is love. Honestly, one of the best ways to have Christ show up in your story is to let him shine through a character’s actions. Rather than forcing a character to tell another character that God loves them, have that character, driven by the love of God inside them, actively demonstrate that love to them. (Preferably in a way that moves the story.) Remember, action speaks a lot louder than dialogue, particularly in fiction.

 

  • Have a character do something that makes no sense without the hope of the Gospel. People who have the Gospel written on their souls are going to behave differently. They are willing to sacrifice in order to let God’s truth show through them. You can use a character’s decisions as an illustration of the Gospel message. But resist the urge to spend much time preaching about it after the fact. Your readers aren’t stupid. They can piece it together themselves. Trust them to see if they have eyes to see.

 

  • Have a character tell their own story as a testimony. Okay, Bad Kid is doing Bad Things and is headed down a Bad Road. Enter Wise Older Fellow Who’s Been There, stage right. Wise Older Fellow Who’s Been There grabs Bad Kid’s collar. “Now, Sonny, let me tell you a little story about me when I was your age.” Okay, STOP. Not that way. It’s cliché and painful to read. You’re preaching directly at the reader at this point, whether you mean to or not. Instead, incorporate the other character’s past, not as a sermonette, but a bit at a time, illustrating your theme and developing this Wise Older Fellow at the same time. Let the testimony come as a biproduct.

 

 

  • Use the suffering of one character to bring light to the other. Don’t be afraid to let a character represent Christ in a way that’s this explicit. They don’t have to be Aslan or any literal Christ figure to do it. Sacrifice for love and truth is a very compelling plot device and can tell the Gospel story in a much more memorable and high-impact way than some character sitting down with another character over coffee and spelling the whole thing out in words.

 

  • Use the plan of salvation, but have the character only come to accept it gradually. If you really feel led to do the whole Romans Road thing word-for-word in the middle of your story somewhere, okay. But realize that you have effectively stopped the action and are interrupting the flow of your story with what could amount to a commercial break trying to sell the reader Christianity. But maybe you have a character who would probably do it that way, and they are in a situation where they likely would. Alright then. But beware the flash conversion. Most people need a lot more than just hearing it said to turn their whole life around and start believing it.

 

Another ugly truth you might want to keep in mind while writing evangelistic fiction is this: honestly, non-Christian readers aren’t likely to give Christian fiction the time of day. There’s a good chance that if you write Christian fiction, the vast majority of your audience is already Christian.

This does not mean that your art can’t potentially change your reader’s life. If you dedicate your work to Him, God will use it. And even if your novel isn’t what ultimately turns a non-believer into a believer, it still is a powerful thing. The world is full of Christians who feel alone, unseen, and discouraged. Writing Christian fiction is a great way to reach out to them and lift their spirits. Novel-writing might not be the best tool for evangelism, but it can be exactly the right one for many other things equally valuable to God’s work in the world.

So, I would ultimately advise you not to try to make your novel a 113,000-word evangelism tract. Don’t feel pressured to spell everything out word-for-word. Let the Bible do that. Instead, find ways to artistically deliver the Truth and tell a great story.

Think of some novels that really spoke to you, as a Christian. Why did you appreciate them so much? Did they present the whole Gospel? How?

Coming up next, we’ll talk about writing non-Christian characters. I think it’s easy to put too little thought into these characters and damage our stories by botching them. So, keep your eyes open for the next post.

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Fiction Writers' Advice writing for Christ

Writing for Christ: Avoiding the Instant Conversion

Welcome to the first post of this series on writing Christian fiction. Brew a cup of tea, open the window to hear the birds outside, and we can get started on today’s subject: how to avoid forcing a character to go from nonbeliever to believer in an abrupt unnatural way. If you’re like me, you want to make a conversion into a strong satisfying character arc, not a quick fix that no one will believe.

I think it’s important to note a conversion to Christianity, finding Jesus, seeing the Light, is going to be a major element of your character’s arc. It really can just be a quick footnote or a twist to quickly solve problems you might have to use your brain to solve otherwise. Please don’t be tempted to use it as a shortcut. In real life, we know it’s anything but a shortcut.

Now compared to real life, novels are highly concentrated. Characters are expected to change somehow over the course of the story. We love dramatic character arcs. In Christian fiction, character change is often even more emphasized. Back in the day, Christian novels almost always had a conversion scene. It was about as expected as the kiss on the last page of a romance novel. (Do you ever just start flipping to the last pages of a bunch of romance novels in succession? So gross.)

Coming to Christ is a lot like falling in love. We all hate the insta-love trope. We hate it because it feels rushed and fake. Because it basically never happens that way in real life. Falling in love is a massively life-changing process—coming to Christ, even more so. Please don’t rush these things.

What are some ways to make the transition realistic and satisfying in fiction?

  • Character was raised Christian but drifted. In this case, the character actually already has some foundation on which to build their relationship. Admittedly, something was a bit off about the relationship in the past. The character probably let a lie come between them and Christ. They need to overcome that lie over the course of the story to come back to Him. And look! You’re already getting set up with a character arc. This makes a strong believable storyline if you can get a good backstory in place.

 

  • Character is a seeker who’s been on the edge of Christianity for a long time. Once again, in this case, your character is at a starting point. They’ve already started learning the truth even if they don’t fully accept it yet. They might not realize it, but a character in this position is already in the process of reevaluating their worldview and is ready for a paradigm-shift.
  • Character becomes desperate for divine intervention. This makes for a much more dramatic story than the first two and should be handled carefully to keep it from being too melodramatic. Under these circumstances, your character is in dire straits and they’re hoping for a miracle. This miracle can come in many forms, according to the theme of your story and the specifics of the situation, but in any case, God shows up in an intense and earth-shattering way. Beware that there’s probably going to be a lot of moral and emotional mopping-up to do in this wake of this, and don’t end the book too fast with “happily ever after.”

 

  • Character has some ulterior motive, but later realizes it’s real. I don’t know why I keep having to equate this topic with romance, but this is basically the fake dating trope. For whatever reason, your character is going along with a religious façade, trying to look like a good person, please somebody, whatever. Maybe they’re an organ virtuoso down on their luck. But they find themselves drawn to Christ in ways they don’t want to acknowledge at first. Eventually they find themselves in a situation where they have to ask themselves if it’s real. (Please use this one more often, people! It’s a really wholesome antithesis of the Christian-in-name-only thing.)
  • Series! Obviously, if there’s the danger of rushing a character arc, considering stretching it out over a series is always an option. This opens up plenty of opportunity to get into the details of a complete change of world-view. Now you have time to explore the struggles of being a new Christian. That’s an important topic that the world needs to see, so if you feel called this way, go for it. Writing a series can be great fun. (If you’re up for it. I should know.) You’ll learn so much about your characters that you never would have known otherwise.

You may or may not want to include a conversion in you book. Think about the story you want to tell, and the theme you want to highlight. We live in a different age of Christian art—one with more freedom to think outside the box and tackle new issues. If your story feels too rushed or unrealistic, try experimenting with the above variations. If your story feels stale and predictable, maybe God wants you to tell a different one. There are many deep and thematically rich events in the Christian life besides conversion. Don’t feel pressured to build your story around that if your creative energy doesn’t naturally take you there.

Coming up next, in a similar vein, we’ll be talking about if and how to lay out the whole plan of salvation in your novel. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, thoughts on any of this? Can you think of any examples of books or movies that show conversion well? What are your own tendencies when writing redemption character arcs?

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Fiction Writers' Advice writing for Christ

Introducing Writing for Christ

 
Okay, guys. I’ve got a blog series in store for you. I’ve outlined five posts on topics I think every Christian fiction writer will find useful. All the topics respond to issues I commonly find in Christian fiction—and hear other readers complaining about. I’d be delighted if you would join me for the next however many weeks this ends up taking us, to get a fresh look at our call as Christian fiction writers.
 
I’ve designed each post to minimize musing and fluff and maximize new material and practical advice to think outside the box and actually improve your fiction over the course of the series. There will be bullet-points, I promise.
 
The topics we’ll cover range from the usual things like the challenges of keeping content clean and making your book a story, not a sermon, to things we discuss less often like how to fairly and accurately represent non-Christian characters and remembering the pastors and clerical figures can be complete acting characters too. We’ll talk about showing conversion and character-change realistically and if and how the full Gospel should be spelled out in the book. I’ve done a lot of exploring on these topics and am eager to share my findings with you.
 
So, you might want to subscribe if you haven’t yet. And also, I would love to get some feedback and discussion going during this series. I’m sure these are topics you’ve considered and have plenty of insight of your own to share. Your questions and comments would add a great deal of value to the whole experience for everybody. Feel free to talk back.
 
Who’s in?
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Dronefall My Books Snippet

Lightwaste Excerpt

So, I promised you an excerpt. Here it is. it comes from Dronefall Two, Lightwaste, chapter Four: A Maze of Questions. She has been back at her old school campus, the place where she was raised, seeking answers to the mystery of her inaccessible legal identity files. Her success has not been great, and she is now bound back for District Three Point Five. She’s being careful that no one traces her back to her new neighborhood and has just jumped off a train and landed in an embankment that turns out to be alongside an old churchyard.

The song she sings to herself is part of the same song Reveille is singing in the end of Dronefall. Without really meaning to, I’ve introduced a new verse of this song with each new Dronefall book. We’ll see if it actually turns out to be five verses long.

Anyway, here’s your excerpt:

A black wrought-iron fence materialized from the crisscrossing shadows of the branches and she paused to stare beyond it. At this point, she realized she was in a graveyard. She could see the ancient monuments outlined in the orange light like the skyline of a sleeping city. There was no good way to climb or vault the fence, so she made her way around it, eyes always inward toward the silent garden.

“Oh, would you stay awake and watch with me, ‘til we hear the trumpet sound?
You’ve always been my faithful friends, is there faith left to be found?
You know those weary wanderers you’ve been putting underground?
They’ll all be up and watching, when they hear the trumpet sound.
They’ll be back up and walking….”

  She stopped and her eyes anchored on the silhouette of a cross: a crucifix, two meters high. The church looming in the background had been ravaged and purged. “Faith is for everyone,” said the sign on the door. That meant all the ancient Christian art and distinctive features had been torn down or sealed in glass cases with a lot of commentary alongside so as not to hurt anyone’s feelings. But not here in the cemetery.

  “It meant something to those people,” she remembered her tour guide saying in the Second Stage History of Western Religion fieldtrip. So did the church, she imagined. Times had changed, the guide said. Humanity was beginning to mature. And the old spiel would begin: at first man believed everything was a god, because they couldn’t make sense of the world any other way. Slowly, it evolved to more specific deities, then to one god—and this strict dogmatic view had a strong hold on people fearful of death and damnation, and had many negative effects on history and human relations. Now, at last, we were beginning to see the truth, and one day, we will live in harmony.

  And we will leave the body of Christ in the graveyard where we wanted it in the first place.

Remember, the eBook is still just 99c

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Dronefall My Books

Lightwaste. Is. LIVE!

Dronefall Two, Lightwaste is finally available to the reading public!!!

I don’t usually use that many exclamation points, by the way, but I’m thrilled to be launching this bold dangerous little book into the world. It’s been overdue for a long time. Not only in the sense that I expected to publish it last summer, but in the sense that the YA climate is changing in a very different direction and it’s time to speak on behalf of a popularly rejected point of view—Christianity and its unapologizing truth.

But Lightwaste certainly isn’t all fire and brimstone. What you’re actually about to see is Halcyon coming to the realization that many of us have, that there will come a point where you can no longer hide and go along to get along. The opposition simply will not let her.

There’s a lot that could be said but I don’t want to give anything away or overexplain my own story to you. You probably want to read it yourself. You definitely should. I happen to know that book three is also coming soon, and it’s even better, so you probably want to get reading.
Find it here!

New to the Dronefall Fandom?

Hey, great news for you. Book one, Dronefall, is available for a mere 99c on Kindle. I’ll eventually take it up to full price, but now isn’t the time, I think. So, take advantage of it, and jump in. Get it here. Welcome aboard.

Also! (I always feel very German using that word.) Lightwaste is at promotional price. You can get the second ebook for 99c as well. Both Dronefall and Lightwaste are, of course, available in paperback for those who vastly prefer physical books, (like me.)

Stay tuned for the next post. (You might even want to subscribe.) I’ll be releasing an excerpt of Lightwaste for your enjoyment.

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Uncategorized

I Have No Idea What I’m Doing: a mini memoir

If you want to be a doctor, you go to medical school and they tell you what to do for about seven years. You get your degree and you train, and you don’t really have to go figuring out how to remove tonsils just by going in there and snipping random stuff.

If you want to be a teacher, you get your degree, you student-teach, you learn from people who are doing it right in front of you. They don’t just drop you into a dusty arena full of middle-schoolers and leave you. (Though it probably feels like that, at first.)

But when you say. “I wanna be a paperback writer! Paperback writeeeerr!” People are like, “Good luck with that.”

Thanks for all the luck, guys. It’s been very useful.

If you’ve read Dronefall, then you know that in the back it says book two, Lightwaste is coming in summer of 2018. That’s not a spoiler. It’s technically more like a lie. Obviously, here we are in the third week of March, 2019, and do we have Lightwaste? No. Why?

I Have No Idea™

From now on, I’m going to note in my captain’s log every time I hit an obstacle in my journey from finishing a book to publishing it. It would make quite a chronicle for Lightwaste. Since summer of ’18, I’ve been telling myself, “yeah, probably next week,” almost every week. I don’t think I could even classify the feeling as suspense anymore. Hitchcock would have thrown the book of my life across the room by now. This has gone on about seven months too long.

I’ve read a pile of books on writing and I tend to browse multiple blogposts on the craft through the week. I’ve finished eleven novel manuscripts and made four available to the reading public. But I’m still groping in the dark when it comes to the nitty-gritty digital world of publishing. I really don’t know what I’m doing.

But I’ve made up my mind to let it bother me as little as possible. I don’t want to get too wrapped up in the chaos of the last seven months and the very possibly extensive chain of roadblocks still ahead. Sometimes I’m smart enough to see work as a game. Part of the game is hacking through Mirkwood with frankly nothing to guide you and assure you that you’re even on the right track. I pick up new skills all the time—things I never would have set out to learn, because I never saw them coming. In doing this I repeatedly surprise myself by doing things I thought were beyond me with my total lack of training.

So, even though I don’t deny that having no idea what I’m doing is potentially extremely frustrating (particularly when it gets in the way of my production of art) I think I’m actually doing pretty well, considering. In fact, right before I published this post, I ordered my second page proof of Lightwaste. Maybe I really will publish the book by the end of the month. Who knows?

Categories
Writing

15 Ways to Add Color and Depth to Character Relationships

Gotta love a big list post, right? I’ve had this list stashed away in my writing journal notebook for a while, just as a reminder to myself and a brainstorming prompt. Characters and their interactions are essential to driving a story and keeping it dynamic and interesting. Too often I notice authors slacking off on the complexities of interpersonal relationships in their stories. Some characters are nice to each other, some are mean, some are in love, some mentor each other or behave “like brothers” or “like sisters.”

But within these general outlines in real life, there’s a lot more going on than just that. There are numerous ways for brothers and sisters to relate to each other, and numerous ways to be in love. Sometimes characters can actually seem to lose their personalities and become stock-photo siblings or cute cake-topper couples. Unfortunately, this seriously detracts from my emotional investment in their relationships as the reader.

So, as a writer, I need to stretch my imagination a bit and search for ways to develop character relationships outside the obvious. This post is mostly focusing on positive, or overall-positive relationships. There’s a lot more to these relationships in real life than thoughtful words, friendly smiles and comforting hugs all around. Here are a few suggestions I noted to myself.

#1 Let them fight

No matter how much two characters love each other, there’s no way their interaction is going to be a frolic through a meadow of dancing buttercups all the time. Even the nicest characters have flaws. (And remember, conflict is a good thing when you’re writing fiction.)

#2 Give them a secret they can share

Another thing that’s always good is secrets. And when two characters get to guard a secret together, they naturally grow closer. It can be anything from a matter of life and death to simply trying to hide a stain on the carpet from important company.

#3 Let them worry about each other

I probably see this enough with romantic couples or parents with children, but people worry about people they care about whether it’s technically their responsibility to or not. And in a gripping story, there’s always plenty to be concerned about. Explore your characters’ personalities in the way they express or don’t express their concern.

#4 Have them plot something together

Similar to the idea of them keeping a secret together, showing your characters working on an elaborate plot or plan together will highlight their individual problem-solving approaches and unique kinds of ingenuity.

#5 Make them laugh at each other

I’m not really talking about intentional jokes, here. Characters who are close friends will be very sensitized to each other’s…peculiarities. And once they’ve reached a point when they know their relationship can take it, they will probably start both teasing and simply smirking to themselves over the other’s quirks.

#6 Let them discover each other’s weaknesses

Weaknesses are essential for creating a fully-developed character, and once characters have stumbled upon each other’s broken places, there’s potential for a lot of interesting dynamics between them as well as, of course, plot developments. 

#7 Make them misunderstand each other

Your characters may have similarities and might see eye-to-eye most of the time, but they are distinct individuals with different experiences. Confusion is bound to interfere with their communication sometimes, and it can add to your story while highlighting differences in your characters’ views of reality. 

#8 Give them in-jokes

My siblings and I have so many in-jokes. It doesn’t take very long to start creating them within groups, so this should also be true of fictional characters. In-jokes can be used as running gags throughout books or throughout a series to add that all-important humor element and reference characters’ past experiences together.

#9 Have them protect each other

And I don’t mean create an Official Protective Boyfriend character and leave it at that. A protective boyfriend is pretty predictable unless you can create a unique and memorable way for him to express his protectiveness. Sometimes a best friend’s protective impulses can be just as strong as any hunky love-interest’s, and outside of a romantic situation, they can pack a lot more of a punch.

#10 Let them reverse roles sometimes

Sometimes the funny one gets in a bad mood and the more serious one has to try to lighten the moment. Don’t give one character all the good lines and don’t let one get all the injuries while the other is constantly the designated healer. Turning the tables now and then will allow you to explore more sides to your character interactions and create depth.

#11 Give them a chance to break rules for each other

This is especially good for deepening relationships involving rule-abiding characters. Sometimes a character should find themselves in a situation where they’ll either have to go against the flow or sacrifice their devotion to their friend. Actually, they could choose either way, and it would add dimension to their relationship and make for some interesting plot material.

#12 Make their wills or personalities clash now and then

Strong-willed characters are always satisfying to read about. Stubbornness is a major factor within relationships and it can be a great way to create friction and conflict between two lovable characters. The same is true for characters who simply clash because of pronounced differences in personality. Sometimes neither is in the wrong. They just approach the world differently and get in each other’s way.

#13 Let them pick up on each other’s hints

People who are close enough and interact frequently enough can reach a point where they almost seem telepathic because of their ability to read each other. Certain facial tics, postures, or ways of phrasing statements can carry a lot of meaning, and some characters could become great at recognizing them. Some characters might read the signs and analyze them consciously, others might get a hunch and not be sure where it was coming from. Another opportunity for characterization.

#14 Have them miss each other when they’re separated

This constitutes a whole plot for some romances, but it shouldn’t be neglected in platonic relationships. Separation can highlight the ways characters impact each other’s daily lives. What does character A miss when character B is gone? Think outside the box. Of course, they miss their smile and their jokes, but think of the other, more specific things they might take for granted.

#15 Let them sacrifice for each other

Sacrifice is a great way to demonstrate love between characters through meaningful, plot-driving action rather than words or warm fuzziness. If one character has the opportunity to give up something of their own goals or desires to further those of another character, it always rings true for readers who are hoping to see both true friendship and true heroism in protagonists.

Have fun exploring your character friendships.

Categories
Writing

The Power of Reverse-Outlining for Revisions

This might be the most useful technique I’ve ever discovered when it comes to editing and revision. I did it for the first time while I was working on Dronefall Two, Lightwaste. I’m at the dreaded revision stage for my current WIP, Rainchill, Dronefall Three, but I’m not dreading it like I used to, because I just finished creating my reverse-outline.
So, let’s get straight to business.
What is a Reverse-Outline?
I can’t remember where I read it, but somewhere someone said you should keep a running outline of your chapters and scenes that you can refer to during your revision process. I decided what I wanted was a concise, uncluttered, list-like map of my whole novel in clear chronological order. It looks a lot like a plot, but actually a bit more detailed, in my case, and much easier to read. A reverse-outline is an inventory of what’s there, in your finished manuscript, before you begin your revisions.
How do I create a Reverse-Outline?
If you decide to implement this tool into your own revision routine, you’re going to want to customize it and tweak it so that you get the most out of it. I give my first draft a rest for…probably too long, and then return for an objective read-through. I divide my outline into chapters and my chapters into scenes.
I label my chapters with numbers and names. I know a lot of people don’t name their chapters, but if you don’t, I might recommend that you give them names or some quick descriptors in your reverse-outline. This will just make it a lot easier to navigate and see your overall plot as you revise.
Most of my chapters contain three scenes, but the actual number of scenes ranges from two to five. There are several ways you can choose to handle your scenes in a reverse-outline. You could just write a quick sentence describing what happens. Or you could write the character goal, the conflict, and the outcome. I have been using James Scott Bell’s HIP acronym. H=hook, the thing that pulls you into the scene. I=intensity, the action or conflict of the scene. P=prompt, the thing that makes you read on. I find this method helpful because it highlights how readable and interesting a scene is…or is not. This way, when I’m revising, it’s easy to see when a scene is boring.
So, when I write all this down, it sort of looks like this:
Ch. 1 CHAPTER NAME
Sc. 1
H:a crazy thing happens I: it escalates to global hysteria P:someone get help!
I leave wide margins and make notes when I find a major plot-hole or scene I could improve. Once I’ve been through the whole novel, writing it out this way, I can get to work on revisions with my reverse-outline as a roadmap.
How do I use a Reverse-Outline?
A reverse-outline does some really helpful things for me. First off, it forces me to read my first draft quickly, and summarize my overall structure as well as my chapters and scene-work. I now have my story written out in its most important details in an easily accessible format. Not only have I probably made the major plot-holes and dropped threads clear to myself already, but I can keep this reference handy for all my smaller edits. Having the plot in front of me all the time will safeguard me against creating other plot-holes that might result from my stupid brain trying to mess with the chronology of my story in my memory. (This is a problem for me.) I want to be able to quickly check the order of events without searching my document.
There aren’t a lot of limits to how you can use the reverse-outline in your editing process. I’ve gone through and ranked my ten weakest scenes and gone back in to improve each one. I’ve marked which scenes were action and which were reaction, found the turning-points, and flagged the scenes that seemed too heavy-handed or forced. You can track the emotional range of a story, or the surfacing of sub-plots, or character POVs by color-coding. You name it. If it’s something you feel you need to edit for, you can use the reverse-outline to assist you.
Reverse-outlining might be particularly useful for visual people or those of us who stray quite a bit from our original plot and need to remind ourselves what actually went down in the manuscript. If you think this sounds like too much fuss, it actually isn’t. You’re going to want to read through your first draft anyway, and taking notes in this way really doesn’t take any extra time. If you’ve never done anything like this before, you might find that it actually helps take some of the pain out of revisions.  

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My Books Poetry Writing

Songs from the Small Hours is LIVE!

I remember the Hale-Bopp comet. I don’t really know why. I wasn’t even three yet in Spring of ‘97. But I remember Mom picking me up and pointing it out through the bathroom window facing west. It was surreal, even to my very young mind—like a shooting star that had been stopped.

We haven’t had a comet like Hale-Bopp since. I’ve spent most of my life anticipating the next “Great Comet.” We’re overdue for one. So, in 201X, I was paying close attention when I found out a massive comet called Ison was passing the orbit of Jupiter, inbound.

Ison was predicted to be “the Comet of the Century.” But there was a certain degree of uncertainty. It didn’t take too long for scientists to recognize Ison as both a highly unstable body and what they call a sundiver—perhaps a self-explanatory term.

You may or may not remember how the story ended, but I think it was on Thanksgiving night Earth got word that Ison was a goner. I saw the time-lapse on TV. It swung around the far-side of Sol and a brilliant spray of vaporized material spewed out the other side. The nucleus was gone.

But that was after I wrote the poem “I Dreamed of Ison.” I mixed the metaphors of the grandiose promises of comet Ison with the quiet childhood story of a stray cat, “Comet” who eventually disappeared again. It’s kind of odd reading it in retrospect knowing the details of Ison’s star-crossed meeting with the sun.

“I Dreamed of Ison” is one of the 31 poems included in my long-in-coming poetry book Songs from the Small Hours. The illustrated chapbook is finally available to the public via Amazon. (And via me, personally, shortly. I just ordered a box of 50 of those things to hand-sell.)

One thing though. I haven’t released it as an ebook. I just thought I should say that before you asked. I might or might not later, but I personally think it lends itself to paperback quite a bit more, and you would be cheating yourself buying it in electronic format—I might change my mind later. Depends on how many people yell at me that they would get it if it were an ebook, but have no interest in paperback, and throw smoke-bombs through my windows.

Honestly, I don’t know how many people actually read poetry—I mean once they get out of school. But if you’re one of those rare people, or would like to be, you can read my book. Here’s the link for it. You might enjoy it. There are poems about insomnia and butterflies and graffiti and windchimes and things like that.

You can buy Songs from the Small Hours here.

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