Thursday Technicalities: Weaving World-Building Into Your Story – Through Your Character’s Eyes

Introduction

This week, we’re going to talk about weaving world-building into the story through your character’s eyes. There are multiple ways to go about weaving your world into the story, but one of the best ways is through your character. So let’s talk about how.

dISCOVERIES

The first way you can go about weaving your world into the story is to allow your readers to discovery it alongside your characters. When you have characters who haven’t experienced the world before, it’s a lot more acceptable to show more of the world in a way that’s overt instead of hidden in the lines between the action. Characters’ confusion over things in their world suddenly make sense because they don’t know anything about what’s around them to begin with.

Interactions

What if you don’t have a character who’s new to the world just like the reader is? You can still world-build and weave that building into the story. One great method for this is to develop the reader’s understanding of the world via interactions between your world and your character.

This method strongly goes back to the idea that your world is its own character with its own personality. No one person or world will interact the same way with each other. This method requires you to know a few things. You need to know your character, know your world, and know how your character views the world. These three determine how your character and your world will interact together.

Interactions can happen a lot of ways. It can happen through the character’s meeting with various creatures in the world. Or, maybe your character is a healer and spends much of their time gathering plants and supplies from nature. They might be an adventurer who has to brave the elements and the difficulties of terrain to reach their goal. Really, the possibilities are endless and allow you plenty of room to show the world to your reader. But the key with this method is that you should treat it the same way you treat an interaction between two characters. You won’t info dump on the reader because an interaction between two characters only reveals bits and pieces of both individuals, not everything. Instead, you’ll reveal only what is relevant to the interaction/scene and the story as a whole. Reveal what needs to be revealed then and no more.

The one difference between this method and an interaction between characters is that you may reveal things about the world that aren’t necessarily serving a specific purpose to the plot. At times, you may choose to reveal things about the world in interactions simply to make the world itself feel richer and more alive or even to reveal something about the person interacting with the world.

Happenings

The final main method for weaving world-building in has more to do with sentence-level inclusions and events. These may not be interactions with your main characters specifically, but they typically affect the character in some way or another. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be seeing it as the readers since you can’t show us what your viewpoint characters don’t see unless you’re using omniscient POV.

With this method, your world-building will be less obvious. It might be a common phrase that’s used by the inhabitants of the world or a common creature that is seen all over the place. It might be some sort of distant report of a creature terrorizing villages on the outskirts of a kingdom. Maybe it’s a brief mention of terrain in an area a character is occupying. One way or another, this world-building method usually doesn’t involve intrusive or overt mentions of the world. This is more subtle and is like the spice added to a dish. It makes everything read better, but your reader won’t notice the individual additions: only the whole of the writing’s flavor.

Conclusion

This type of world-building is more complex than what we often think of as world-building, but it’s also vastly more effective than what we usually see in most writing these days. It takes practice and instinct to do this well, but the instincts surrounding what type of weaving to use and how can be developed the more you write using the methods I’ve given here and in the previous post on this topic.

Thursday Technicalities: World Building Tools – Weaving Together Plot and World

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Introduction

This seemed like a fitting place to begin a new series on Thursday Technicalities since we talk about world building tools on Saturday Setups and since I was just discussing where I learned most of what I know in my newsletter this week. So, yes, we’re going to talk about more world building tools, but this time, we’re going to start examining ways to really weave world building into your story and how you can bring your world to life.

A lot goes into world building writing. There’s lots of room for failure, but it’s not always so easy to succeed at this. Sure, there are lots of ways to weave world building into the story, lots of ways to show your reader this world you’ve built, and lots of ways to world build and many more tips for world building. But more often than not, those methods aren’t used by authors. Worlds either end up flat because the author decided they wanted to flavor their romance/adventure/thriller/etc with fantasy instead of flavoring their fantasy with those other things, or they end up flat because the author didn’t weave the world into the story well and ended up info-dumping, which drives readers nuts. Neither way is a pretty way to die. So, let’s start into how you can avoid this.

Beginnings

For world building to truly work well, you have to understand that what you choose to do outside the story will probably be way more than what you’ll ever show in the story if you take the conventional approach. Now, it doesn’t have to be that way, but usually it is, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But while a series might have room for you to show your reader a picture of your whole world and all the cool things you put into it, a single book will not. This means that when you’re actually considering your world building in light of your novel, you need to do so with the very beginning of the book: when you start working on that kernel of an idea known as your plot.

There are really two, maybe three, ways this happens.

First, you may have a plot but not necessarily the world. In this case, you’re able to start building the world and the plot together. If you’re taking this approach, you can use an approach that Holly Lisle’s world-building course calls SANE world building. You build what you need when you need it and no more (unless you’re just doing it for fun). This approach is good if you’re the sort of person who feels like you can’t start writing until you have every detail of the world nailed down. You’ll never get anywhere doing that, so approaching world building writing as a part of building your plot can help you to tie the two together without going insane or never writing a single word of the story on paper.

Second, you may have the idea for a world, but not a story. This can happen to those of us who love world building writing because we conceive an idea for some sort of power system, magic system, or other world-based structure, but we don’t necessarily have the characters and the stories that are going to populate it. However, in this instance, the world building itself often gives rise to the story. When I was doing my undergrad in accounting, a friend and I came up with a story idea and were co-writing. However, she was taking a long time to do anything on her end, and I was bored, so I started doing world building writing for a bunch of random things and history-related stuff for the world. (Yeah, I know. Nerdy. But I was in accounting, and that was really, really boring.) Long story short, as I was developing the history, I ended up with the idea for Rith’s Disciple, which led to a vague desire to fill out the history following it. When I joined Wattpad’s ONC contest, that desire combined with a really good prompt resulted in Bane of Ashkarith.

Finally, though perhaps not always as common, sometimes you have the idea for a world and a story idea, which leads to further stories. This happened with Bane of Ashkarith. I already had the world established, as I mentioned above, but the history I’d developed for the world gave rise to Bane of Ashkarith and the rest of the series that I’m working on. All of the stories are literally just histories of the famous people from the world’s past. Readers wouldn’t necessarily pick up on that right away unless they knew me and had read about the background behind the series, but because of the combination of the idea for a world and a story together, I ended up with an entire series. Nice when that happens, right?

Expanding our Understanding

I think the other important world building tip for world building enthusiasts (and those who hate it too) to realize is this: world building is more than creating languages, building races, and making up fantastical creatures or cool tech. It’s way more.

Have you ever thought about how strange it would be to us if metal striking stone made a hissing sound instead of a clink? Or what if, when you stepped on grass in the summer, it crunched like gravel but stepping on gravel was soundless? What if the sky was purple, not blue?

When you’re creating a world, building it includes little details. These details can be split into three areas, really. Set, objects that act as props for the set, and mechanisms/methods by which things work.

tHREE aREAS OF pLOT-oRIENTED wORLD-bUILDING

Set is pretty straightforward. Having a sky that’s purple instead of blue is a set item. It sets your world apart from others. Lots of things could be part of the set. Anything from the color of the sky to the way water looks lapping on the sand to the sand itself could be a part of set. To clarify, set is different from your prop objects in that props are things people bring onto the stage. They’re objects like pens, candles, food on a table, or the table itself. Your set is anything that occurs there naturally like trees, bushes, deer paths, bodies of water, and so on.

Your props and objects are just as varied as set. But they’re also a part of world building writing, something Holly Lisle points out in her course on the topic. People don’t often think that props are as important to the stage you’re building for the story as the story or the big flashy fantasy creatures being installed, but they are. The objects around us say a lot about who we are and why we are the way we are. They are our insight into those around us and even into the world. What is there can sometimes be as important as what’s not. If everyone uses candles and not flashlights, that tells you something about the world. If stone doesn’t exist much of anywhere, but people build everything with wood, it says a lot about the set without you ever having to come out and say anything. Objects can also help us to understand the more immaterial mechanisms and rules in place surrounding the world. Those rules have to act upon an object, person, or part of the set. So we can often see them in action and learn those rules of order by observing what they act upon. This can help us to avoid info-dumping or becoming too obtrusive with our world.

Objects carry a lot of weight in the world, though. In a story, if you show us an object, particularly if you show it to us independent of any human interaction, we’ll assume it’s important. Now, maybe you put it there intentionally to tell us what kind of person occupies the space it’s in. Or, maybe it plays some larger role in the story as a whole. Only you know that and can decide. But, the fact remains that if you put it there, it needs to serve a purpose. If it doesn’t serve one, don’t put it in. That’s what leads to overwriting, purple prose, and bored or confused readers. None of those are good, so just don’t do it.

Mechanisms and rules are far less obvious than the first two, but no less important. Mechanisms and rules are what tell us that on Earth, when you drop a coin on a concrete surface, it clinks or gives off a ringing noise. It doesn’t purr because that would be breaking the rules. Mechanisms tell us that healthy grass should bend under our feet and spring back when we step on it in the summer time. It isn’t going to turn into a bunch of deadly spikes and stab the bottoms of our shoes or our feet. If we didn’t have mechanisms and rules to keep things organized and somewhat predictable, then everything would devolve into chaos. Your world is no different in this regard.

The main method for showing mechanisms and rules, however, is different than it was for the first two categories of practical, plot-oriented world-building. For mechanisms and rules, you generally end up showing them when they’re in use on objects, interacting with the set, or affecting a character. They’re seen subtly, but even though most readers don’t immediately pick up on it all the time, they’ll expect it to be a trend unless you’ve made it clear what just happened was really weird.

For example, in the first chapter of Pathway of the Moon, I show my main character, Leo, scaling a wall using shadows to stick himself to the wall. He proceeds to do the same on the way back out of the castle after a successful execution of his target. This sets a precedent or a rule for his magic. Shadows allow those who can use them to stick themselves to different surfaces. I didn’t represent it as an odd thing or something that other shadow users couldn’t utilize, so the reader will anticipate that it’s normal for the world and the character, and if I use it again, they won’t find it odd. These kinds of encounters help to flesh out and build the world for the readers without them even noticing or realizing that you have.

Conclusion

In upcoming posts, I’ll go into some more specific writing tips for slipping world building into your story and talk about the techniques. The point of this post was simply to help you to understand some basics on how you can begin weaving the two together. It is by no means an exhaustive thesis on the subject. I hope that it’s been useful to you, and I hope you’ll stick with me as we explore some of the various ways myself and other authors utilize to develop worlds that readers can delve into and enjoy in their own rights because of their individuality and fresh perspectives.

Thursday Technicalities: Self-Editing

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Introduction

Last week, we talked about the types of edits that can be acquired when you’re ready for an editor. But what if you can’t afford an editor or just want to make sure the edit will take less time so you don’t have to pay as much? As an editor, I always encourage people to get an editor before publishing, particularly self-publishing, but I also understand that not everyone has the money to do that. So what can you do if you’re in that situation? You can self-edit.

Basics of Self-Editing

To begin with, let me say this. Self-editing means nothing if you don’t have a clue how to do it. This is why I recommend that authors find an editor who can help them in this area. Why? Because frankly, most authors can’t do both. There’s no shame in that. They’re not bad writers because of it, certainly. I’ve helped out plenty of people who had great ideas and even an okay execution of the idea, but they didn’t know how to edit it so that it would truly come to life. So, chances are pretty high that you may not have any idea how to edit, even if you know your way around writing a story well enough.

If you’re in that situation, again, there’s no reason for embarrassment. It’s a normal situation to be in. You should, however, take the time to learn about editing. I know it takes time and that time is often in short supply for all of us, but self-editing means you are going to be your own editor, and whether or not readers can really enjoy the story depends entirely upon not just how well you write but also how well you can edit.

This post can’t possibly cover everything you need to know about self-editing. There’s simply far too much to cover, and you’re not going to be able to learn it all overnight. You should approach this with the basic understanding that self-editing is your doing the same things an editor would do. Since that requires a lot of knowledge, the rest of the post will be going over resources you can use to learn how to be a better self-editor. You have to learn and practice editing the same way you had to learn and practice writing. The two are related but separate competencies, and they require very different mindsets and knowledge bases.

Resources

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King: This one is a really good book to start with if you have no self-editing experience. It’s at the top of the list because it’s more modern than book two on the list but still covers a good mix of basic and advanced topics. It’s well-organized and moves from simple to complex.
Strunk and White’s Elements of Style by Strunk and White: You should read this if you read nothing else. It’s a bit drier than Browne and King’s book listed above, but it’s just as relevant, and you’ll learn a lot, particularly about the grammar and style portions of editing that every editor should know. I recommend it to both authors and to those asking me for editing advice. For all its dryness, the book is still indispensable, and once you’ve read through it once, you can continue to use it as a reference while editing.
Revision and Self-Editing by James Scott Bell: This comes from a bit more of a writing perspective based on the pieces I’ve looked through for reference. I’m reading through it in its entirety now, and it’s packed with useful examples, information, and pieces of advice from editors and authors who have experience in the field. Bell also has a pretty good sense of humor, in my opinion, and it comes out in the way he says things or the selections he chooses for examples. This one’s definitely not a terribly difficult read either.
Woe is I: A Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English by Patricia T. O’Conner: I haven’t personally read this one, but it’s a national best-seller recommended by editors for people looking to self-edit. It focuses more on the sentence-level edit, something every book benefits from but often doesn’t get. Welcome to the world where you agonize over every page, paragraph, sentence, and word in your book. Fun stuff, right? In all seriousness though, this book is well-known for being a humorous, fun approach to teaching you what you need to know about grammar and sentence-level edits.
Editing Mastery: How to Edit Writing to Perfection by Shani Raja: This is an online course with Udemy written by an ex-Wall Street Journal editor. I’ve gone through almost half the course, and it’s been one of the most valuable resources I’ve ever come across. It’ll teach you how to do a deep edit like some of the world’s top editors do. The course example and practice assignment focuses mainly on non-fiction, but I’ve found that the principles are fairly easy to apply to fiction of any sort as well.

Conclusion

I hope the resources I’ve provided help you out in your self-editing journey. It’s not an easy area to master, frankly, but the resources above have been some of the most useful ones I’ve come across in my time both freelance editing and self-editing. Whatever you choose to do, I wish you best of luck with your piece!

Thursday Technicalities – Types of Edits

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Introduction

Editing. Doesn’t everyone just love it? Well, some of us do. If you’re like me, one of your favorite parts of the writing process is actually the rewriting and editing stage, at least when there’s not a huge time crunch. I know, I know. It’s weird. Most writers really can’t stand this process, and most writers don’t have a clue how to go about it. Now, most of us are capable enough of catching the stray grammar error or glaring plot hole, but many times, writers–and even published authors–don’t know what it takes to make their book publish-worthy material. That’s the job of their editor.

Which begs the question. How do you know what kind of edit your work needs if you’ve never done this or if you haven’t worked with an editor before? I’m glad you asked because that’s what today’s discussion is all about! Let’s get right into it.

If you’re a beginning writer, chances are you need a deep edit. A deep edit goes through several stages and looks at everything from story structure and big picture stuff to the gritty details of sentence structure and word choice. This is a quite extensive edit, and most freelance editors I’ve spoken to specialize in specific areas, so a deep edit from one editor may be difficult to achieve. This means that, often, a beginner writer may need to find two or even three editors to look at the piece. This obviously isn’t the most fun thing to work with, but if you can find one or two editors who are able to compliment each other’s skill sets to give your piece a well-rounded edit, that’s usually easiest. For those of you in this situation, the key is to look for an editor or editors who note that they’re good with content editing, structural editing, style editing, and presentation editing. For fiction, these areas may not be presented exactly with these titles, so read on to find out what kinds of things fall under each so you have a better idea of what you’re looking for.

If you’re not a beginning writer, you probably know what areas you struggle with frequently. Chances are you don’t struggle with all of them, though you may struggle with more than one. So I’m going to break down the stages of deep editing for both you and the beginners wanting to know what each stage entails. This way, you will have a better idea of what skill set you need to find in an editor to give your book an edit best fit for it.

Content Edit

A content edit is the first step a deep editor takes in editing a piece. In fiction, a content edit is going to take a look at the purpose of the piece, the genre it’s in, and what it contains. The point of this level of editing is essentially to ensure that every major point in the book or story revolves around the purpose, genre, and main idea of the story. This kind of edit gets rid of scenes that might be unnecessary or repetitions of previous scenes that made the point already. It will eliminate rambling and make the piece more concise. It will also focus on adding anything that’s missing. Practically speaking, a content edit is focusing mostly on the plot of the story in fiction and making sure that the book’s scenes make that plot work from beginning to end.

Structure Edit

With this type of edit, the editor is going to shift gears to look at the angle and narrative structure. Depending on the work, there may not be any particular angle, but there will be a narrative structure. This type of editing will make sure that each point in the narrative structure is ordered elegantly and works smoothly with the others.

Style Edit

Here, we start getting into the finer details. A style editor is going to look over the work to remove clutter in your scenes, paragraphs, and sentences. This edit fine tunes and refines the work so that the narrative style really shines. This one is, perhaps, one of the more difficult edits to do because it calls for someone who will really dig down into the piece to look at things like word choices, sentence structure, and pacing using more technical avenues like paragraph and sentence lengths. Having done this before, I can attest to how much work this is. Sometimes, it can be a hard call on whether something is clutter or necessary and whether to use one word instead of another in a specific sentence. However, these changes can make a huge difference in a piece, so if you can’t do this yourself, find someone who can.

Please note that an edit like this doesn’t focus on fixing grammatical errors or presenting things in a clean, professional way on the page. That’s saved for a presentation edit. What this edit will do is improve your narrative style, make your ending resonate with the reader, make your middle flow from paragraph to paragraph seemingly effortlessly, and make your beginning arresting to the reader. If that’s what your book is missing, this is the type of edit you need, so find an editor who specializes in this area.

Presentation Edit

Last editing stage, everyone! In this stage, your editor will worry about the nitty-gritty details of grammar and punctuation. They’re going to look for those pesky misplaced commas or fix misspellings. They’ll read it through to make sure that any leftover sentences that might trip readers up are removed, and they’ll trim the sentences you don’t need if necessary. This stage cleans up your manuscript and makes it ready for presenting in its final form to your reader. If you’re able to do the first three types of edits on your own, it may still pay off to have someone do this sort of edit for a piece. As humans, we’re prone to error, so having someone else take a quick look through our work to clean up any missed problems is usually a very wise decision.

Conclusion

I hope this has been informative for you all! Next week, we’ll start talking about some of the specifics on knowing where your work is at, knowing when to self-edit, and knowing who to hire when you need an editor. This area is one that I see a lot of uncertainty about, particularly with writers new to the editing process, and a lot of mistakes can be made. My hope is that, in the upcoming weeks, I can take some of the stress and confusion out of the process for you!

Saturday Setups – Factors to Consider

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Introduction

Last time, we talked about languages and developing them, but this week, we’re going to briefly go over some factors to consider. Building languages is complex, so it’s important to break it down and go part by part. How far you go with it obviously depends, as we said last time, on what you want and need out of this exercise. Some people may just decide they need a few common sounds and aren’t concerned about an entire working vocabulary. Others will choose to go all out. Regardless, there are some factors you should consider when building the language.

Readability

First off, you should consider readability. Your reader is going to be seeing names and, in many cases, at least some words from the language you’re building. If you create a name like Aldafhjfd or some other such strange combination, people will have trouble processing it. Granted, even in real life, we’ve got names or words that we don’t know exactly how to pronounce, especially if we’re looking at a language like Gaelic or Welsh and don’t know the pronunciation rules. We’re likely to get it wrong. But we can still process it. We can still assign some method of pronunciation to the word, even if it might be wrong.

As writers, we expect that when we create our names or use unusual names from other cultures in real life, we’re going to have some subset of readers who may get close but a much larger subset that won’t get even close. So, our goal isn’t to worry about whether or not they can pronounce it properly.

Chances are that most of you wouldn’t know how to pronounce the name Leorithdhil, but you could probably come up with something that made sense to you, and you’d be content with it for the duration of the novel if need be. It doesn’t matter to me that you can’t pronounce it right. It does matter to me that you don’t trip up on the name or the word every time you see it. If you’re stopping to try to wrap your head around the sound of a word or name whenever you come across it, I’ve failed because those couple of seconds (or minutes, if you’re like me and try out every possible pronunciation method trying to figure it out) are seconds you can choose to stop reading because you’re no longer involved in the story.

That’s bad!

I don’t want you all to stop reading, and you don’t want your readers to do so either. So, before you do anything else, readability and ease of access for the readers should be at the top of your list of concerns.

SImplifying to Keep Your Sanity

Guys, let’s just be honest here. Building a language is hard. If you’re trying to build it from grammar rules up, it may make you want to tear your hair out, no matter how happy you are with the end result. I should know because I’ve done this. I still have stuff I’m tweaking with the language I’ve been building, but much of the grammatical side is already in place because I love grammar, syntax rules, and language in general. (If you couldn’t tell…) In spite of my love for those things, there were times when I sat and stared at the page in despair because I couldn’t figure out how to handle a problem that had arisen with the rules I’d created or with the way something fit together.

No matter what, you’ll have those moments if you do any extensive language building, just as you will with extensive world-building in general. However, you don’t have to dissolve yourself into a mushy mess that can’t think or function. Simplification is allowed. You’re not trying to create a language people in real life would be able to use for every situation. Even Tolkien didn’t do that, though he did give his fans a highly-developed, impressively functional language with more vocabulary than most language constructions have. Despite that, he still didn’t give them the amount of vocabulary necessary for every day conversation.

So, don’t feel you have to either. Create what you need first, then worry about adding to it as you feel like it, not worrying about or stressing out over it. Once you’ve developed what you need, the rest is icing on the cake. It isn’t necessary and shouldn’t be something that makes you want to bang your head into a brick wall repeatedly.

Simplification comes in quite a few forms. You could choose to remove letters from the alphabet, as we discussed last time, you could borrow grammar rules from other languages in real life, you could borrow sounds from languages around you, or you could even decide to limit yourself to creating words only as you need them. Whatever form of simplification you choose, do implement some simplification method(s). It will keep you sane!

How Much is too much

The last area of consideration I’ll cover is more of a question than anything. How much is too much? You need to figure this out before you start building, particularly if you’re going to use the simplification method of building only what you need. Knowing how much is going to be too much for your novel is really important. It keeps you from overloading your story and your reader with the overabundance of building you’ve done in this area.

Every story is going to be different in its requirements and what you can and cannot get away with. Every audience will have different expectations of you as an author and of the area of language building in particular. Know what those requirements, restrictions, and expectations are. If you don’t know them, you’re highly likely to disappoint your readers with too much or, in some cases, too little.

Once you know what your story and its audience require, limit yourself. Don’t go to the extreme of too much. Include what you know will be tolerable and enjoyable for your readers.

If you want to build beyond that, then collect it somewhere for your reference and for the reference of enthusiastic fans if you have them. There may be some fans who really want to learn more about this world you’ve built and the languages in it, but don’t write the book for those fans because they won’t be the majority. If you pander to them, you’re going to drive away your main audience: readers who just want a good story in your genre. Instead, make the further resources on the world and its culture, languages, and more available to those super-fans who really want to dig into it, but make it available outside the story. A glossary and further resources for readers section on your website is one good way to do this.

Conclusion

In the end, when language building, you have a lot of technicalities to consider. But those technicalities need to be framed properly with an understanding of your audience and their needs. Go with what your audience needs to access and enjoy your story. Leave the rest in notebooks for your own personal enjoyment or reference.

Thursday Technicalities – Sorting It Out: Constructive or Destructive?

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Introduction

We talked about how to find critiquers and beta-readers as well as about how to figure out what kind you need, but let’s talk about one last important thing regarding this area before we move on to a new discussion. You have to know how to sort out the constructive feedback you get from the destructive feedback. So let’s dive in and talk about each.

Constructive Criticism

We’ll start with constructive feedback or criticism. This is, obviously, the kind you want, but sometimes it can be hard to tell whether something is constructive or not. Not everyone who offers destructive feedback is a troll or someone who just hates you and your book. Many times, they’re very well-intentioned and think they’re helping. So, how do you know the difference in those cases?

First, constructive feedback is going to be relevant. It will be commentary on areas that don’t fit the needs of your audience, things that are just outright incorrect (usually grammatically), or areas that aren’t clear. This by no means an exhaustive list, but typically, constructive criticism is going to focus more on what is wrong than specific ways to fix it. The ways of fixing it come as you have a discussion with the individual offering the feedback. While that individual may offer some ideas for how you might go about fixing something, they may not always know, so more questions are typically necessary to figure out what the best solution for the problem will be.

Please note that we’re talking about people doing more of a high-level review of your book. They themselves may not be writers, and they very rarely are editors. You want your critique partner or beta-reader to be someone from your audience, not someone looking at your book for how to make it read like a best-seller. An editor, if you have chosen well, will know enough about writing and, ideally, your genre to know whether or not something will work to make your fiction marketable, not just a bunch of text you put together in a semi-useful way. The editor does a different job from a critique partner or beta-reader, so you won’t handle that interaction exactly the same way.

Second, constructive feedback will be specific. What do I mean by that? Well, you’re trying to make sure everything in your book is clear, engaging, and focused. A reader will notice points in the book where this isn’t the case, and if you’re getting good feedback from a beta-reader or critiquer, they will too, and they will make note of it. They will not offer you a general, vague opinion of the book. That’s something a general reader might do, but it’s not much use to you if you need to fix anything.

Finally, constructive feedback will be an honest assessment. And by honest, I mean frank about the good and the bad. Constructive feedback has to recognize both what you’re doing well and what you’re not so that you can keep the good and fix the bad. If all it points out is the good stuff or only the bad, you’re imbalanced in your perspective. Only good things will result in an inflated view of how good the book really is. But overwhelming commentary on all of the bad undermines your confidence, causes you to write poorly, and results in you–most often–changing even those things that weren’t bad to start. The person offering the feedback will, of course, have their own biases, but you want to find someone who will offer their opinion in addition to clear feedback on things that are obviously working well or working poorly. You don’t want them to try to change the entire point of the story, but you do want them to help you see what you may not.

Destructive Feedback

In most ways, destructive feedback is the opposite of constructive feedback. So we’ll just briefly go over what signs to watch for with destructive feedback. Destructive feedback will often be feedback that tries to change the heart of the story. It isn’t correcting a problem that actually is real. Instead, it’s just feedback on everything the reader personally didn’t like about the book and an essay on what they would write if they were you. That’s clearly not helpful, and if you follow that kind of advice, your book will change with every reader. You’ll end up destroying anything that was good about the book to start.

Destructive feedback is also feedback that’s irrelevant, too general, or unbalanced. Any of these can derail a book and the entire story you were trying to tell. Allowing someone who predominantly offers this kind of feedback to influence your decision-making process is extremely unwise.

A Word of Caution

Please know that many people give a mix of the two kinds of feedback. Unless they really just hated the story, they’re probably going to have some feedback that is helpful and constructive with some feedback that is destructive mixed in there as well. It’s just how this sort of thing tends to work because everyone has different ideas of what makes a good book. Not everything you have will be their preference, even if it might not be a problem. That’s why getting a few different people to critique or beta-read is extremely useful for writers.

In the end, unless someone is only giving you destructive feedback, don’t toss them out as a possible option simply because you see some destructive feedback in the mix. Be fair and be realistic. If you were reviewing something for someone, you’d have a mix of feedback too. And if you were the one doing it, you wouldn’t think twice. A mix of feedback would be acceptable. So, afford your critiquers and beta-readers the same leniency you’d give yourself here. Just make sure that, when you look at the feedback, you sort through to see what you should keep and what you should toss.

Conclusion

That’s it for today’s Thursday Technicalities. I hope this has been helpful for you all! This also concludes the section on critiquers and beta-readers. On upcoming Thursday Technicalities, we’ll be discussing editors and the principles surrounding the editing process. I hope to see you all join me for those posts as I know this is an area that many authors are unsure about, particularly when it comes to self-published authors. Until then, have a great week!

Thursday Technicalities – Interacting with Your Critiquer

Featured Ariel Paiement

Introduction

So, we already discussed interacting with your beta-reader, but as you know, beta-readers are different than critiquers. So, while some principles will be the same, not all of them will be. Let’s take a look.

Do’s and Don’ts of Interacting with your Critiquer

1. Do not argue with your critiquer.

This goes for beta-readers too, but a critique partner ought to be someone with more knowledge of your area of writing and of writing in general. While they can make mistakes or poor judgment calls, chances are much higher that they know what they’re talking about. If you’re defensive or arrogant, no one—not even a less experienced critique partner—will be happy working with you. So no arguing.

2. Do ask questions and discuss areas you aren’t clear on.

If your critiquer has said something to you that doesn’t make sense or that you’d like further pointers on, you should ask. Unless they tell you they aren’t open to further questions (which is unusual for a critiquer), you can ask about whatever you need to. Just keep rule one in mind and avoid shutting them down.

3. Do discuss.

Along the same lines as rule two, you should discuss things with your critiquer if you don’t agree or if they seem to be missing something important to the story. Explain where you’re coming from and ask their opinion. After you have that, ask any clarifying questions you have and thank them for the input. Then you can decide if you want to take the advice or leave it.

4. Do not behave in an inconsiderate or arrogant manner after you get the feedback from them.

This should not have to be stated, but it unfortunately does because there are people out there who do forget this and need to be reminded. Your critiquer is human too. I’ve seen many writers treat critiquers poorly and harshly or put them down as people because the writer didn’t get the feedback they wanted. These kinds of people are a misery to work with. Literally, I can promise you that if you’re like this, you are going to be the person we hate working with most because not only is it likely your work is poor quality because you ignored advice from three people before us, but you’re not going to fix it after we review it, and you’re going to be rude to us in addition. Kindness will get you much further.

Hopefully, no one reading this is like that. But I recognize that these people are out there, so if you are one of those people, please know that you are shooting yourself in the foot first and foremost. We’re not going to be happy with you, obviously, and some of us may get upset over how you treated us, but in the end, you are the one to suffer because arrogance or defensiveness mixed with rude behavior will make your journey from writer to author much harder if not impossible. I hope that no one reading this is in that position, but, this needs to be pointed out because too many times people don’t stop to be grateful that the critiquer took time to go through their work.

If you didn’t get a glowing review, be doubly grateful! They took time to pin point the book’s problem areas instead of reading a polished book off a bookstore shelf. Critiquing badly written work is way tougher than doing so for a well-written work. Show your appreciation and be mindful of their feelings too.

If you aren’t, I guarantee they’ll spread the word to anyone else they know who might consider working with you. And the Internet makes that very easy. I’ve heard stories myself from fellow Wattpaders and writer friends, and I have some of my own. Rude behavior lost one writer a chance at joining a critique group because people in the group had worked with the writer and shared their awful experience. This individual was refused on the grounds that their behavior ruined the previous critique group they’d been involved in. Please don’t let that story be yours too!

Conclusion

This isn’t an extremely long post because the main point is that you should be polite and professional in every case. If you aren’t, you only damage your own image and give another writer cause to say bad things about you. Being polite and courteous goes a long way toward avoiding ruffled feathers or smoothing them over if they occur. In the end, it’s your book, and you can do what you choose to do with it. The best way to handle dealing with a critique, good or otherwise, is to take whatever you can from your critiquer’s input to make your book better, but don’t feel obligated to use the rest. Throw it out and move on.

Saturday Setups – Magic: Consequences

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Introduction

This week’s discussion is the last on magic for now. We’re going to go over consequences to magic. We’ve already hinted toward this a bit, but a closer look at it is important because there’s so much variation in the topic. So we’re going to examine this area in a little more detail. Since I already covered the importance of having structure to the magic system and the need to have boundaries as well as consequences that limit magic use, we won’t go into that with too much detail. Instead, we’re going to look at some of the kinds of consequences and how they can be used. Let’s get started!

Types of Consequences

Okay, so this particular topic is pretty vast in that the possibilities for consequences to magic and why you have them vary so widely. But let’s take a quick look at some different types of consequences. You can have mental, physical, emotional, or tangible consequences for things. The first three are relatively straightforward. The consequences in these categories will end up affecting the user directly in one of those three areas, so there may be restraint in how much magic is used depending on the severity of the consequences. The last is a little less obvious. Tangible consequences are ones that don’t fall under the other three. They affect the user indirectly instead, usually by affecting his loved ones or by taking something from him that is precious to him.

Examples of Consequences

Obviously, the consequences for using magic change a great deal depending on what category they fall into. A magic system whose consequences are mental might include anything from losing memories to going into a coma. Obviously, the severity may vary depending on the magnitude of the magic used, but the type of consequences allowed will be dependent upon what you choose to use for the consequence category. A physical magic system wouldn’t include losing your mind or losing memories, but it could include illness, losing body parts, blood sacrifices, or some other physical consequence for using the magic or even for making it work. And still yet again, emotional consequences won’t be the same as either of the previous two. This type of consequence isn’t necessarily as common as the first two because it’s a bit harder to come up with things to use. But emotional consequences might include losing the ability to feel a specific emotional, temporarily or permanently, or could even include a heightening of some negative or positive emotion for a time period as well. Or, perhaps the consequences emotionally result in some sort of “mental” illness that affects only one’s emotions or perceptions of the world around them. Typically, emotional consequences are going to go hand-in-hand with mental consequences simply because the two categories often impact each other, even in the real world.

The category that’s most expansive is the tangible consequences category. This is because the consequences are taken out on those around the magic wielder. So, a mage’s sister could go insane because he tried a spell that was really strong. Or, perhaps a close friend dies as a result of the use of magic. Really, the possibilities are endless. The key to note here is that when it comes to consequences, I don’t mean direct consequences that occur because someone used magic wisely or unwisely. Think of consequences here more as a price that is exacted after magic is used. In some systems, that price might be the drain on some sort of extra energy reservoir that the magic wielder possesses or use of life force. In others, the price could be something else entirely. The magic will work, but you don’t get it for nothing.

Practical Use of Consequences

Now that we have a foundational understanding of the topic, we need to understand how to use consequences practically in a novel. This can take many forms because, as noted above, the choices and combinations are pretty limitless. And you aren’t bound to staying with only mental or only physical consequences. You could have differing prices depending on the type and magnitude of the magic. For example, in Pathway of the Moon, I have three different consequence systems for three different situations of magic use.

The first is the normal type of magic almost everyone uses. In this consequence system, people draw on an energy reservoir inside of them. That reservoir will replenish, but those who try to do magic that requires more than what is in that source will end up drawing on their own life force. Obviously, this is a strong incentive for people to understand their own personal limitations and to avoid overdoing it.

The second system is in place for those use dark magic or shadow magic. Since both have similar workings and both can draw on the life force or energy source of other people around, the system is the same for both. In this case, those who have and use this kind of magic pay a different price if they choose to use someone else’s energy instead of their own. They suffer mental consequences as the blackness of the magic used can overwhelm them and will eventually drive them mad.

The final system is in place for, again, those who use magic drawing on the force of others. But in this case, it is for light-wielders because their magic doesn’t operate the same way as the magic of the shadow-wielders or dark magic users. In this system, drawing on the life force of others results in physical consequences, not mental. Using magic this way here results in the loss of physical senses over time, and each subsequent use of others’ life force comes at a higher and higher cost.

All of these systems operate in the same world and series, but they’re all very different types of consequence systems. Hopefully this helps you to see how you can weave consequences into your own book and your own magic system. How you choose to do it will vary to one degree or another from how I’ve done it, but this was just an illustration to underscore the fact that you can combine things as you like.

Conclusion

I hope this article has been helpful to you and has brought you some useful advice on how you can work with this very important area. It’s not a matter of right or wrong in this case, so have fun with this and don’t be too concerned with whether or not it’s “correct”. Have questions or suggestions? Feel free to leave those in the comments below!

Sunday Sub-Genres: Flintlock Fantasy

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Introduction

Most of us know what steampunk and Victorian fantasy is, but I’m guessing most of us haven’t heard of flintlock fantasy. To be honest, I myself hadn’t prior to researching different fantasy genres to discuss for Sunday Sub-Genres. It isn’t one of the more commonly known or widely spread genres in fantasy, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a style of fantasy that appeals to readers and writers alike, so we’d be amiss if we skipped it. Let’s get started!

Defining Flintlock Fantasy

Simply put, flintlock fantasy is fantasy written in a setting with all of the bells and whistles of the early stages of the Industrial Revolution. It received its name because the firearms’ advancement level is usually right around the flintlock stage of gun development. A creative name? Maybe not. But it does serve its purpose. Politically speaking, the scene is more attuned with Napoleonic-era Europe than you see in most fantasy stories, which typically use a more Middle Ages-style structure. So you’re going to see a rise of industry and industrial buildings as well as more technology. This makes things interesting, as you’ll see when you read through the next section of the post.

Writing Flintlock Fantasy

Now we get to the interesting part. We mostly know what to write and expect in typical fantasy genres, but flintlock fantasy is a whole different beast from what we’ve tackled in previous posts on fantasy sub-genres. Still, it makes for some fun combinations in story-telling, so let’s get into it!

Magic

We’re going to start here because this part is pretty unique to flintlock fantasy or any fantasy book that has a more developed society. Magic use can be all over the place in these books. Some have very high magic use while others really don’t. Some may keep the magic hidden away from general society while others may allow it out in the open. But here’s the thing. When you can easily gun down the mage with no magic of your own, things tend to shift in the power balance here. People with magic are no longer the only ones with an edge. They may use the magic to do many things, but if technology can do those same thing or do them more efficiently, then that leaves magic-users with an option: adapt or die in obscurity. Keep in mind that one of the most interesting things in flintlock fantasy is the way the authors end up combining magic and gunpowder. That can create some very interesting combinations and effects. So if you’re writing this genre, you’re going to do some serious thinking about magic and how you want to include it because this is one of the hardest decisions you’ll probably make regarding this type of fantasy.

Society

Here’s a critical one. Flintlock fantasy is set in a society on the cusp of some amazing inventions and changes, as well as some not so great ones. One way of life is slowly dying to give way for another, and depending on how you choose to tell the story, your tale will reflect that. It won’t have much of a choice because of the nature of flintlock fantasy. This opens the door for remarking, through the use of fiction, on the horrors of trends in society as technology began to really barrel forward. It allows writers a chance to make a commentary on history and on what may happen to us in the future because of it.

Steam Power

Okay, this is a little of a weird one to include, but it’s also really important. You might be tempted to think at this point that this isn’t much different from steampunk besides maybe focusing more on flintlock innovations and what not. But that’s actually very far from the truth. While an argument could be made that these two are closely-related cousins, flintlock fantasy is not steampunk fantasy. So no steam-powered machines of gears and cogs that can do wild things. If it was an actual invention during the time period flintlock is based on, it’s probably fine. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t have anything steam-powered, but it shouldn’t be prominent or the focus because then you’d be writing steampunk, not flintlock fantasy.

Change and Military Might

Remember how I said your society is on the cusp of change? Well, it’s not just technology that changes. When technology changes, everything does. Your warfare tactics have to adapt. Your society alters to adapt to the new amenities and struggles. Most of us probably don’t even realize just how wide-spread the influence of technology is in our lives, and even though the technology in this case will just be gaining the first bit of momentum in a flintlock fantasy’s society, it’s going to create ripples. Nothing is going to be able to remain as it was, especially when it comes to guns and new weapons.

This means that flintlock fantasy often focuses on themes of change or military.

Plot

Flintlock fantasy is one of those sub-genres that has very high plot complexity. Because it draws on readers’ understanding of history, the time spent setting up the world is not as heavy as it would be for other types of fantasy. As such, more time is then devoted to the plot and making it full of action and battle. Since military is often a theme in flintlock fantasy, it’s quite usual to find that flintlock fantasy is more focused on a linear plot surrounding soldiers or military characters of some sort. Things are still changing in this genre, but one of the best ways to explain the plot is to say it’s high-powered. Lots of momentum, lots of forward movement. That’s going to be important if you want to write in this genre. There’s room for you to make it your own, of course, but these are some guidelines generally used for the genre.

Conclusion

Flintlock fantasy can be a lot of fun for the right writers. But it’s also specific in its requirements. If you want to have dwarves facing off against elves with bows, arrows, and swords, well… That’s not going to work in a flintlock fantasy for obvious reasons. They’re going to die because they’ll be up against guns, not bows and arrows, when they face off against the enemy. If you want to write this genre, I cannot stress enough how important it is to read books in the genre! These books can be pretty high violence and can get dark depending on the theme of change that’s focused on or what type of military themes are brought in. But if this is what you want to write, you absolutely must read it! I’ve included some recommendations below.

Brent Weeks’ works in particular are ones I’ve read some of, and I feel he’s a good author to learn from. Reviews are mixed, and there were certainly some things that weren’t the best about some of his earlier work, but he had a good grasp on how to write flintlock style fantasy. His societies are definitely ones on the cusp of change, and the one book I read through entirely (first in the Night Angel Trilogy) had very strong political and military themes. You don’t see as much of the guns side of things, but you definitely get an industrial revolution feel from it.

Sanderson is another very good author to learn from. I personally have learned a great deal from dissecting his work to learn from it, and I highly recommend you read his work, regardless of what sub-genre of fantasy you want to write. He’s a must-read fantasy author in my opinion, and you rob yourself of some seriously useful learning opportunities if you don’t take the time to read his work and digest it. His Mistborn series, Elantris, or Warbreaker are great places to start.

If you’re more of the epic fantasy sort, I can’t recommend his Stormlight Archives more highly. You’ll learn more about writing fantasy, phenomenal world-building, and superb characterization from reading his work and looking at what he does than you will from a lot of writing guides. Almost everything I know and nearly every technique I utilize for world-building in my novels came from what I learned reading the Stormlight Archives. I’ve since added to that knowledge, of course, but I haven’t seen a more valuable example of how to use extensive world-building well than I have in his work.

Further Resources and Reading

Brent Weeks’ Night Angel and Lightbringer series (Two separate series. Based on what I’ve read from Weeks, I don’t recommend this for kids. It would be best if readers are fifteen or sixteen at least because it gets pretty violent and has language.)

Brandon Sanderson’s Alloy of the Law (Sanderson is a phenomenal fantasy author to learn from! If you only read one book on the list here, read his. His books are generally suitable for those fourteen and up.)

*Bradley P. Beaulieu’s Lays of Anuskaya

*Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

*Michael A. Stackpole’s At the Queen’s Command

Saturday Setups: The Extent of Magic

December 14, 2019 Ariel Paiement

Introduction

We’ve been discussing magic in our Saturday Setup posts the last few weeks, and this week is no exception. This time around, though, we’re going to talk about extent of magic use and some tips for how you can determine that. Figuring out how much magic to use and how many characters can use it is a bit of a daunting task, so hopefully, this will shed some light on that for everyone!

Consideration #1: Sub-Genre

Before you do anything else, stop and think about the sub-genre you’ve chosen to write. If you don’t know much about it, do some research and learn about the different common elements, such as magic, in the sub-genre. I’ve posted quite a few articles on different sub-genres of fantasy on my Sunday Sub-Genres section of the blog, so if you’re looking for somewhere to start, you may find something helpful there.

Regardless of where you do the research, you need to understand how much magic is incorporated into your sub-genre. If there’s not a lot, you’re already starting at a less intense starting point than you would with a sub-genre that throws it in everywhere! Key takeaway here: know your genre.

Consideration #2: Consequences

Okay, when you built your magic system, you probably built limitations into it. If you didn’t, see my post on building magic systems to gain a better understanding of why you should! But, assuming you have limitations and rules in place, these are a great place to start in determining how much magic use should be involved.

If you have a system that is built on the premise that everyone has magic, then magic use is going to be quite high. Almost everyone, if not everyone, will be using some form of it, and there won’t be a ton of dreadful consequences for normal magic use. For instance, in the Aurelai universe, most types of magic don’t exact a high price. There is regular magic use, and no one dies or loses something precious to them just for using their magic in a responsible, every day manner. In a system like this, magic can be expected to be seen everywhere.

But if you created a system where magic requires a high price even if one can wield it… Well, your protagonist, at least, and maybe even your antagonist, are not going to be so keen on using it. For example, in Pathway of the Moon, there is a way that those trying to perform extremely high-powered magic can gain the energy they need to do so from other people to avoid draining their own life source. But you have to pay an extremely high price: your own sanity and physical health, depending on what the magic chooses to target. You don’t get something for nothing. So, most people aren’t willing to perform that kind of magic. It’s a powerful deterrent for those who are sane and even a little bit concerned about their own health, if not that of others. While this doesn’t limit my whole system in this series’ case, it certainly does place a limitation on the extent of magic. It means that certain kinds of magic aren’t so likely to occur on any regular basis.

Consideration #3: Likelihood

This sort of goes hand-in-hand with the previous point, but take a minute and think about how common magic is. Does everyone have it? Only a select few? Does everyone know it exists or is it something that’s kept hidden? The answers to these questions and others like them end up determining if it’s likely that a character could use magic to solve a problem or in every day life. Sure, it might exist, but if the likelihood of use is low, then you’re probably not going to see magic everywhere in the book. On the other hand, if the likelihood is high, you’re likely to see it everywhere.

Consideration #4: Usefulness

Let’s face it. Some magic just isn’t all that helpful on a quest to save humanity or when facing down a man-eating, fire-breathing dragon. And in those cases, characters probably won’t be using their magic to help themselves out. The extent to which this consideration affects your story really depends. If it’s limited to certain types of magic a person might end up with, then it might not change how often magic is used or the extent to which it is used. Of course, if this extends to every kind of magic, then magic, while it may exist, is fairly useless for the purposes of the characters, and it will end up sidelined unless needed to heat a can of soup. You get the idea, hopefully.

Consideration #5: Society

One other major thing to consider is society itself. While there might not be a limit on what magic is capable of doing, there may be a societal stigma against it or a ban that prevents it. Or, the opposite may be true. Perhaps society ostracizes those who aren’t able to use magic of some sort, so those who can’t must find a way to pretend they possess it. The possibilities are pretty endless, but if you have a society like this, it’s going to affect the extent to which and the way in which magic is utilized in your story.

Conclusion

There are, of course, many other ways in which magic can be limited or expanded in its extent and use within a book. But these are the main things I’ve seen and used in determining the extent of magic in my books. Really, you have to tailor your approach for each series or each novel/story. No one story will be the same as another, and some may call for more magic than others, even within the same series. It all depends on the focus of the story or series and what you’re trying to accomplish. However, these key considerations should help you get started.

Have other considerations that have helped you to decide how much magic is enough? Feel free to drop them in the comments below! If you have a suggestion for a future discussion topic on Saturday Setups, please don’t hesitate to either email or leave a comment!