Category: creative writing ideas

Your writing should look like your writing

I’m writing the third draft of a new project. I can’t tell you what it is yet, only that it’s a dark fantasy piece dedicated to Hekate.

As I’ve been working on this book, the same thought keeps coming up over and over. As I flesh out scenes. As I rewrite dialogue. As I sketch out brainstorming notes.

I keep thinking, “This isn’t the right way to do this. No one writes like this. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be done.”

I’m doing my best to quiet this thought. Because it’s getting in the way of what could be some of the best damned writing I’ve ever done.

Each writer has a specific voice. A certain feel to their work that is distinct, no matter the genre they write. King’s books feel the same from Danse Macabre all the way to Never Flinch. Kiersten White’s work feels the same no matter if she’s writing fantasy or horror. And a lot of the reasons why they feel so different are stylistic choices that, frankly, I might not have made. You might not have made them. I certainly don’t write with such gory detail as King, for instance. We have wildly different word choices, and I don’t feel the need to set every story I write in Main.

Your personal voice comes from five different elements. The first is your word choice.

Words. Writing nerds like us obsess over words. Word choice can change a scene from cozy to chilling. It can make a story inspiring or terrifying. Consider the difference between these two sentences.

“Sharon sauntered towards the door and slid it open.”

“Sharon stalked to the door and ripped it open.”

Both examples include Sharon opening a door. The first one feels sexy. The second is vaguely threatening.

In both, she might just eat the person on the other side alive.

Word choice is about the voice of your story. Dialog is the voice of your characters, and the second element of your writing voice. It helps build setting, build character. And it tells something about you as well.

Are you the sort of writer who does a lot of exposition in dialogue? Do you use it to give away clues? Do you tell us who your character is?

Characters in general are a big part of a writer’s voice. King, for example, used to write a lot about drunk men who were bad fathers. Then he wrote a lot of men trying to get and stay sober. And far too many of them are named Bill.

I tend to write characters who are irritated all the time. Who have a strong hand on their tempers, until they don’t. Sylvia Moreno-Garcia writes characters who are terrifyingly single-minded.

Then, there are descriptions. This is a place where your voice can truly come out. And a place where prose writers can indulge in a little poetry.

How you describe something shows us your voice. How long it takes you to describe something also does that.

Some writers I could mention could spend a little less time describing things if I’m being honest.

You might be wordy. You might write tight. All of this is part of your voice.

Finally, where you set your stories is a huge part of your voice.

I tend to write about communities big enough that you don’t know everyone, but not so big that you can get through Walmart without seeing a high school acquaintance you’d rather not. I probably do this because I’ve always lived in that sort of place. So that is how I understand the world to be. Even when I’m writing about spaceships with ghost dragons, this theme comes up.

Some people write about small southern towns. Some people write about dark, gothic places. Some people write about the Pacific Northwest like it’s the eeriest place in the world. Which I take personally, as a person who lives in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains.

Here’s the thing about your writer’s voice. It’s the most important thing to remember. You can recognize your voice. You can, and should, study other writers’ voices. But you really shouldn’t try to force your voice.

Who you are is going to come through in your writing. Where you live, how you were raised, who did the raising. How you see the world. It’s all going to come out, one way or another, in your work.

And that’s a good thing! That’s the whole point of art. Entertaining stories don’t stick with us as much as ones that make us feel something. And we make readers feel something when we share how we uniquely experience the world.

We don’t have to do that by writing memoirs or opinion pieces. We can write about whatever we want to. Werewolves, hockey players, dragon hunters. No matter what you choose to write, you should shine through. And you should never, ever feel like you need to copy another writer’s voice. First of all, you won’t be able to. And second of all, we need as many unique voices in the world as we can.

Paper Beats World is a labor of love. If you love what I do here, please consider liking and sharing this post and leaving a comment. You can also support me financially on Ko-fi.

Spooky season is coming, and it’s time for some creepy reads. Check out my horror novel Quiet Apocalypse, about a witch trapped in her apartment during a dark winter storm with a demon devoted to ending the world.

Or check out my horror short, The Man In The Woods. A man tries desperately to protect his granddaughter from the mysterious man in the woods. But his fear only grows when a new housing complex is built too close to the woods.

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I’m participating in the PaWriCo March Madness Challenge

I’m not ashamed to admit it. I miss Nanowrimo.

Well, no. I don’t really miss the organization. I sure don’t miss their offensive dismissals of the harm AI can do to writers. I miss the writing community and all the warm fuzzies I got. I miss meeting new people, writing as part of a collective, and all the bonding. And I sure miss the productivity boost all of the excitement around challenges like this always gives me.

Of course, I’m not alone. Writing is a lonely occupation. It involves a lot of sitting in quiet rooms writing things that someday someone will (hopefully) sit in a quiet room and read. We need to get together with our people and feel like we’re doing something as a team. And since writers are generally creative and self-motivated, it was just a matter of time until one of us stepped up and made a new challenge for all of us.

In this case, it was two of us. Specifically, two authors named Rain Sullivan and Jen Woodrum. They came together and created the Pathfinder Writer’s Collective. And I am here for it!

Their first challenge started last year in November. Because of course. But it was different than Nanowrimo. It was more of a choose your own adventure writing challenge. And it was also three months long, from November first to January 31st. And I learned about this on January 29th, on a Write As Rain Instagram post.

Sad trombone music.

Reading the comments it became that, somehow, I wasn’t the only person who was just finding out about this challenge. But, the creators also gave us some hope. A hint that something was coming in March.

Enter the Pathfinders Writing Collective March Madness Challenge.

The goal of this challenge is simple. Write as much as you can in March. But you’re not just trying to hit an arbitrary number. Instead, participants will be split into two teams, Team Green and Team Orange. And every hour you write goes towards your team’s score. There are fun writing sprints and other exciting community events that will take place on the Pathfinders Writing Collective Discord. Fun, right?

Now, I’m writing this on Tuesday. You’ll be seeing it on Friday. The teams are going to be announced on Wednesday. So I can’t yet tell you which team I’m on. I can tell you that it’s probably too late to join.

Sorry about that. But I’ll have some good news for you regarding that at the end of this post.

You might wonder what I plan to work on during this joyful month of overwriting. Well, as always, it’s complicated. See, I’m going to finish the rough draft of Aurora about halfway through the month. I hope. So, when that’s done, I’ll be working on the third draft of a novel I’ve been keeping under wraps for several years now.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to tell you about it soon. Getting the third draft done will certainly help with that.

Alright, but since it’s probably too late for you to participate in March Madness, what can you look forward to from the Pathfinders Writing Collective? Well, they are of course doing their PaWriCo event in November through January. But, they’re also planning a boot camp event in June and July. I don’t know a lot about what that will entail just yet. But so long as March Madness goes well and no one else ends up hospitalized, I’ll be able to let you know. In the meantime, I’m excited to participate in a new writing challenge.

Wish me luck.

If you’re participating in the PaWRiCo March Madness, let me know in the comments. And if there’s another writing challenge that deserves some attention, let us know about that too.

Did you know I wrote a Novel Planner? You can get it now on my Ko-fi shop.

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Writing Crazy

I love a good crazy character. They’re some of the best characters in fiction. What sort of person do I mean, exactly? Harley Quinn, of course. But also Dolores Roach, Azula, Jack from The Shining, The Narrator from Fight Club, Patrick Bateman, Dexter, and The Trashcan Man. And, of course, Annie Wilks.

Kathy Bates, if you ever read this, you are my queen.

Crazy characters are fun because they are wild and unpredictable. When a crazy character is written well, they stick with you for the rest of your life. They make you laugh and check to make sure your door is locked. They’re the class clown who might at any moment shove a pencil through someone’s ribs. Even if they’re the good guys.

When a crazy character is written poorly, though, it’s usually because the writer was trying too hard to write zany, wacky, or unrealistic character traits. Listen, your character cannot just staple a peanut butter sandwich to someone’s forehead and be a memorable crazy character. I mean, they can do that. But there has to be more to it than that.

So today I want to discuss five ways to write a crazy character that will both delight and terrify your audience.

First, though, a disclaimer. This post has nothing at all to do with mental illness, nor is it in any way meant to vilify or objectify people who have mental illnesses. Perfectly sane people commit horrible atrocities and people with mental illnesses get up and go to work without hurting anyone every single day. I have a mental illness, and I’m safe to be around unless you’re a wasp or a lantern fly. We are not pointing and laughing at the crazy person who can’t get help. We are admiring the varied characters in fiction and aspiring to write them in more realistic ways.

No one thinks it’s cool when your character just does weird stuff for no reason

One of the laziest ways someone can write a ‘crazy’ character is to have them do weird things for absolutely no reason. I don’t mean weird things that don’t make sense to the people around them. I mean things that don’t even make sense to the characters themselves. Just in the same way it’s not funny to yell banana hammock for no reason, it’s not fun to see a character doing random stuff that doesn’t tell us anything about their character, their emotions, or move the plot forward in any meaningful way.

No one ever thinks they’re the crazy one

Harley never thinks she’s crazy. She thinks she fell in love and ran away to the circus. She broke out of her life and finally felt free.

Bateman certainly doesn’t think he’s crazy. He thinks this is how one has to act to get by in the high-powered world he’s put himself in.

This is one of the reasons it’s fun to write a character like this. You have to imagine that you see the world in this way. You have to crawl into an unstable mind and stay there for a little while. See the view from those eyes. And those eyes don’t think there’s anything wrong with what they’re doing most of the time. They think they’re the sane ones.

Focusing on their thoughts

One of the reasons why the first season of Dolores Roach worked is that a lot of focus was on how she was feeling and what she was thinking. This worked for Dexter as well. Though I would consider him more of a ‘straight man’ killer.

Much of the fun of these characters is in the novelty of their experiences. Most of us are fairly sane, after all. Most of us would never think to strangle someone, tape them to a table and cut them open, or trap someone in our guest bedroom and break their ankle when they try to escape.

I hope.

So it’s fascinating to see how that sort of mind works. This might take some research into psychology, which I think we as writers should have at least a surface-level understanding of anyway. So much of creating art is seeing the world not just from our limited perspective, but from as many perspectives as we can. Even when we don’t agree with them. Especially when we don’t agree with them.

The trick is to show as much of how that different person sees the world as you can. This not only makes for a more entertaining story but gives more humanity to your character as well. And in doing so, maybe you can help people understand them a little better.

Moments of lucidity

I think every person has had these moments in their lives. Maybe when we’re mad, or scared, or burned out. We realize we are in the middle of doing something or saying something or talking about something that is just bonkers. And we stop, and we either in our minds or out loud ask, “What in the hell am I doing? Why am I doing this? I shouldn’t be doing this.”

Dolores Roach is full of those moments. Largely because we didn’t start that show with a mentally unstable woman. We watched her descend into madness.

I highly suggest giving your characters those moments. There are three ways this can be incredibly useful. If your character, like Dolores, is going mad this can be a great gauge of that. As she gets deeper and deeper into her madness, these moments of lucid self-reflection get further and further apart.

If your character, like one I’m writing right now, is already mad, and they suddenly have a moment of sanity, it might be a sign that your hero can reach them. Can bring them around, can help them come back to the side of goodness. We see this with Harley often. There is one beautiful, heart-wrenching moment in some comic or another when Harley realizes the woman she’s fighting, Black Canary, is pregnant. Harley refuses to continue the fight. She tells Black Canary, who until this point has been an enemy, that she has a daughter. She gave the baby to her sister, to protect her from the Joker. And for a few minutes, Harley seems as sane as you or me. She’s sharing her grief and connecting with another woman on a very personal level. And this does eventually lead to Harley becoming a hero.

As she should have been all along.

Of course, it could be a misdirection as well. Your character might have that moment of lucidity, then sink right back down into her madness. I think the best example of this is Azula from Avatar the Last Airbender. There are many moments in the series when we see someone almost reach her. Aang tries. Zuko tries. Uncle Iro certainly tries. Even Katara tries, and she would have liked to snap that bitch’s neck. And we see her almost come back from her madness.

Then, she doesn’t. And her defeat is so much sadder because of it. It’s clear that Azula is too far gone, but that she almost wasn’t. It’s heartbreaking, and it stays with you. Honestly, I considered the defeat of the Fire Lord anti-climatic after seeing Azula screaming and crying with rage because someone had finally beaten her.

Make them memorable

And that leads me to the most important advice. If you’re going to write a crazy character, don’t half-ass it. Put your whole ass into it. Do not hold back, no one likes a polite crazy character. Give them traits and verbal habits that make them stand out.

You can’t write Harley, The Trashcan Man, or Dexter because they’ve already been written. But you can write someone completely new. Someone that will be on someone else’s list in years to come.

This, honestly can apply to any character you’re writing. Make them their own person, not just one thing. No one is just crazy, or just a hero, or just a love interest. Why is your character who they are? Figure that out, and the character will stand out to your readers and stand the test of time.

In short, your crazy character is going to work best if they’re a fully-rounded person. Not just a prop to occasionally do Wild Card things and then fade back into the background. Just like any character, they have to have character.

Thanks for reading! If you love what we do here and want to support Paper Beats World, you can do so on Ko-fi.

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The many uses of subplots

So, you want to write a book. You have a vision for a story, and it’s wonderful. You have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

But, what about subplots?

A subplot, just in case this is all very new to you, is a story within your story that is not directly part of your main plotline. Today, we’re going to be using the novel Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix as an example because I’m tired of using Harry Potter and everyone should read Slaying Vampires.

So, as an example, in Slaying Vampires the main story is about a vampire that moves to a suburban town and starts feeding on people. One of the subplots is the main character, Patricia, struggling with her relationships with her husband and children.

Subplots have the power to make or break your book. And it’s almost impossible to write a novel without some subplots. So let’s talk today about how subplots can make your story better.

Subplots work best when they have something to do with the main story. Even when they don’t seem to at first. Especially when they don’t seem to at first. For instance, in Slaying Vampires, there’s a subplot regarding Patricia’s mother-in-law coming to live with them. While that might not seem like it has anything to do with a vampire attack, it sure as hell has a lot to do with the story by the end of it.

Foreshadowing

One of my favorite ways to use a subplot is for foreshadowing. We can do this by adding subtle (or not-so-subtle) hints that appear to have nothing to do with the main plot.

For example, let’s consider Patricia’s mother-in-law. She is suffering from advanced stages of dementia. So when she first sees our vampire, she calls him by another name. This is pretty common behavior for someone with dementia. Which makes this subplot a strong and useful one.

When they provide character development.

Early in Slaying Vampires, Patricia’s husband gives her a pair of earrings. And these earrings have a whole journey on their own.

This story starts when Patricia is worried her book club friends will think she’s showing off, wearing big diamonds to their meeting. Then, one of them is bitten off her head and swallowed by someone infected by the vampire.

Bitten off and swallowed.

When Patricia starts to cry, telling her husband that she’s sorry she lost his expensive gift, this asshole loving husband starts laughing at her. He tells her that those earrings were costume jewelry, and he got them from one of his patients. His therapist patients.

This little story tells us something about Patricia. It tells us that she’s desperately worried about what her friends think of her. It also tells us that she’s uncomfortable with how much money her family makes and that she tends to think that everything is her fault.

What we learn about her husband is that he doesn’t put much care into giving his wife meaningful gifts and that he doesn’t consider it his responsibility to care for her when she’s emotionally distraught. You know, because somebody bit her ear off. It also tells us that he doesn’t care much for the ethics that go along with his profession, since therapists aren’t supposed to accept gifts from their clients.

That’s a lot of lifting for a three-part subplot.

When they balance out the main story.

Some stories are heavy. They’re full of dark content, upsetting themes, and serious subject matter.

That is important work that we undertake as artists. But sometimes, it’s a lot.

For our sake and the readers, we need to lighten the story up a little.

Southern Vampires is of course, about a vampire. It’s also about austerity, and how far people will go to get it. It’s about race inequality. It’s about financial abuse (and physical abuse) in gender-normative relationships.

To balance that out, we need some funny in the story. We need some heartwarming moments in the story. And so we have Patricia’s son as a subplot, with a fascination with nazis. ( Not as good guys. They aren’t from that part of the south.)

We also have the subplot, possibly the most important one of the book, of the creation of the book club itself. We see scene after scene of the women talking about their books, their families, their struggles, and their successes. We see their polite friendships grow into strong sisterhoods, without which their eventual success over the vampire would be impossible. But before it gets too far, these scenes help to lighten what is at its core a very dark story.

Do not add subplots just to add subplots.

Finally, I’d like to leave you with this important suggestion. Subplots only work if they factor in, in some way, with the main storyline. This is why most romantic subplots annoy me because they could be removed from the book and leave no plot holes.

That is a good test for your subplots. If you remove them from the story, what kind of impact will that have on the story as a whole? If not, maybe this is a subplot that should be left out altogether.

That’s all I have to say about subplots for the day, but it’s not all for the day as a whole. Check back in about fifteen minutes, I have a great announcement.

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When Morning Pages feel useless

You’ve heard, I’m sure, of morning pages. It’s a habit started, as far as I can tell, from a book called The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I don’t know anything about this person or this book. But I do know that morning pages, the act of writing three freewriting pages right when you get up is a good habit to have. And it’s one that I’ve been working hard to develop. 

This isn’t to say it’s always easy. I’ve had a hell of a time getting this habit in place. See, I have this problem where if I don’t see a direct, tangible benefit to something, I don’t do it. So these three pages in the morning were a struggle for me because they didn’t give me a clear reward. If I write three pages of blog posts, I can then share them with you all. If I write three pages in a novel or short story, then I’m three pages closer to a finished document.

Hell, if I spend the same amount of time on dishes, I would then have clean dishes. 

Now, some of you might say that writing is its own reward. As a professional writer, I should just take the time to write for writing’s sake.

Okay, but that doesn’t help motivate me. It just makes me feel like I’m somehow failing as an artist. It also kind of ignores the fact that I’ve produced nine novels, two seasons of a horror/sci-fi podcast and nine years of writing advice content. Say what you will about me, but clearly, I enjoy writing. 

And I wouldn’t still be doing Morning Pages if they weren’t giving me something. I’ve written some lovely prose poetry during those times. I come across good blog post ideas or story breakthroughs. There are lots of mornings when I walk away from those pages with something good I can then share with the world.

And most mornings, that doesn’t happen at all. But there are still real, tangible reasons to come to the page every morning for Morning Pages. Even if all you write about is how bored you are or how pissed off you are at your manager at work. Here are my reasons. 

It still builds the habit

Yesterday all I wrote about during my morning pages was a weird dream I had. The day before I just bitched about money worries. But I still came to the page this morning. I still didn’t write anything clever or sharable. 

Seems like I could skip a day. But honestly, that’s a terrible idea. Because even if you’re not doing much of anything, you’re still building that habit. 

Every morning that you come to the page, you are training yourself to come there again. We’ve all heard that it takes 21 days to form a habit. I don’t know if it’s true or not. But I do know that every day you create that habit, you make it stronger. So show up to keep the habit going, because it’s going to make it easier as you go along. 

It gives you room to write garbage

You can use the Morning Pages to get your bad writing out. We all know there’s just a certain amount of bad writing we all need to do. If we can let these Morning Pages be that bad writing, then it’s out of your system. 

I’m lying, of course. You don’t have to write badly to get better. It’s just very possible that you’re going to write badly. And if you can let yourself do that, then you’ll eventually start writing well.

It gives you a space to do some shadow work

Shadow work is kind of a witchy thing, but don’t let it scare you. It’s just spicy therapy. Shadow work is facing the parts of yourself that you don’t like, and working through them. 

Most of the time, I do shadow work on purpose. I’ll get a piece of paper, light a candle and draw a circle for protection. This can also be seen as giving myself specific cues to let my brain know that now is when we are going to safely unpack big emotions. When I’m done writing about these things, I like to burn the paper to release the energy. If you like, this is a way to symbolically tell myself that now we are done exploring these emotions for now and I don’t have to carry them with me for the rest of my day. 

Sometimes, though, I wake up with something digging at me. Money worries, bad dream hangovers, fights. Or you know, just the fact that people are starving and dying of preventable illnesses and the whole world is literally on fire. 

Some mornings start bad, is what I’m saying.

When that happens, Morning Pages give me the chance to get all that anger or sadness out in sort of an unplanned shadow session. Once that pain and anger are out, the day becomes easier. Or at least, possible. The day becomes possible.

Your writing might surprise you

Finally, it’s important to keep in mind that you do not know what’s going to come out of your morning pages until you sit down and write them. Maybe this will be a boring morning when you write about the fly on the windowsill or how much you don’t want to go to work or how you’re worried that the washing machine is making that weird sound again. 

But maybe this morning you write a cool poem. Or you get an idea for a short story or blog post. Maybe you’ll figure out the solution to something that’s been bothering you about your WIP.

If you’re doing morning pages right, you’re not going to know what’s coming until it comes.

So please, if you’re not doing Morning Pages, consider them. And if you are but it feels pointless, keep going. I promise you, it’s not pointless. No writing is ever wasted. 

Paper Beats World is a labor of love. If you love what you see here, please consider checking out our Ko-fi shop.

And check out AA, season two. Coming August 15th on Haunted MTL. (Season one is available now.)

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Storytelling with Tarot, Pt 3

We’re back with part three of storytelling with tarot cards. So far we’ve set the scene with our main character, our Fool. We’ve met other characters. Their lover, their Emperor, their Hermit. They’ve found their strength and their chariot. 

Our Fool is going to need those things because today we’re getting into some of the heavier cards. 

(By the way, if you missed part one or two, you can find them here. You can also find my long-winded disclaimer that this series is meant to teach storytelling, not tarot. I am not qualified to teach tarot.)

Justice

The Justice card always reminds me of Vulcans. If I were to make a Star Trek tarot deck, I’d put Tuvok on the Justice card. 

(Yes, I know there are Star Trek decks. No, I don’t know if Tuvok is included.) 

Justice is about getting what we deserve, based purely on facts with no emotional involvement. 

This is a great time in our Fool’s story if they’ve dotted all their I’s and crossed all their T’s. But what kind of story would that be? It’s far more likely that our Fool has, well, acted the fool in some way or another. Some way that is going to come back and bite them on their ass.

The best comparison I can think of this is the Beast in Beauty and the Beast. He was cruel to a helpless woman, and for that, all of his household was punished. He fucked around and everybody found out.

There was no emotion here. There was no compassion for Mrs. Potts, Lumiere, Cogsworth, or even little Chip. The witch didn’t consider those emotional considerations. She simply handed out Justice.

Where in your story will your Fool find Justice smacking them in the face? 

The Hanged Man

Through tarot, we find so many biblical symbols. The Hanged Man is a strong example. 

The Hanged Man stands for wisdom through suffering. Enlightenment through hardships. This is Gandalf the Grey dying and coming back as Gandalf the White. It’s Aslan dying on the Stone Table and coming back stronger. It’s Oden hanging from the Tree of Life. And, if you’re into Jesus like me, it’s His sacrifice on the cross and coming back as more than a man. 

American Gods by Neil Gaiman did this the best, I think. When Shadow spends all night tied to a tree and dies, only to come back stronger. Only to come back as a demigod himself. 

This is likely a moment later in your story. When your Fool has to go through something terribly hard to gain the strength to become the hero. 

Death

I learned most of what I know about tarot from a book called Kitchen Table Tarot by Melissa Cynova. As Death is so often a misunderstood card, I would like to quote Cynova regarding it. 

“Death means change. Death means change. Death means change. Death means change. Death means change.”

The Death card means that change is coming whether we want it to or not. It’s the death of a friendship, a job, a circumstance. Maybe it’s a change for the good, maybe for the worse. Either way, there’s no stopping this change. 

Sometimes, in a story, it can mean death. Like when Dumbledore dies in Harry Potter. This changes the entire world that Harry lives in.

What happens in your Fool’s story that changes their whole lives?

Temperance

I love the Temperance card. It’s about peaceful balance. Not tragic, unfeeling balance like Thanos. But a simple, karmic balance. It’s getting out of the world what you put in. 

This is a moment in your Fool’s journey when something they’ve done is coming back to them. Usually something good. Maybe they helped someone out earlier in the story, and they show up with something needed now. Maybe they picked up some innocuous bottle earlier in the story, and it turns out to be Fai repellent when we’re being attacked by the Fai. 

I’d consider this a bit of luck, one way or another. It’s like in Stranger Things when Dustin falls in love with a girl who just happens to have the correct mathematical equation needed. 

The Devil

Alright, I know this is the card that gets people in a bit of a tizzy. But the Devil card is honestly misunderstood. 

It does not, in any way, mean anything about worshiping the Devil. 

The Devil card is temptation. It’s us humans doing ourselves in with our favored vices. And your Fool for sure has vices.

Maybe your Fool has a drinking problem. Or an anger problem. Maybe they’re the kind of dumbass who can’t stop telling on themselves. Maybe they can’t control their spending or their gambling. 

My favorite example of this comes from Hamilton. That’s right, you knew I had to reference that at some point. When Hamilton is stressed, he defaults to his vice. His vice happens to be Miss Maria Reynolds. 

We all self-sabotage. It makes sense that your Fool will do so too. 

That’s it for this time. I hope you’re having as much fun with this series as I am.

We’ve just got one more post to go. Let me know if there’s a care you think I got wrong or if you’ve got an alternate interpretation in the comments. And I’ll see you next week. 

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Storytelling with the Tarot Pt 1, The Fool to The Hierophant

If you know anything about tarot, then you already know it tells a story. It’s the tale of the Fool, traveling through a series of challenges and misadventures. As a writer and a witch, I love this. I love that we can find the Hero’s Journey in this spiritual tool. 

Using tarot to help you tell a story can be a fun exercise and a great way to fight writer’s block. So explain how each card of the major arcana can represent a plot point found in most stories. Of course, the major arcana is 22 cards long, and I’m shooting for this post to be under a thousand words. So this is probably going to be a mini-series. 

If you don’t know anything about tarot, you might pick up some info along the way. I am not in any way a tarot expert, though, just an enthusiast. And this isn’t a description of the card’s interpretation. Only an interpretation of how the card might apply to a story. 

As a final note, I’ll be referencing the Tarot of The Divine deck, by Yoshi Yoshitani. It’s a deck inspired by fairy tales and lore from different countries. It felt the most appropriate for this sort of thing. 

The Fool

The Fool represents our hero at the start of their journey. They are young, innocent, and dreaming of a better life. This is Ariel looking out at the castles of the people on land. It’s the heroes of countless fantasy stories, living in their sleepy villages and looking for adventure. I can almost hear Belle singing about wanting adventure in the great wide somewhere. 

The Magician

The Magician card is the part of the story when we learn something amazing about our main character. The thing that sets them apart from other people. 

This is Hagrid showing up to tell Harry he’s a wizard. It’s Luke finding out he’s a Jedi. It’s Luna coming to tell Usagi she’s Sailor Moon. It is, in short, the moment when our Fool finds out there’s something terrific about them. 

The High Priestess 

Now is when we start calling in the support team. 

The High Priestess is the learned elder. Think of Kit Snicket in Series of Unfortunate Events or Haymitch in Hunger Games. This is the character that’s in a perfect position to help our Fool because they’ve already walked to The World and back.

The Empress

Still rounding out the characters, the Empress is a character who acts maternally towards our Fool. It might be their mother, or legal guardian like Aunt May. But it’s someone who wants to look after and protect our Fool.

A thought on the Empress. I would also consider Mother Gothel to be an Empress personality in the life of Rapunzel in Tangled. She certainly has an interest in protecting Rapunzel, even if it’s for selfish reasons. 

I’m just saying, this doesn’t have to be a good character.

The Empress also doesn’t have to have anything to do with our next character. 

The Emperor 

Maybe this is a father figure. Maybe it’s a king or a leader. It doesn’t have to be a man. One great example is Melinda May from Agents of S.H.I.L.D. This is generally a ‘my way or the highway’ kind of character. Which is often why our Fool is butting heads with them. Again, this can be a good or a bad character. A father’s protection can be a blessing. A father’s watchful and judgemental eye can be a curse.

The Hierophant

The Hierophant has a lot of different meanings. It can mean a religious leader or a message from God/Gods. I consider this the inciting incident card. Or the call to action card. Someone or something has called to our Fool. Maybe their hometown was destroyed. Maybe their dog was killed. Maybe they’re destined to kill a dark wizard and someone’s just come and told them like an idiot.

Whatever it is, the journey is serious now. There are implications of real-world consequences for more than just our Fool. 

We’ve gone through the first six cards of the tarot and gotten to the real start of our story, so I think we’ll leave off here for now. But I’d love to hear what you think. Am I interpreting a card wrong? Let us know in the comments. 

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What writers can learn from The Far Side

Welcome to the final in our collection of writing lessons from cartoonists. At least for now. I might well realize suddenly that Baby Blues taught me a lot and do another in this series. Or, perhaps you out there will have a suggestion I never even thought of.

But for today, we’re ending on a high note with The Far Side.

Written by Gary Larson, The Far Side comic strip ran from 1980 to 1995. Even though the strip technically ended, The Far Side still has fans all over the world. A wide variety of fans, too. Kids love it, of course. But scientists love it. Almost any scientific discipline has a Far Side comic they can claim as their own.

I personally love Far Side. Like Calvin and Hobbs, it’s another strip I was introduced to from my grandmother’s bookshelf. Here are the lessons I’ve learned from it. 

Your style doesn’t have to be everyone else’s.

When you look at a Far Side strip, you’ll notice that not a single character is cute. Or aesthetically appealing. Everyone is fat, everyone has hairs sticking out of weird places. Even if it’s someone who shouldn’t have hair, like a fish. Everyone in the Far Side world is, well, kind of ugly. And it’s kind of the only strip that is ugly the whole way through. Most strips will at least have a cute cat, a pretty girl, or a guy with a rugged chin.

But that’s just not Gary Larson’s style. In the Far Side world, that’s what things look like. And it works out pretty great for him. 

For starters, it’s recognizable. You see a Far Side strip from across the room, you know what it is. Among a flood of comics that can sometimes look very much the same, you can point Far Side out.

More importantly, though, it’s Gary Larson’s style of writing. He didn’t try to mimic anyone else. He didn’t compare his dogs to Snoopy and lament that they didn’t look as good. He just drew in his style. And that’s great. 

Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t try to improve your art and get better. But maybe the best way to do that isn’t by trying to write like someone else. Maybe it’s by finding your style or voice and making it as good as it can be.

Write above people’s heads and they’ll reach for it

I bet you’ve read a Far Side strip that you didn’t get. I know I have. Hell, there’s even a joke about that in an episode of The Simpsons. The reason for this is simple. Larson frequently talks about scientific theories and facts that I don’t know or understand.

Here’s the cool thing, though. I’ve been reading Far Side since I was a little kid. Growing up, I’d go back to the collections on my grandmother’s bookshelves over and over again. And every time I read them, I got more of the jokes. I am not the only person who’s described this very thing.

And isn’t that cool? Isn’t it a great feeling to look at something and realize you understand it now? It’s a mental version of a mark on the wall to see how much you’ve grown since your last birthday. 

Don’t try to dumb yourself down. Talk about the topics that you want to talk about. If it’s not for some people, that’s fine. The people that it’s for will find it. 

Never stop having fun

Every strip of Far Side has one thing in common. They feel like the creator laughed when he came up with them. Larson is a fan of his own work.

And that’s awesome! You’ve got to be a fan of your work. You’ve got to have fun when you’re writing, at least when you’re coming up with an idea. (Not all the writing is going to be fun. I say this as someone about to start the fourth draft of her latest book. Not all the writing is fun.)

But you should be having fun with your art. It should be feeding your soul. Otherwise, why do it at all? Why not go get a real job? There’s lots more money to be made elsewhere. 

Being a likable person goes a long way

I have heard a lot of things about Garly Larson. He’s met some amazing people, like Jane Goodall and Robin Williams. What I’ve never heard from anyone is an unkind word about the man. Because Gary Larson is a likable guy. He’s not a pushover, as several legal issues will attest to. But he’s a good guy. 

Being a decent person, and treating other people well will get you places in this world, even when it doesn’t always feel like it will. Especially in the writing field, acting like a professional and a decent human being is a good idea. It might not open doors for you, but it will sure as hell not shut them like being an unprofessional dick will. 

Notice here that I’m not saying to be a pushover. I’m also not saying to not call out people who are being abusive or toxic. But there are ways to do that in a classy manner and ways to do that that will make people not want to work with you.

So be like Gary Larson. Stand up for yourself, but be professional about it. And be kind to people. It does more for you than you think.

I would love to know what your favorite Gary Larson comic strip is. Let us know in the comments. 

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What writers can learn from Garfield

Yes, that’s right. We’ve talked about Calvin and Hobbs. We’ve talked about Peanuts. We’ve talked about Cathy. Now, I’m back from Nebula Con, and I’m fighting allergies for every breath that goes in or out of my body. So I’m pissy and ready to talk about Garfield. 

 A cautionary tale for writers if there ever was one. 

Unlike the other comic strips in this series, Garfield is a lesson in what not to do. As in, what not to do with a franchise that is smart, edgy, and popular.

Launching in 1976, then titled Jon (The name didn’t change to Garfield until the strip was syndicated in 1978) the Garfield comic strip is probably as well known as Mickey Mouse.

In the beginning, it was way darker than most people realize. Jon once had a roommate named Lyman. He was Odie’s original person, and he vanished without a trace. He’ll make the occasional appearance, but for the most part, he’s not around. When questioned, Jim Davis would for the longest time say that no one should look in Jon’s basement. 

Man, I loved that. I also loved the series of comics that seemed to suggest that Garfield was left alone at home, without food or family, to starve to death. There’s a fan theory that nothing after that strip is real, it’s just a fever dream of Garfield’s to comfort him as his life ends, lonely and starving. 

Lots of people have dark fan theories about Garfield. And they’re fun. At least to a twisted person like me. 

The strip itself used to be fun. You had Jon, a successful cartoonist who isn’t successful at anything else. He strikes out constantly with Dr. Liz. He has no friends, except Lyman. His pets don’t respect him, and his neighbors hate him.

That’s funny. 

Then, there’s Garfield. He’s smart-mouthed, violent, and self-indulgent. He eats too much and doesn’t work out enough. He hates Mondays (even though he doesn’t work) and loves lasagna, his bear Pookie and his grandma. (Jon’s Grandma, who is exactly who I want to grow up to be.)

Add Odie into the mix as the idiot with all the luck, and it’s a cute mix. 

Then, things got stagnant. The stories came to a standstill. Then, like everything else that stops moving, it started to rot. 

Now, to my dismay, Garfield is a joke. It’s a strip that tells the same five jokes over and over. It’s a cartoon that has the laziest artwork I’ve ever seen. It’s a cringe-inducing movie. It is, in short, a disappointment.

So today, let’s discuss how we can learn from this. How can we avoid being Garfield? 

Don’t stop growing

Some of you reading this are going to be stars. It’s just a numbers game. Someone reading this is going to make it big. You’re going to be a household name, a Stephen King or a Toni Morrison. 

Many of you reading this will achieve at least some success so long as you keep writing and keep submitting. Again, it’s just a numbers game. To succeed in writing you need talent, persistence, and luck. And talent means the least of those three.

When you succeed, do not stop growing. Do not stop learning and becoming a better writer. 

That’s what, I think, happened to Jim Davis. He had success. Like, a lot of it. His characters are well-known and loved all over the planet. 

So he stopped getting better. 

Do you know who hasn’t stopped getting better? Stephen King. I know, me praising the King? Big surprise. But it’s true. His books keep on getting better. The Outsider was better than anything he’d written to that point. Then he wrote If It Bleeds, and that was even better still.

I would like to think that the same can be said of my work. I think Quiet Apocalypse is the best book I’ve ever written. I think the book I’m working on right now is even better. (It damn well better be. It’s the last Station 86 book. It had better blow your minds.) 

That’s how art should be. Every story should build on the talent and strength of the last one. The dialog can always get better. The story can be more creative. The characters can feel more real. You are probably already a pretty good writer, my friend. But don’t ever stop getting better.

Don’t give up your edge

Garfield is at its best when it’s a little edgy. When it’s a little dark. When Garfield is trying to send Nermal to Abu Dhabi without air holes in the box. When he’s smoking a pipe. When he’s shredding the neighbor’s dog within an inch of his life.

Garfield is at his best when he’s at his worst. When he is the hedonistic, unmotivated rage ball that we all kind of want to be at times. And because he is that so much of the time, it’s all the more endearing when he is kind. When he lets slip how much he cares about Odie. When he’s cuddly with Pooky or sensitive with Arlene. He is in that way a mini version of an anti-hero. We love Loki and Magnito for the same basic reasons. They do horrible things we would never think to do but might secretly want to. At the same time, they have kindness in them that only a precious few ever see.

That doesn’t work when the balance gets tipped. When the bad sides of a character are blunted. 

If you want to write a compelling anti-hero, let them be sharp. Let them do terrible things for their warped reasons. Let them do the things that you would never do, but secretly want to. Like, I would never stab a guy at a bar for touching me without my consent. But it feels so good when a character does it. I would never eat a whole lasagna, kick someone I don’t like over a fence, or cause an uprising in a vet’s waiting room. But I kind of want to.

And Garfield stopped doing those things. Maybe it’s because he was expected to be a good example for children. Or maybe it’s just because Jim Davis got soft. Either way, the strip doesn’t really without it. 

Don’t say yes to everyone who wants to play in your sandbox

Finally let’s talk about Garfield, the movie. Released in 2004 and almost universally despised, this could have been good. It wasn’t, but it could have been. 

If it wasn’t so cheap.

If it wasn’t so lazy.

If the characters didn’t suck and have little to nothing to do with the originals.

Here’s the thing. The Garfield movie was not done by people who loved the source material. It was written by people who wanted to make some quick money off a popular name. And it worked, sadly. 

This wouldn’t have happened if Jim Davis had been protective over his intellectual property. And it shouldn’t have happened. 

I’m all for shared worlds. Star Wars has been such an astounding success because so many diverse authors have been permitted to write in it. But not everyone who wants to write with you wants to do so with good intentions. Some people do not care about your characters in the same way you do. Some don’t care at all, except for what they can get out of it.

Remember, your story belongs to you. Your characters belong to you until you agree to let someone else play with them.

You always have the right to say no.

So that’s it. I hope you’ve been enjoying this series. If there’s a cartoonist I’ve missed, please let me know in the comments. 

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What writers can learn from Cathy

Paper Beats World is a labor of love. If you love what we do here, please consider supporting us on Ko-fi. 

The comic strip Cathy has gotten a lot of shit over the years. It’s seen as kind of sexist. Written by Cathy Guisewite and running from 1976 to 2010, it’s a strip that follows a ‘modern’ woman struggling to balance her career and social life. And yes, there are some arguments to be made there. Cathy is obsessed with shoes, chocolate, makeup, and home decor. She is annoyed by her long-term partner’s obsession with sports. She lavishes attention on her dog, Electra.

So, why am I, a modern feminist, talking about Cathy? 

Well, for one thing, Cathy was a modern feminist in her time. By that I mean both the character and the creator. For another thing, I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with liking shoes, chocolate, and putting effort into your appearance. I like all of those things. Lots of men also like those things. I also like the Penguins, the Steelers, Star Trek, dragons, and things that drip blood in the night. And for a third thing, the comic strip never said that all women like those things. Cathy likes those things. Cathy has an unhealthy relationship with food. Cathy spends too much on clothes and shoes. Cathy has a difficult relationship with her mother. And again, I’m talking about the creator and the character here. 

So yes, we’re going to talk about what writers can learn from the comic strip Cathy. Rather than disregard it as a ‘fluffy’ or ‘girly’ comic. I want to do this because women’s interests are often treated as silly and frivolous as a way to condemn female-leaning people as also being those things and I’m sick of that. I also want to do this because the strip is, ack, good. And yes, there’s plenty that writers can learn from Cathy.

Write realistic romances

Cathy has a long-term partner in the strip named Irving. They dated, broke up, and got back together more times than Ross and Rachel.

Unlike Ross and Rachel, they had a realistic relationship. Cathy was kind of a mess, and so was Irving. He was never a knight in shining armor. Never drop-dead gorgeous. They didn’t have a meet-cute. They had a million reasons for everything not to work out.

They did work out because they made it work. Because they put in the work with each other. They put in the work on themselves. Sometimes they were both childish, selfish, and stupid. They grew up together.

Just in case you’ve never been in a real relationship, that’s how they look. Real relationships are built on mutual respect and care. Cathy tries her damndest to get into golf so they have something to do together. Irving goes shopping with her. The two of them struggle with each other’s families. They bond with each other’s dogs. They sit down and talk about money, even though it ends in a fight. They go from two rabidly independent, career-oriented individuals to being a family. That’s not something you’ll find in a Hallmark movie. But it’s honest.

Write realistic families and friends

Cathy has a difficult relationship with her mom. An even worse one with her mother-in-law. She is her daddy’s girl. She has friends who push all her buttons, but she still loves like sisters. She has a boss who’s kind of an idiot, but a well-meaning one. She has relationships that make sense.

One thing in particular that I like is that the other characters make sense in their little world. They are not only side characters in Cathy’s life. They are the main characters in their mind. Which is something I am still learning the trick of myself.

As a side note here, Cathy doesn’t have a relatable life, aside from her relationships. I will point out here that Cathy is a Boomer. She was a young, independent career woman in a time when a single person working a full-time job could buy a house and still have money for things like food, expensive shoes, and really good chocolate. Yes, she is incredibly entitled. I think it’s important that we accept this, and keep it in mind as we keep talking.

Start where you are, and get better. But start!

Looking back at the start of Cathy, way back in 1976, you might be a bit surprised. The artwork is not great. It’s pretty damn bad. If by some chance this blog post ends up in front of the eyes of Cathy Guisewite, I’m sorry. But girl, you know it’s true. The artwork and storytelling in Cathy were kind of shitty.

But by God, it was there. It was published and went out into the world. And it got better. Over the years, the comic strip got so much better.

Some people might say Guisewite should have worked at her art harder before she published. It might have killed her career to put out a subpar product.

Let me be as clear about this as I can be. Thinking like this will lead your creative career into a never-ending holding pattern. Because you will never, ever think your work is good enough. 

We learn best by doing. I certainly did, and so did Cathy. When I started this blog I didn’t have any idea how to add graphics. I’d never published a book hadn’t published anything except for some poems in high school. I started this blog to provide some structure and a reason to build a writing practice.

Lines improved. Color and detail improved. Stories, characters, descriptions. All of these things got better as Cathy grew as a creator. The same can be said of me. 

And the same can be said of you if you can give yourself that opportunity to grow. 

Write honestly about who you are, and people will find that relatable. 

Cathy is not relatable because all women love shoes and chocolate. Cathy is relatable because she’s written by a real person about her reality. And that is what makes her relatable. 

Of course, we’re not all writing semi-autobiographical comic strips. I write about ghosts, dragons, and spaceships. But into each one, I place a part of myself. It’s not on purpose, it happens. I write about my experiences, and in doing so breathe a part of myself into my characters. I hope that people can relate to that. And if I come off as a bit of a cliche, I guess that’s alright. I am a broke, bisexual Millennial with a side hustle, trying to fulfill a creative dream while not starving I treat my dog and cat like children. I suffer from depression and a coffee addiction. And yes, ack, I like chocolate and shoes. I am none of these things because they’re trendy or popular. I am those things because, well because I am. Cathy was all of the things that she was because she was.

Write from who you are. You’ll be amazed how many people can relate to that. 

As an aside, there will not be a post next week. I’m attending Nebula Con, and taking a long-needed staycation with my family. I’ll see you back here on May 19th.

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