Tag: writing advice

Why The Hacienda Works

Been a while since we’ve done a Why It Works, hasn’t it? Well, I’ve got a good one for you today.

Released in May of 2022 and written by Isabel Canas, The Hacienda first caught my eye for one simple reason. It was compared favorably to Mexican Gothic. And I loved Mexican Gothic.

And yes, they do have a similar vibe. A lot of good things I have to say about Mexican Gothic can also be said about The Haçienda and vice versa. With one big difference that I will get to shortly.

Of course, the fact that one of the characters is a Catholic priest and a witch didn’t hurt.

So let’s break down why The Hacienda works. Hopefully, we’ll learn something useful for our WIPs.

The characters. It’s always the characters

For me, it always is the characters. And Beatriz is a fantastic main character. She’s ballsy, she’s brave, she’s kind. But she also puts herself in shitty situations because she tries to make situations with bad people work. She refuses to stand up for herself before it’s too late because she’s afraid of losing this home she found for herself.

For me, Beatriz works as well because she’s taken what most of us might find a selfish action but done for reasonable reasons.

After her father is taken from their home and executed, she and her mother end up living with relatives who do not like them, but take them in out of familial guilt. They are not wanted, they are not loved, and this is not a home for them. Beatriz doesn’t live in a world where she can pull a Cher. She can’t become a rich man, she has to marry one. So she does, not for power or wealth. But for a thing we all want, a safe home where we can feel like we belong and are wanted.

Then there’s Padre Andres. And maybe I’m biased, being a Christian Witch, but I thought the Witch Priest concept was fantastic.

Andres is a person still trying to figure out how he fits into the world, but he knows what’s important to him. The Lord, and the people he’s been tasked from birth to protect as their healer and now their priest. He may be confused about a lot, but not about that.

The descriptions

Oh, the descriptions in this book were amazing. They were rich and lush. Reading this book, I could smell the hot air of the desert.

This was done in subtle ways. But the best thing that Canas does with this is to give us two main characters who see the Hacienda in very different ways. So we as readers can experience it in these different ways.

Beatriz comes to the Hacienda having never seen it before, but already in love with it as a concept. In this way, we can see the house, as she describes it. It doesn’t feel like an info dump when she walks through the house, because she is experiencing it for the first time. It makes sense that she would take note of the smells, the tiles, the furniture, or the lack thereof.

When Andres arrives, it’s equally logical that he would notice everything different from when he was a child in this house. He would notice darkness where there was once light.

This made all the descriptions make more sense, and also feel more meaningful.

The magic

Now, I’m a witch. But I’m a Western PA witch, not a Mexican one. So it was fascinating to see how magic is different there than it is here. And yet, the actions and rituals felt similar.

I would burn cedar, not copal. But I am familiar with writing sigils for protection, burning herbs to chase away something that feels dark, and lighting candles to keep out the shadows. The magic in The Hacienda felt both familiar and completely new to me, like a dish I’ve made a hundred times crafted by someone else who is accustomed to cooking with different spices.

So while the hauntings and magic in the book are, of course, fictional, they feel just real enough.

Just the right things left unsaid

Finally, this was I think the best thing about this book. And it’s the part that Mexican Gothic, fantastic as it was, didn’t quite manage.

This book leaves a lot unsaid. I don’t want to ruin the ending for you, but there are lots of questions with only implied answers.

But in the most wonderful way.

There is a lesson that visual artists learn early. That the spots left blank on a canvas are just as important as the ones you paint. Musicians learn this as well, and a properly timed moment of silence in a song can bring you to tears.

I don’t think that we as writers pay as much attention to that. I know that I tend to over-explain. In reviewing my work, I am sometimes reminded of episodes of Bojack when he tells a joke and then asks the audience if they got it. I’m working on not doing that, but it is a challenge.

In The Hacienda, that isn’t a struggle. We don’t get every answer, every detail, every story because we can consider them ourselves. And those questions had me thinking of this book long after I finished it.

Hell, I’m still thinking about it.

So if you haven’t read The Hacienda, read it. It was a dark, wonderful tale that I truly enjoyed. And if there’s a book, show or movie you’d like to see me break down to tell you why it works, let me know in the comments below.

Paper Beats World is a labor of love. If you love what we do, you can support us on Ko-fi.

1

Stick your ending

If you’ve been following along with my reviews on Haunted MTL, then you know I’ve been obsessed with the podcast Dolores Roach. After watching the first season of the show on Amazon over the summer, I was so excited to dig into the podcast.

And I was hooked for every single episode. Until the very last. And that last episode was horrible enough that I will never recommend this podcast to anybody I care about.

There are countless examples of great stories that end up with terrible endings. Firefly, Dollhouse, Eurika, Dexter. Podcast examples include Lime Town, The Black Tapes, and now Dolores Roach. Even books don’t always get it right, like in The Daughter of Dr. Moreau or even the last book in the Dexter series.

How did that one franchise manage to burn me three times?

The point is that endings are hard. Especially when you’re writing a series. And I get it. Nova, the Station 86 book I’m in the middle of publishing, was never supposed to exist. That story was a series of flashbacks in the final book, which I wrote and decided wasn’t a fitting ending for a series I’ve been working on since 2016.

So I threw the whole thing out, wrote a whole-ass extra book, and am now rewriting the final Station 86 book. Because that’s how important that ending is.

Hopefully, you won’t have to throw away a whole completed manuscript, but it’s important to get these endings right. That is if you ever want someone to read anything you’ve written ever again.

Having experienced so many bad endings in so many formats, I have at least experienced what not to do. So that’s what I’m going to share with you today. Hopefully, it will help you stick your landing and deliver an ending that doesn’t make someone want to throw their tablet at the wall.

Remember genre expectations

While you can certainly write whatever your heart desires, genre fans have certain expectations. And if those expectations aren’t met, a genre fan is going to be frustrated. Many of these expectations do have to do with the ending.

Horror fans expect a twist ending. Romance fans want a happy ever after. Science fiction fans want some sort of hope for the future. If you don’t deliver on these expectations, you’re going to deny a reader what they’re expecting.

Now, there are examples of great works doing exactly the opposite of this. Holly didn’t have what I’d call a twist ending. But that was written by Stephen King. Carrie had a twist ending. The Stand had a twist ending. The Green Mile had a twist ending. So even Stephen King didn’t get away with not adhering to genre expectations until he was the Stephen King who’d already written a ton of best sellers.

I am not even at the Carrie part of my career. So my horror had better have a twist at the end, my adventure fantasy had better have a happy ever after and my science fiction had better have a hopeful ending.

Answer all the questions you set up

A good story works because it has you asking questions. What happens next? Will Dexter ever be caught? Who killed Laura Palmer? Why are people dying alone in their homes on Station 86? What happened to the sugar bowl?

You should be giving your reader those questions. But you should also be answering those questions. And while many of them will be a slow burn, you should have all of your questions answered by the end of the story.

Some of the questions might have ambiguous answers. Some might have answers the reader has to consider. But if this is it, the big finale, you should be answering all of your questions.

Give satisfaction

We all know there are moments in a story that give us deep feelings of satisfaction. The love interests finally kiss. The asshole character gets punched in the face. The gun on the mantle goes off, the chandelier comes crashing down on stage.

Your ending should have several of these juicy, satisfying scenes. All the final ones to wrap up all your subplots. Your reader should be whispering ‘yes’ or ‘finally’!

Remember, delayed satisfaction is great. But you do eventually have to get to the satisfaction part!

Don’t rush things

I’m going to admit something that’s going to be bad news for fans of AA. The next season is going to be a while. Like, probably another year or two. There are many reasons for this, most of them being that making a podcast is hard and time-consuming and aside from my wonderful actors, I am doing the whole project myself.

But the big issue holding AA up right now is that I’m just not sure where the story is going. And I don’t want to rush it.

Serenity, the internationally despised Firefly movie, felt like a rushed project. The last episode of Dolores Roach felt rushed.

Yes, sometimes this means that a story is going to take longer to get out. Like Stranger Things, for example. There is time between those seasons. And while I don’t think anyone is thrilled with that, I also think everyone would be way more angry if the story was rushed. If Lime Town suddenly came out with a season three, I would listen to it. And if the ending didn’t feel rushed, if it was a satisfying ending that answered all my questions and scratched all the itches left by the first two seasons, then I’d consider it worth the wait.

So please, take your time.

Make sure you end your story

That brings me to my final suggestion. If you are writing a story, if at all possible, please finish it!

Yes, I understand that sometimes cliffhangers happen. If you’re writing for TV, you might not have the chance to write the final season you want, because the show might get canceled. Podcasts and traditionally published books have that same concern.

I don’t feel like Dolores Roach had that same concern. If I’m wrong, I’d love for someone to tell me.

Firefly had that concern. I feel like they could have addressed it better. George R.R. Martin could publish his next shitty dragon porn book at any time, but he hasn’t.

Writing a series takes dedication. It takes commitment. It takes time, sometimes a decade’s worth of time. Seriously, by the time the last Station 86 book comes out, I will have been with this series and these characters for a decade of my life. And the first four aren’t even fully novels.

I’m not saying this to scare you away from writing a series if that’s what’s in your heart to do. I am saying this because it’s something I wish I’d understood when I started writing a series. Especially before I started writing two series at the same time, then decided to add in a podcast series for good measure. Writing a series takes time, and it takes away your time to start other projects. So if you’re starting a series, please do so with a passion that is going to carry you through a significant amount of time.

Also, please have an ending planned.

This is one thing I did right from the start. With Woven, Station 86, and AA, I knew the ending before I started writing. I don’t know the whole path, but I do know where I’m heading.

And I get that some of you might be pantsers. Probably not a lot, though, as I’ve been fairly clear this is not a safe space for pantsers. Write an outline, thank me later. But even if you are going to pants your way through your entire novel or series, please at least know what your ending is going to be! That way you’re not staring down the end of your story with no idea what it looks like. Or worse, having no idea when or where it should end at all.

In conclusion, you’re going to put a lot of time into your story. And your fans are going to put a lot of time into consuming it. Don’t cheat them or yourself out of the satisfying ending that you all deserve.

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

0

My experience with GetCovers

This is not a sponsored post. I’m not getting anything from this, no discounts free products, or anything like that. I just want to share my experience with this company with all of you.

While I love writing, and I love being an indie author, some parts of this job are A. unpleasant and B. out of my skill set. One of those things has always been cover design.

And that’s kind of important. Because yes, people do judge books by their covers.

The covers of my books have been a constant battle. When I was with my old publisher they made covers for the Woven series that, while I had a say in, I was never really thrilled with.

Station 86 has been a unique journey, as far as covers went. The first two were created by a fantastic artist, who unfortunately wasn’t available to work on the rest of the series.

So, being broke and doing my best, I created the covers for books three and four. I also did the cover for Man In the Woods and Quiet Apocalypse.

While these covers aren’t bad, they aren’t great either. I am, after all, not a graphic designer. I’m not a visual artist. I’m certainly not someone with a ton of knowledge about the market.

I write stories. That’s what I do.

So when I finished Nova, I couldn’t bring myself to create a cover by myself again. I was prepared to scrape together enough money to hire someone to do the work for me. I was prepared to do a whole Kickstarter campaign because I am broke.

Then, I watched a Jenna Moreci video, in which she discussed Getcovers.

Now, Jenna did do a sponsored video and has a coupon code. Here’s a link to her video, so you can use her code.

Even though it was a sponsored video, she made the product seem enticing. A polished, professional cover for a price I could afford. Yes, this was exactly what I needed.

And yes, the cover did turn out great. I think by now you’ve all seen the cover for Nova, but here it is in case you haven’t.

So today I thought I’d break down my experience for you in case you, like me, need a good cover for a price a broke indie author can afford.

I started on their website by making a selection for my price and services. I chose the middle option, which was $20 and included two licensed images.

After I paid, I was sent a questionnaire for the cover. These were some pretty simple questions about genre, color preferences, and comparable titles. I went to Amazon, searched for the most popular sci-fi books, and chose some covers that I thought were great.

Not long after I received an email from the artist who would be creating my cover. She asked some follow-up questions and offered some additional things like an inner cover page, which I ended up ordering as well.

After a few days, I received some mockups to look over. And they looked fantastic. The graphic wraps around the cover, which will be nice when I launch the physical version of Nova in May.

The package also included a cute little mockup image that I’ve been using in marketing.

Overall, I was pleased with the process and the result. It’s certainly inspired me to work with them again on a larger project that I’ll be talking about more later this year.

I would recommend Getcovers if you’re getting ready to publish a book. Or if you’re planning to relaunch any books. Unlike so many, many other parts of the self-publishing process this was quick, inexpensive, and successful.

Paper Beats World is a labor of love. If you find value in our content, please consider supporting us on Ko-fi.

2

Adding new characters so people don’t hate them

If you’re writing a series, you’re going to find that your cast changes over time. This makes sense and is realistic in real life. If your MC is learning, growing, and changing then people are going to leave and come to their lives. They might move, go to school, change jobs, or get a new neighbor. Maybe a family member needs to come stay with them for some unexplained reason.

Sometimes this is great. Some fantastic characters have been added later in a series. Using some TV examples because they’re the best known, here are some later added characters I loved.

Patrick from Schitt’s Creek.

Kimmi from Rugrats.

Ben and Chris from Parks and Rec.

Alex from Chuck.

Natalie from Monk.

Chris from 30 Rock

Jessie from Burn Notice.

All of these characters were great additions to their respective shows.

But not all characters added later in a series are great. Some are Godawful. And the examples of that are downright cringy. Think of Dill from Rugrats, Suzie from Space Cases, Scrappy Doo, and the much despised Bobby from Brady Bunch. This horrible addition trend is so well understood, that it was mocked by the Simpsons in their eighth season.

So how do we do it right? How do we add to our cast without creating a Poochie? Well to me, this involves a series of do’s and don’ts.

Do add something to the story that was missing

Most of the characters in my ‘good’ list fall under this rule. Patrick added a straight man (comedic straight) to a pretty zany cast. Kimmi gave Chucky someone who admired him in Rugrats. Alex gave Casey a softer side that he needed in Chuck.

Do you have a character that is a little too silly? Too responsible? Too damn irritating? Give them a character that has the opposite qualities to balance them out. If your story is just a little too dark, add a character that can give levity.

Do give them a believable and sensible reason to be there.

How did this new character join your cast? Did they move? Okay, why did they move?

Kimmi’s a good example of this. She and her mom joined the cast after the Rugrats went to Paris. Her mom was working for the antagonist, fell in love with Chaz, and moved back to the States with him. That makes sense. Well, not in the real world. But in the lovely fictional world in which a school teacher can afford to keep her family in a house in the suburbs.

As a bad example, we can look at Scrappy Doo. Why is he hanging out with his uncle? Why did we never meet his parents? Why doesn’t he ever go home?

It needs to

Do make sure they fit the style and overall theme of the show

We all know that fiction content tends to have a certain vibe. Some shows are warm and cozy, some are more dark. For this example, let’s consider The Good Place with The Boys. In The Good Place, everyone seems to be a little messed up, but essentially decent people.

Compare that to The Boys, where no one seems like an essentially decent person except the two main characters, Hughie and Annie. And even they, if they were plopped into The Good Place, would seem far too dark and messed up to belong there.

So, as much as you’re trying to bring something new and different to your universe, you don’t want them to be so different as to feel like they don’t fit into the world you’ve already created.

Don’t force this character to take up too much space

Now, we’ve reached the don’ts. And this first one is a doozy.

If you’re adding a new character, you don’t want them to necessarily take over as the main character. So they shouldn’t be treated as such. Yes, they should have some storylines. Yes, they should take up space in the world. Yes, they should be important to the plot. But they shouldn’t be the new focus, to the detriment of other characters.

A great example of this done wrong was Rugrats. Dill took over too many of the storylines. Now that there was a baby who needed looked after and cared for by the rest of the cast, every story had to be about him in some way. Before, each episode told a story of one baby, or the assembled cast facing a problem. Now all the problems were about dealing with Dill. Or they were exacerbated by his presence.

Honestly, did Stu and Didi never actually watch their kids?

Don’t take the place of existing characters

This one is a personal issue with me. And it started young. I’m likely dating myself here, but when I was a kid I loved the show Space Cases. It was kind of like Voyager, but with a younger crew. A ship was lost in way outer space, carrying two adults and a group of teens. Scifi hilarity ensued.

My favorite character was Catalina. At the end of season two, she was replaced by her best friend Suzee, who until this moment most of us thought was an imaginary friend.

And I never got over that.

Of course, if you’re writing anything that requires actors, you’re sometimes going to have to replace people. I had a few actors leave my podcast between seasons one and two.

Some of the characters I recast. Some I simply wrote out and didn’t replace. But if you’re writing for TV, you can’t always just replace an actor.

(Yes, sometimes it can be pulled off.)

Then there are examples like Space Cases, or Charmed, where an actor leaves and their position is simply taken over by a new character. And that’s a jarring situation.

If you’re writing a book series, you don’t have to worry about actors leaving. So you do not ever need to shoehorn a new character in to take the place of somebody else. So, you know, don’t do it.

Don’t add a character just because they’re cute

Alright, you all knew this was coming. That’s why I saved it for last. I have some words of revulsion for the Scrappy Doo, Dill Pickles, and Cousin Oliver sort.

We do not need a character added just for the sake of being cute young and new. We don’t need it. If you find yourself writing a new baby, a new puppy, or a new adorable pet sidekick to keep things interesting and fresh, stop right there. Your story doesn’t need it, and it won’t be the saving grace you think it would be. That stunt has worked once and only once, and that was on Sailor Moon.

I hope this post has helped you. And I hope I didn’t trash-talk a character you loved. If I did, please let me know in the comments. And if there’s a later addition character I didn’t reference that you think deserves some love, please let me know about them too.

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

And don’t forget that Nova, book five of Station 86 starts on Monday! And yes it does have one later series addition, a survivor from Station Central. See you then.

0

How my day job makes me a better writer

I am a writer. I am a professional writer. Most of you already know this, assuming this isn’t the first post of mine you’ve read. I have been a professional writer for a good long time at this point, ever since I started submitting to agents for my first novel, Broken Patterns. I’m a novelist, podcast author, blogger, and critic.

I also have a full-time job that has nothing at all to do with my writing, because writing just does not pay all of my bills.

Hell, it doesn’t pay most of my bills.

So yes, I still work a day job. And while I hope someday to leave that day job, it’s going to be a while. In the meantime, I’m trying to be thankful for what having a day job does for my writing. Because even though I would love to write full-time, having a steady day job does have some benefits to a creative life.

I have to focus

The first thing I want to talk about is the small windows of time in which I have to write. I generally have an hour in the morning, a few hours Sunday afternoon, and one whole day a week to write. In many ways, this sucks.

But in other ways, having less time to write forces me to be more intentional about my projects and what I’m doing about them. When I only have an hour to write, I need to sit down and actually write. There’s some pressure behind the pen.

I have time

Conversely, having a day job also means I have more time to develop my career. Because I don’t need my writing to make money to, you know, eat, I can focus on projects and creative works that will pay out in the long run.

The sad truth is that writing a novel unless you’re already famous, is probably not going to make you any money in the short term. But it might make you money in the long term.

Might.

Creating a successful writing career takes time. You work your way up through short stories. You write and publish books and short stories to build a backlog. You create a platform of people who trust you to put out good content regularly, whatever regular might look like.

All of this takes time. You can write as fast as you want, and work as much as you want, and it’s still going to take time to build a writing career. It’s nice to not have to eat like a college student while you’re building that.

I can write what I want to write

Listen, I get that speculative fiction is not a huge money-maker. If I were writing to feed my family, that would be a serious concern. I might consider selling feet pics. I might consider selling James’s feet pics.

I might consider writing romance novels disguised as fantasy because that shit sells like chocolate on February 12th. But I don’t want to write that. I want to write about ghosts, dragons, and space stations. I sure as hell wouldn’t be publishing my entire new science fiction novel right here on Paper Beats World before I publish it anywhere else. But because I don’t need writing money to live, I can do that. And I am, starting on February 5th.

I have the freedom to write experimental things. To write things that I enjoy. I hope you like them too.

I don’t seek out sponsorships

Lots of blogs and podcasts have sponsorships. YouTube content certainly does. My podcast, AA, does. But this site doesn’t. I’m not writing sponsored posts, or creating sponsored content. Because I don’t have to.

For many creators, making sponsored content can take as much time or more than they’re spending on their actual creative work. It in effect takes the role of a day job, working to build a brand and company for someone else dependent on outside requirements and deadlines. As far as I’m concerned, seeking out sponsorships is the same as having a day job, just without the medical insurance.

This isn’t to disparage sponsorships! Like I said, I do one for AA. My favorite YouTube channel, Watcher, does them all the time. I have a friend who does them for her content. But because I have a full-time job, I don’t have to do that. And I’m really glad I don’t.

I don’t have to take on freelance work

Another thing I don’t have to do is write freelance content. I used to do this, and honestly, I hated it.

Freelance work is hard. It takes time and creative effort. It takes so much time.

There was a time when I needed that work because I was struggling to make ends meet with my day job. And I was thankful for the little extra I could make with it. But I’ve learned over the years that I only have a certain amount of writing energy every day. And if I use it up writing ad copy for a company I don’t care about, I’m not going to have any for the writing I want to do. So if I was writing freelance work, it might quickly become the only writing I was doing.

I’m constantly inspired by new stories

Finally, I want to talk a little bit about the work itself. I’m not going to give many details about what I do, because I work hard to keep my writing and work life separate. But one thing I can tell you is that I talk to people all day every day. And like in any job where you work with people, sometimes they tell me their stories.

No, most people don’t just start unraveling a yarn of their lives unprompted. Though at least one time a man spent 45 minutes telling me about his experiences in Vietnam and finished this by telling me he felt like he was supposed to tell me these stories. I didn’t ask for them. I was shocked by them. But I’m so thankful for the privilege of having heard them.

I learn their stories as they tell me about what kind of day they’re having. How it snowed, and it made them think of a storm when they were kids. How their kids are driving them nuts. Or they just got back from a funeral. Or how they just lost their job or got a new one, or their daughter had a baby. All of these wonderful, worrying, scary, sad, happy stories that people just tell you when you seem willing to listen.

That feeds my soul. But it also feeds my creativity. I talk to people who see the world in a completely different way than I do. I learn new things and gain a new perspective. Granted, some days I learn new ways to be irritated by people. But I also learn compassion and patience.

Anything that makes you a more well-rounded person is going to make you a better artist. The more sides of the world you can see, the more you can write from.

All of this is not to say that I don’t want to write full-time. It’s certainly not to say that writers don’t need and deserve to get paid for their writing. Creative work is work. Emotional work is work. I’d love to quit my day job and write full-time, so I’m not literally working two jobs.

But the truth is that creative work isn’t paying enough to keep me alive right now. And that’s the reality for most writers, sadly. So if we have to work while we create our careers, we can at least lean into the positives.

Nova will start on February 5th. But if you need to start at the beginning, you can get Seeming for free on Smashwords right now.

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

0

Writing when you work from home

It’s snowing where I am as I write this. Not just snow, but a messy sleety wet slop that is freezing when it hits the road. There is nothing I want to do less than leave my home. Thankfully, I work from home.

While many people have transitioned back to offices, lots of us are still working from home. And it is a blessing.

Before we go forward, please let me be clear that this is a blessing and I am not complaining about it. That being said, working from home isn’t without its challenges. Especially when you, like me, already work a creative job from home.

Working from home when you also have a creative hustle has its own challenges. For one thing, there’s only so much time one should spend staring at the same four walls. For another, it’s just hard to spend more time in our creative space when it’s also now our workspace. Listen, I like my day job and there are still some days where I don’t want to step away from my desk so much as set it on fire and run screaming from it. And then I’m expected to spend more time at that same desk?!

I’m a big fan of basically tricking my brain to get it to do what I need. And I’m also a big fan of, you know, doing the thing I love no matter what. So here’s what I do to juggle both working and writing from home.

Have a specific start and end time

This is a piece of information that’s been around for WFH folks forever. But frankly, it bears repeating because this is harder when you’re creating from home.

Have a specific start and end time for your day job. This is easy when we’re working at the office, because you clock out and head home, not to see your work PC until next you clock in.

If you’re working from home, your PC is there with you. Waiting. Judging.

When I’m doing things around the house, making dinner, or watering plants, I can ignore the PC with ease. But when I sit down back at the desk, back where I was performing a specific action all day, I start to think about things that happened at work.

Did this person respond to my email? Did that guy do the thing I needed him to do? Did I take care of my part of that other thing?

This sucks. But it’s important to stick to your intentions. You were at work already. You have a specific amount of time that you and your boss agreed to. There is no reason to jump on there at any other time.

Physical boundaries

Of course, this is easier said than done. When you’re computer is right there, it’s harder to just say no.

And I get it. I’m lucky to have any devoted space in my home for working, it’s a small place. So my desk is the place where I work from home and do all of my writing. Same little desk, same squeaky chair, same Peanuts calendar. And I’m not going to move my work pc every time I want to write.

So what I do instead is to place a scarf over the whole PC when I’m not at work. I turn it off, and I cover it with a nice maroon scarf. Out of sight, out of mind.

Tricking your senses

Getting my work PC out of sight is just one way I trick my senses into thinking this is a different workspace. I’m careful to keep certain practices separate.

When I’m working the day job, I listen to jazz music. I don’t light candles or incense. I’m generally drinking water or coffee.

When I’m writing, I like to listen to either nature sounds or work with me videos. I almost always have something nice smelling lit. I also tend to prefer tea while I’m writing. It’s all about creating the right kind of vibe. When I’m doing day job work, I want to feel alert and not stressed out. When I’m writing, I want to feel creative and soft.

Get out of the house when you can

Finally, I try to write outside of the house when I can. Not all the time, frankly I write too much to do it all the time. But I like to go to a coffee shop or the library and get some work done. Especially when I’m feeling like I’m in a slump, or the four walls of my office are getting to me.

Writing outside of the house has all kinds of benefits. Especially when you’re spending 40+ hours a week in your usual writing spot.

If you can’t leave the house, which might be the case for me as I’m looking down a snowstorm this weekend, try to switch up where you write. While I don’t suggest writing in bed, maybe there’s somewhere else in your home you can write from. I’ll often write reviews on my couch, for instance, my laptop balanced on a lap desk.

Now, if you feel like a lot of this advice sounds the same, you’re right. These are all examples of what boils down to the same advice.

Make your creating time as separate from your work time as possible. Because the last thing you want when you’re writing is to feel like you’re at work.

Nova will start on February 5th. But if you need to start at the beginning, you can get Seeming for free on Smashwords right now.

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

0

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.

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

0

How I won Nanowrimo this year

We’re a week into December now, and most of us have put Nanowrimo aside for the year. And I have as well. I’m thrilled to be able to say that I did win this year.

Especially because last year I didn’t win. And I have to be honest, that kind of messed with me.

It really messed with me.

See, I always win Nano. I mean, I’ve been doing Nanowrimo or Nanoedmo every year since I started this blog. But last year, in addition to losing Nano, I turned 36. This year, I turned 37. And ever since last November, there’s been a little voice in the back of my mind, suggesting that I might be getting past my prime.

I might be slowing down.

All this to say, my confidence took a hit. And I’ve spent the past year trying to get that confidence back. Now that I won Nano, I’m feeling a lot better.

Winning Nanowrimo was a challenge. It required me to work in a way that I’d never done before. I disregarded all of my usual advice. Here’s what I did instead.

I just focused on hitting par every day.

In the past, I’ve tried to write more than 1,667 words at the start of November. And because of that, I got ahead of schedule.

And then I got cocky. And frankly, a little worn out. So I skipped a day or two. And that’s when I’d lose momentum.

This year, I focused on hitting par every day. Actually, I tried to hit 1,700 every day. This was manageable and sustainable. At least for a month. So I wasn’t feeling as burned out by writing 4,000 words in a day, and then expecting my brain to function creatively the next day.

I didn’t participate in a lot of online groups.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I did join a new writing group. But I wasn’t all that active. I’d jump on to commiserate or celebrate with other writers only after I’d reached my word count for the day.

Before, I was jumping into my groups and getting discouraged by all the people who were not getting their word counts in. Worse, I was irritated by anyone who was getting their words in. Were they better than me? Were they younger? Was I just lazy? No, it’s not that one, laziness doesn’t exist.

Was I just old?

Of course, it wasn’t any of those things. It was just that I was struggling. My struggle didn’t have anything to do with my fellow writers. And rather than letting them inspire me, I let their success condemn me.

This year, I wasn’t competing with anyone but me. It was just me and my word count, come hell or high water.

I didn’t attend write-ins

Write-ins are fun if you’ve got the time for them. They’re a great place to meet other writers and network.

And meeting other writers is a wonderful thing.

I’ve attended write-ins, study halls, and group work hours in the past. But I don’t do a lot of writing at them. At least not as much as if I were to just take the same amount of time to just write as I was taking to get to the event, do all the meet and greet events, and get settled into the location.

Plus, I used to have a little touch of social anxiety. Now, after Covid shutdowns working from home and generally not interacting with anyone for more than three minutes at a time, I have a lot of social anxiety. So when I try to write around other people, I’m focusing on all the wrong things. Are people looking at me? Does my shirt smell like cat pee? Is my lipstick smudged? Do I look like an introspective writer, working away at her project? Or do I look like a hunchbacked old woman trying to fit in with a bunch of kids?

None of this is helping me get words on the page. So I skipped the live events.

I didn’t write out in public, except for on the last day.

This point is similar to the last one. The year before I was making time to write in coffee shops, diners, and libraries. And yes, that is sometimes wonderful. But when I’m in crunch time, that is not the time to be writing in public. Writing at the library or my favorite coffee shop is for days when I’m lacking motivation or need a treat. It’s not the place to be if I need to get a significant amount of words on the page.

I did write at a coffee shop on the last day of November. And it was fantastic.

If you didn’t win, you’re no less of a writer and you can still do hard things

Now I told you all this not to make you feel bad if you didn’t win Nanowrimo this year. I told you all this to inspire you to win next time. Or, not. Maybe this will just inspire you to not be down on yourself if you didn’t make it. Because there are a lot of reasons to not succeed at something we want to do, no matter how much we want to do it.

I think it’s only now as I write this that I’m realizing something important. Last November was not a good mental health time for me. And despite the stereotype of the tortured writer, a bad place emotionally isn’t a good place to write from. It’s not a place to do anything but to heal. I needed to heal so that I could do hard things again.

Just because we fail at one hard thing doesn’t mean we can’t do other hard things. Just because we don’t achieve what we want, doesn’t mean we will never achieve it again.

Sometimes we just need to rethink our approach.

If you love what we do here, you can support us on Ko-fi

0

Are you making art or making a product?

Continuing in our back-to-basics series today, I wanted to touch on a difficult topic. It’s a question that I think a lot of creatives ask themselves. I’d like to say writers have been asking that question for longer than other artists, but that isn’t fair. Even so, I’m a writer, so I’ll just be talking to the writers today.

When we write, are we creating a piece of art or are we creating a product?

The maddening answer is that we’re doing both.

We are artists

Writing is an art, don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise. And you are an artist, no matter what stage of your writing career you’re in. We are creating something new. Something that brings joy to people. We craft sentences with thought put into each word and each turn of phrase. We practice, read, and study to make our story the best, most original creative, and perfect story it can be.

We are marketers

But we are also selling a product. And I’m sorry if I’m the first to tell you this, but you’re probably going to have to do most of the selling of your book yourself. Even if you get picked up by one of the big publishing houses, you are probably going to do most of your marketing and promoting yourself.

If you’re an indie or hybrid writer, like me, you’ll be doing all of it yourself. And that requires you to think of your story like a product. A product that you have to market and sell.

A product that feels like a piece of your soul, surgically cut off from you and placed out in the world for people to abuse, tread upon, and spit on. No big deal.

How do we do both?

So, how do we do this? How do we craft a piece of art and still make money? How do we successfully make a living and not feel like a sell-out?

For me, it comes down to two rules. These two rules are vital, and set in stone.

The first of these rules is that you deserve to make money for your art. All artists deserve to make money for our art. Don’t ever feel bad or guilty about charging for your work.

Look, I give a lot of writing away for free. I post here weekly. I produced two seasons of a podcast that you do not have to pay to listen to. I post micro-fiction and short stories. And every time a new Station 86 book comes out, I post it here on Paper Beats World for free before publishing it.

But I charge for my books. I get paid for my reviews on Hauntedmtl. I leave links at the bottom of every post to my ko-fi account. I do not write for experience organizations, or to gain exposure. I deserve to get paid for my writing. You deserve to get paid for your writing.

The second rule is a little more nuanced. But it’s possibly more important.

Be clear about what activities are making art, and what activities are marketing.

When I’m writing a piece of fiction, I am creating art. I am not wondering if I’ll be able to sell this. I am just writing a story. Maybe it’s bad, maybe it’s good. But it’s the story that I want to tell. I’m having fun while I’m writing it.

In later drafts, I’ll polish it. Make sure the story is satisfying, and that it makes sense. That it’s fun to read. During all that I’m still not worrying about if it’s marketable. I’m not writing a main character that I think would be a cool Halloween costume or look good on a hoodie. I am writing a character that I want to trek through at least 50,000 words with. More if it’s a series. I didn’t write Sennett as a single mom and police officer because I considered her a marketable character. I wrote her that way because that’s the person who appeared in my head.

Later, when I was thinking about how to market Station 86, I sure as hell used the fact that she was a single mom cop. When I’m making a book cover, crafting social media posts about my book, making bookmarks and little video clips to share on Instagram, then I’m marketing a product. The artist part of me has given me a story. Now it’s up to the part of me that is a saleswoman to sell the hell out of it.

Render unto art what is art and marketing what is marketing.

I hope this post helps you today. Trying to balance the different aspects of a writing career is difficult. But always remember that your art is worth it. But no one’s going to see it if you don’t market it.

See you next week. And I hope you have a terrific Thanksgiving if you live in the States.

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

2

Paper or PC

Welcome back to our fundamental series here on Paper Beats World. We’re slowly, over time, diving back into the basics of writing. We’re talking about the barebones standards of writing in a mundane way that is magical in practice. Today, I want to talk about something that has many answers, and none of them are wrong.

Do you write longhand, or do you type your writing?

No, let’s narrow that down a bit. Because there are just some parts of the writing process that are not going to work in one medium or the other. A second draft cannot be handwritten in my opinion. And while there can be a healthy debate about that, I don’t think anyone’s going to argue that by a third draft you should really be clacking keys. Though if you’ve got an argument for that please let me know in the comments because you are clearly a fascinating individual. Or you’re a time traveler from the past.

So let’s narrow this down to just the first few steps of your book. The brainstorming and rough draft steps. Now, I’ve written rough drafts on paper, and I’ve written them right into Word. Both have pros and cons, so let’s talk about them.

On paper

This is how I started, and how I think most writers my age or older stared. Writing a rough draft on anything else but paper. I think Stephen King wrote his rough drafts on an old typewriter. But he also says he wasn’t super prone to typos in his book, On Writing.

I am super prone to typos. And I didn’t have a typewriter. So I write in college ruled notebooks.

I still prefer to write my rough drafts in notebooks. There are several reasons for this.

One, of course, is the issue with typos. I know it doesn’t matter in a rough draft, but I can’t stop myself from going back and fixing them. Writing on paper allows me to ignore the mistakes and just keep on flowing.

Another is that I can take a notebook anywhere. And when I’m in the rough draft zone, I might well take the damn thing anywhere. Yes, I can do this with a laptop, but I don’t drive. And when you’re walking or riding the bus, a laptop can get heavy.

Or get broken.

Writing on paper has a lot of aesthetic benefits for me. There’s a reason I called my blog Paper Beats World. I love paper. I love watching pages stack up with story on them. I love filling a blank page with ink.

More than anything though, I write on paper because my brain works best when I do.

Likely from years of habit, my creativity comes out most on paper with pen. I can scribble, work out problems and figure out what’s going on in my mind when I have a pen in my hand. So, because this is what my muse works best with, it’s what I lean towards.

On PC

All that being said, I have written rough drafts on my computer. Well, on Dabble to be specific.

There are many good reasons to do this. For one, it costs no money. Well, for me it costs my Dabble subscription. But I’m going to keep paying that anyway. So it cost me no additional money. And you can always write on Google Docs or Libre Open Office.

There’s also the fact that my rough drafts written on pc are legible. Like, the whole way through. I have terrible handwriting, and it gets worse when I get excited and start writing fast. I have definitely gone through some handwritten rough drafts and just written big question marks on pages. I just had no idea what I’d written in a fit of creative passion.

Another thing that’s nice about writing your first draft on pc is that you’re not going to have to rewrite as much of it. Well, you might not have to rewrite as much of it. When I type my second draft, I have to literally type every word. When I write a rough draft on pc, I can just copy and paste anything worth keeping. If there’s anything worth keeping.

There is also the matter of speed. I can write pretty fast, but I can type almost as fast as words come to me. Even if you aren’t a fast typist, you probably still type faster than you write.

When you don’t have a ton of time, getting words down fast can be a necessity.

Built in spell checks don’t hurt either.

Finally, there is something incredibly satisfying in watching a word-count rise. Especially right now during Nanowrimo. I have been loving the little ticker at the right hand side of my screen. It makes my little Type A heart happy.

What’s worked best for me, after years of trying and testing, is a combination of the two. I write brainstorming and notes, then the rough draft, on paper. The second draft goes onto my pc, as do all other drafts that come after. And I, and my muse, are happy with this.

But now I want to hear what you think. Do you write your rough drafts on paper, do you start at your pc, or do you do something totally different? Let us know in the comments.

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

0

A WordPress.com Website.

Up ↑