What About Everything?

I've started rewriting The Long Road again. I haven't got very far, but it feels… good, just to be working on it again. I figured out how and where to start it, that introduces the characters without being all info-dumpy.

That being said, I'm thinking a lot about backstory.

Obviously, these characters have history, both of their own and with each other. I've been doing a lot of research into how to incorporate that into the story. And let me tell you, the internet is god damn useless. "Work backstory into the narrative in bits and pieces." No shit. You don't want to stop the action to explain how your characters know each other, or how they got where they are now. Some sites recommended the use of a prologue. As far as I know, prologues should really only be used when there's some crucial worldbuilding that needs to be done up front. Usually that's a sci-fi/fantasy thing, where the reader needs to know something about the world in order to not be completely lost. This is not that kind of story.

Making Promises

I haven't been working on anything lately. I have all these things I want to do, all these grand plans… all these murders to commit. Fictionally, speaking, of course. Of course…

That's the downside of all this. It makes me sound like a psycho something.

Anyway, I have the ideas. I just don't have the motivation. I could barely get the motivation to write this post.

The question, then, is what do I do about it.

Much like inspiration, you can't just wait around for motivation. You just have to do it. You have to make it a habit, a routine, and just sit down and do it, even when you don't want to.

As you can see, I haven't mastered that yet.

The Triumphant Return of Steve

This post is unique. It may not look it, but it's very different from anything I've ever done. It was written entirely on a smartphone. That's right, I've finally joined everyone else in the future.

You know, Fifty Shades of Grey was written on a BlackBerry, I've heard. And look how that turned out.

I certainly type a lot slower using this tiny keyboard, so I'm not going to be using this all the time, but it's a little something different and... what's the adjective form of novelty? Oh. It's "novel." I'm an idiot.

Well, speaking of novels, I guess, I might as well tell you all my upcoming plans.

Where to Start

I'm back on The Long Road. Maybe I never really got off of it. Maybe I'll always be here. Maybe no one ever gets out.

But that's not why we're here. We're not aiming to get off the road, we're trying to get on it.

I've began this story twice. And both times, it began just before our heroes set out on their trip. And both times, I've had to slog through some boring shit to get them on the road and started on their adventure. I get caught in a dialogue trap, where everyone just talks and nothing happens. It's like… conversation quicksand.

It's one thing to have dialog that enhances what's going on, and propels the plot forward. But this… it's not that. Much as I like Tony's coffee story, it's not really contributing to the story as a whole.

So I've come to the conclusion that the story needs to start later.

Well-Contained Plots

Bottles. Great for cramming messages into. Also great for stories you want to keep contained.

That's right, we're talking about bottle episodes, or bottle movies. Or bottle stories in general. Terrarium fiction, I once said. You take all your plot, characters, and conflict, and you stick them in a confined space and sit back to see what happens.

Bottle stories are not necessarily bound to the bottle. There is nothing keeping the action there. It just happens to all take place there. Personally, I think it's more interesting if the bottle's been corked.

The Flashiest Fiction

I've started writing flash fiction. Or microfiction, you might hear it called. Very, very short stories. The first one I've written was 112 words.

Incidentally, I've finally started using the Instagram account I've had for months. I've never been one for posting selfies, and I don't have anything interesting to take pictures of. So I've decided to write very short stories, put them in a square with a nice background, and post them to Instagram.

Just like books are divided into length based categories (novellas, novels, epics), so too is flash fiction. The term "flash fiction" itself is used for stories 1,000 words long. "Sudden fiction" is 750 words, "microfiction" is 100, and a "minisaga" is 50. A lot of them show up in literary contests where the goal is to have exactly that number of words.

I'm not so particular, so I'm using "flash fiction" in the general sense. I'm not so much constraining myself by word count, but by overall size.

Foreshadowing Firearms

This post might have been written on time, but I went to a concert on Wednesday. Bad Wolves, Breaking Benjamin, and Five Finger Death Punch (click links for musics). Totally worth it to get tickets down on the floor, by the way.

But anyway, we're here to talk about writing. 

You may have heard of Chekhov's Gun. It's a… I don't know, a rule, that says, "If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there."

Basically, if you bother mentioning a thing, it should be important at some point.

Monsters and Mayhem

I have a lot of things in my head.

I've had a few random ideas for my current story, involving time travel, human sacrifice, the usual. I also have this gnawing in my brain, in my very soul, to finish The Long Road.

I don't know why that story is so important. I mean, every year, I sit down to write a NaNo novel, and I say, "This will be the one." The Great American Novel. The story that's going to change the world, even if it's just my little corner of it. It's the story that will make sense and I'll be able to show it to everyone without cringing. Every year, I say that.

And every year, I write a pile of complete nonsense, with a few good gems sprinkled throughout, the needles in my haystack.

A Story About Something

Writing Desks and Ravens: Freedom Edition.

And what's more free than freewriting?

I've started writing for Camp NaNo. I still have pretty much no idea what it's about. Some kind of Lovecraftian horror, I guess, judging from what I have.

Basically, I started with a single scene that popped into my head. This one tiny moment. Just… this:

Blood seeped through his fingers as he lay in the grass. In the dim light, the indistinct form of the creature edged closer. He was done for. There was no escaping now.

The thing was only six feet from him. It could have turned and finished him off. But it didn’t. It kept moving, right on past him. He wasn’t a threat anymore. He was already dead.

Nothing in Particular

I just watched the 2012 movie Upside Down, and it made me think of one of my stories from a few years ago, The Shattered World, in that it involves worlds that are strangely connected and dubious science. Definitely what I would call fantasy and not science fiction. Maybe I should revive that story and give it another chance. Maybe for Camo NaNo in July. Or maybe I’ll do something new. I don't know.

What would you like to see, all five of my readers? What kind of challenge would you like to see me tackle? I have a few things up in the air at the moment, in various states of completion, but I'm not above shelving them and starting something new.

I would have written this post hours ago, but I got distracted reading a story that proved to be much longer than expected. I literally spent hours on it, even as it got later and later, because I really wanted to know how it all turned out. It was a very dark and bleak story, but my god, was it good.

I want to write something like that.