Category: On writing

The question gets brought up in writing circles a lot. Do you need to read a lot of books to write a book? Is it really necessary? Really?

The standard answer is yes! You need to have a good understanding of the thing you are making in order to do a good job making it. At the very least, you need to be able to read a book in general because you’re going to need to read your own books over and over again in the editing process.

But there’s a few longer answers to this. First, if you’re not really planning to put it out there or publish it, then you can probably get away without reading much. If no one ever sees it, then you don’t really need to know the things that reading books would teach you.

Another thing to consider are people who generally have reading difficulties. If you’re dyslexic or have focus issues or any number of other things, books can be very difficult. So let’s look at some alternatives and what they can teach if books are difficult!

Scripted dramatic television

Books are becoming more cinematic these days, so watching stuff is going to help a lot.

Shows designed on a season by season basis, such as several Netflix shows, can teach a lot about how to structure plots to maintain reader engagement. Individual episodes can help to show how to end chapters in a way that will entice people to check out the rise and reveal smaller bits of information that lead people to what the season is building up to.

You can also look at how character development works throughout a season. I find in television it’s a lot easier to tell what works and what doesn’t. Pay attention to how characters grow and change throughout a season, what feels like it came out of nowhere and what feels like it’s been built up over the course of the narrative.

Just don’t put too much weight on comedies. Jokes that work on television don’t work as well without elements like timing and subtle visuals. Likewise, a character in a comedy is less likely to show progression over the course of a season. This is not always the case, but it is often the case.

Poetry

If you want your language to really sing, poetry is a great place to take inspiration from. Poetry isn’t as constrained by the structure of narrative and poems have a very different way of expressing what they are trying to get across. It’s a lot more about that feeling they want to convey, and being able to get the mood and feeling of a work across is going to come in handy when writing a book.

They won’t typically teach you as much about narrative structure or anything like that, but there’s a lot of lessons about language that can make your writing better.

Audio books

If you can’t deal with reading books, why not listen to them! An audio book will get you most of the way there to reading a book. You’ll be able to see what the language and pacing of the book is like and how an author balances description, internal monologue, and action. You’ll get a sense of how the plotting and pacing for the novel medium works.

I’m not a big audiobook person myself, ((I have audio processing issues and can’t listen and pay attention to something that long)) so I can’t tell you where the pitfalls of them are, but I can’t really think of much. Maybe that you’re listening to a specific interpretation and you lose that ability to see how your imagination differs from what the final product looks like? I honestly can’t tell you.

Overall, though, there’s plenty of alternatives to novels if you want to learn the craft. There’s a lot of people out there who will say you have to read a lot, but so long as you are doing things to understand how the story works, you can probably work around the actual novels for most of it.

Although if you are asking because you just don’t like novels… maybe try a different mediums. There’s more ways to tell a story than writing a novel.

I’ve gotten into zines a lot of late, especially since I’ve got, well, a lot more time than I used to. I’ve been having a lot of random ideas that don’t feel quite right for my books, so I’ve been turning them into zines instead. And it’s been great! But why?

What is a zine?

From Flipsnack:

A zine (pronounced zeen) is an independently or self-published booklet, often created by physically cutting and gluing text and images together onto a master flat for photocopying, but it is also common to produce the master by typing and formatting pages on a computer. The publication is usually folded and stapled.

Historically, zines have been around since 1776 when Thomas Paine self-published Common Sense and used it as an instrument in promoting the ideas that contributed to the U.S. War for Independence. Just a perfect example to demonstrate the free spirit of zine culture.

Zines are freeform and allow experimentation

Zines are just paper. You can do anything with paper in a way you can’t do it with an ebook. You can combine visuals with text, arrange them on the page however you want, draw your own images and write things in your own handwriting! You can arrange newspaper clippings and experiment with your own photography. And when you’re done, you have something tangible that is different from the rest of your work. In theory.

You don’t have to make them about your books

I know! But my brand! But honestly, you don’t have to. Really. You can use these to be more authentic and talk about the things that interest you that aren’t about the books. The audience for zines is very different than the one for books. It can be very freeing to have a chance to branch out and do something different for different people for a little while.

Or you can make them all about your books

I know I have definitely done this with some bonus content. Short stories can be printed, inspiration photos that you took could be collected, or something else could be made that ties into your book. Just know that your audience may not latch onto the medium.

It’s not something for generating income

Honestly, zines are not a money maker. You can absolutely sell them and they are great to have at a table if you are at a convention ((If anyone is at conventions anymore…)) but they’re not going to sell as well as your actual books. I find them to be a great creative outlet for when I need a break from more structured writing, and they’re a great way to experiment with some different creative outlets.

For those who aren’t aware, I write series. I write almost exclusively in series. Even when I tried to write just one book, it ended up being a series. So I know a thing or two about writing series at this point. You want to write a series? First question.

What type of series?

There’s two major type of series. Depending on your story, your planning and structure are going to vary wildly based on which you decide to go with.

Finite series

The first type, and the type that I am more comfortable working in, is the finite series. These are identified as books that build to a final conclusion. There’s often a narrative that runs strongly throughout and builds through the books, and it will follow one or many character’s journeys throughout the whole narrative as they change and grow.

Most often I’ve been seeing these as trilogies in traditional publishing, or the 7 book series that’s become really popular with indie.

Infinite series

This is also known as serialized fiction. These are book series that have the potential to go on forever. The characters don’t ultimately do a lot of growing or changing because the series is often intended to be read in any order. The focus isn’t as much on the growth and development of a single plot or character, but on the problem introduced at the start of the book, which will be resolved by the end. It’s a bit like a sitcom, but as novels.

There are exceptions

I am trying to generalize for ease here, but there are absolutely exceptions. The soap opera serialization format, for instance, combines the two in that the series goes on forever by design, but they have a rotating cast to ensure that stakes can be continually raised and time can pass so there is progression.

What’s your intent?

Ultimately, determining what kind of series you’re going to write depends largely on your intent. Do you want to write a lot of different stories with the same group of characters or in the same setting that have some connection? Do you want to write a single epic that can’t be contained in a single book?

For me, that choice is easy. I write stories that I feel are too large to be contained in one book, so I write a finite series. My characters undergo a lot of change and growth throughout that aren’t as conducive to an infinite format. And, most importantly, I like having an ending.

You can change your mind!

If you start with one format, you can absolutely pivot to another! There will be a bit of a bump, and if you’ve got an audience they may have some difficulties with it, but your tactics can absolutely change as you find a narrative format that works best for your stories.

I want to hear from you!

Do you have any questions about writing series? I’m looking to write a whole lot about this and I’d love to answer anything you have been wondering about.

Tropes, those common conventions, those little bits of narrative that are common enough that people recognize them to the point they can be shorthand for some people, they are everywhere. And while it seems the trend is to subvert them, I’ve been taking some time to reflect on my stories to see what I use commonly and if I’m okay with that.

After all, what else am I doing these days?

Reluctant Hero and Refusal of the Call

Examples: Looking Glass Saga, White Noise, City Without Heroes

I’m good with this one. I like the idea of someone doing things not because they want to, but because they have to or because circumstances dictate it. I’ll be writing outside of this one eventually, but for now I’m having a lot of fun with it.

Plot Irrelevant Villain

Examples: Looking Glass Saga, Tales from the Twisted Eden Sector, White Noise

I write mostly about self discovery, so my antagonists are largely not a key factor in the story. They drive the plot along, sure, but the actual conflict usually comes from the characters trying to figure themselves out more than trying to defeat the big bad.

Chekov’s Gun

Examples: Looking Glass Saga, Tales from the Twisted Eden Sector, White Noise, City Without Heroes

I’m always a little sad when people don’t notice my foreshadowing, but I do love laying in hints in small bits early in the story to be uncovered in their full context later. Just you try and rip this trope away from me. This and red herrings, I will keep hold of this until I die.

Bittersweet Ending

Examples: Tales from the Twisted Eden Sector, City Without Heroes

I don’t like bows, what can I say? I like to think I end things on a hopeful note, where characters are ready to move on, but not on a firmly happy note. There’s always fallout that has to still be dealt with, but the characters are now prepared to deal with it. So I’m good with this one too.

Like my cat, characters can be a pain. When you don’t really want them to help you out, they force their way into whatever you’re working on. When you want them, they disappear on you for ages and you don’t know where they are until you hear them meowing at the bottom of the stairs pleading for you to come down to watch her eat.

Okay, maybe that’s more my cat. 

Where was I? Right. 

Characters are strange beasts. And it can be really tricky to make sure that they come across as realistic people. One of the tricks I like to use to make a character feel more well rounded is to give them a habit of some sort that I can refer them to doing when they are stressed or bored. ((Because I write a lot of stressed characters)) Whether that’s tapping, becoming very still, or something else, they fall back to that action to reveal emotion. 

I find that’s also a really good way to reveal character. The ways different people react to stress can show things like how they will then react to danger or imply how they will react when they are happy. Seeing the reaction show up in a scene can also show that a character is stressed without making it obvious to the perspective character. ((Which you know I love doing))

And, well, it’s nice to be able to show that a character is bored in a scene without having to tell it. Small things can show a lot, I found, and it’s fun to figure out what kind of person a character is when they aren’t actively thrown into peril. 

What sort of small things do you like reading that make a character feel more rounded?