Final Lessons from Stephen King

I finally finished reading Stephen King's On Writing this week. Here are some quotes that stand out to me from the last third of the book:

• "Good fiction always begins with story and progresses  to theme; it almost never begins with theme and progresses to story... once your basic story is on paper, you need to think about what it means and enrich your following drafts with your conclusions. To do less is to rob your work (and eventually your readers) of the vision that makes each tale you write uniquely your own."
• "The truth is most writers are needy.  Especially between the first draft and the second, when the study door swings open and the light of the world shines in." (King advocates two drafts and a "polish". The first draft is private. The second draft is to be read by a few close friends.)
• "Formula: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft - 10%... What the Formula taught me is that every story and novel is collapsible to some degree.  If you can't get out ten percent of it while retaining the basic story and flavor, you're not trying very hard.  The effect of judicious cutting is immediate and often amazing..."
• ...the larger the work [of writing] looms in my day --the more it seems like an I hafta instead of just an I wanna-- the more problematic it can become.  One serious problem with writers' workshops is that I hafta becomes the rule...  When, on the other hand,  making sure the kid gets to his basketball camp on time is every bit as important as your work in progress, there's a lot less pressure to produce."

I can relate to both the part about writers being needy and the part about the I hafta syndrome. I can become somewhat "needy" when I have others read my work with a critical eye. And on those occasions when writing becomes a hafta for me, then my production level invariably suffers.

One idea that motivated me from the last third of On Writing is the way King emphasizes that the first draft of a book should be written quickly to guarantee the story flows well. The subsequent drafts are where the "perfecting" of the writing is done. I tend to try and make things "perfect" as I go. I am going to give King's way a try and attempt to get the first draft of Spacemouse 9 finished quickly rather than going with my usual practice of slowly writing one perfect chapter at a time. Wish me luck!

Lessons From Stephen King - Part 2

Here is some more wisdom from Stephen King on the art of writing:

• "If you want to be a writer you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot." (i.e. writers hone their skills by both reading well written books and practicing their craft)
  
• "...my basic belief about the making of stories is that they pretty much make themselves. The job of the writer is to give them a place to grow (and to transcribe them, of course)."

I was convicted by the first quote, but encouraged by the second. My conviction comes from a fact I already know: I need to read more! Regarding the second quote, I was encouraged because I understand exactly what he means. Stories do make themselves. A further quote by King on the subject comes very close to describing my writing process:

"I often have an idea of what the outcome may be, but I have never demanded of a set of characters that they do things my way. On the contrary, I want them to do things their way. In some instances, the outcome is what I visualized. In most, however, it's something I never expected."

The situation in which I have placed the main character in Spacemouse 9 is he is separated from his home world and those he loves. As my writing progresses, Spacemouse 9 does things his way to rectify the situation (with me along on the ride as a scribe). I have an outcome visualized, but as King says, most likely the final outcome will be something I never expected.

Blog Goals Reviewed

Other than reading a little more of Stephen King's On Writing, I was unable to make any progress toward my book writing goals this week. But before I got too discouraged I realized I have been doing a fair job of keeping up with the blogging goals I set for myself a month ago. Write at least one post a week? Check. Add more features to the blog? Check. Write posts that contribute to the back-story of Spacemouse 9? Appendix post started (even if it isn't published yet!). So, slow as it is, progress is being made and because of that I continue be optimistic about having a finished book some day.

Lessons From Stephen King - Part 1

I finished reading the first half of Stephen King's On Writing. Memorable quotes on the craft of writing thus far in the book include:

• "Verbs come in two types, active and passive... You should avoid the passive tense. I am not the only one who says so; you can find the same advice in The Elements of Style." (Ah, here he is pushing Strunk & White again. Yes, Stephen, I will get to it eventually.)
  
  
• "The adverb is not your friend... I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops." (Really? Oop, did I just use an adverb?)

So in a nutshell, Stephen advises using strong, active verbs and limiting adverbs to the rarest of occasions. Lessons learned! The first half of On Writing is more autobiography than writing lesson. Perhaps the second half of the book is where writing advice takes center stage. We shall see.

First Appendix Entry Underway

In a previous blog post I mentioned that one of my goals for the Spacemouse 9 blog is to add a section of appendix entries. The intent is for the appendix to contain back-story information about the Spacemouse 9 universe, information that fleshes out items not fully explained in the book. I am pleased to announce that the first appendix entry has been started! The entry, when posted, will explain the Rothi numbering system which has certain similarities to the Roman numeral system. The Rothi system, however, differs from the Roman system in that the Rothi system is based on geometry rather than letters. Look for the first appendix entry to be posted in coming weeks.

Another Book for the Reading List

I started reading Stephen King's On Writing this week. In the second forward of the book, King proclaims, "I'll tell you right now that every aspiring writer should read The Elements of Style." (by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White). Now most serious writers probably know of this book, but being a "noob", I had never heard of it. So I have added "Strunk & White" to my list of must reads. If Stephen King, a best selling writer of Science Fiction and Fantasy, recommends a book by E. B. White who wrote Stuart Little, one of the best known books to have a mouse as its lead character, how can I not put it on my reading list? ;)

Reading List

This week I ordered some books I feel will help me become a better writer and storyteller:

• On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
• Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury
• The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

There is a separate reason why each of these books was chosen. I will share what lessons I glean from them in later posts. Stay tuned...

Chapter 1 Started

I made a start this week at writing Spacemouse 9 and the Mission of Doom. I tentatively titled the first chapter "The Rothi Moon". My current plan is for this chapter to contain a basic explanation of Spacemouse 9's home world and his people, who call themselves "the Rothi". This explanation will include information about the configuration of the Rothi planetary system as well as information about the history and traditions of the Rothi themselves.

As the title of chapter one indicates, the Rothi live on a moon. This moon is nestled in ring of asteroids which encircle a large mysterious planet. The Rothi are a quiet species and their culture is honor based which makes it Japanese-like in many respects. Once chapter one is complete, my plan for chapter two is to introduce Spacemouse 9 himself and lead into recounting the fateful mission around which the story line of the book is based.

Age Category

When I first considered writing a Spacemouse 9 book, I thought the story would appeal most to children in the age range of 10 to 14 years. At the time, I was only aware of two categories of literature in that age range: Children's books and Young Adult (YA) books. Before I discovered a third age category of "Middle-grade" (MG), I struggled with where to place Spacemouse 9. There is some debate over what age range constitutes MG, but from what I have read the most typical definition is that it covers ages 10 to 14 (just what I had in mind for my book!)

In the wake of the Twilight series, so many books for young readers have been focused on the YA category, presumably because that is where the money is. At least one person in the industry, however, laments the decline in the number of MG books. John Rudolph at DGLM writes:

"So to all you YA writers out there—how about some middle-grade? I see so many creative concepts and storylines in YA that would easily translate into middle-grade, especially in fantasy and sci-fi. The audience is there—really, I can’t think of any traditional series that commands the MG market right now—and from my informal survey of editors, it seems like they’re hungry for it, too. All we need are the writers…"

Did he just say he needs more MG fantasy and sci-fi writers? ^^ Better get cracking on my book...

The Question of Genre

Spacemouse 9 doesn't fit neatly into any of the standard literary genres. It is easy to fit the story under the broad category of "speculative fiction" which is defined by The Speculative Literature Foundation as:

"a catch-all term meant to inclusively span the breadth of fantastic literature, encompassing literature ranging from hard science fiction to epic fantasy to ghost stories to horror to folk and fairy tales to slipstream to magical realism to modern myth-making -- and more."

However, you will notice that this definition mentions several different genres. Which genre is Spacemouse 9? I finally decided that "science fantasy" was the best choice due to the odd mix of science fiction and fantasy elements in the story. I like writer Randy Henderson's discussion of the genre:

"So why isn’t science fantasy just called fantasy? Well, for one, even the most entertaining sci-fantasy story may not appeal to someone who strictly enjoys high fantasy, and vice versa. A pure fantasy reader may not want spaceships, lasers, or AIs, even if elves are the ones using them. The hard science fiction fan will hate the inclusion of elves. The science fiction elements make it not pure fantasy, but the fantasy elements make it not purely hard or soft science fiction either."

Age category is a separate matter from genre. Next week I will discuss why I feel the "middle-grade" age category is the best category for Spacemouse 9.

Working Title Chosen

According to Arun Verma at the Creative Ignition blog, writing down a working title for a book helps give a writer "a concept to start working with". If that is true, then I suppose my approach to the task of choosing a working title for my book was somewhat backwards. I developed the concept and basic storyline first, and then I chose a working title I felt expressed the concept.

After much debate, the working title I chose is Spacemouse 9 and the Mission of Doom. The main character of the story, Spacemouse 9, is a small, mouse-like alien who is a member of a military order whose mission it is to patrol space in defense of his planet. Through a fateful chain of events on one of his patrol missions, Spacemouse 9 is transported to Earth. Light years away from his planet, it is here his odyssey to find a way home begins.

I like the ring this working title has. It is along the same lines as "Indiana Jones and..." or "Harry Potter and..." and will lend itself easily to a book series should things come to that. If I have chosen well, perhaps this title will endure to become the final title of the book. With the working title chosen, now it is time to get some writing done!

Goals

From what I have read, it is recommended that writers set goals for themselves. So I had to ask myself: "What exactly should my goals as a writer be?" After giving it some thought, I chose to make my goals small and few. After all, I am writing my first book "just for fun". Burdening myself with too many high powered goals would defeat the purpose of why I want to write. It would take all the fun out of it for me. So for the time being, here is what I have decided on as my goals:

Write at least one blog post per week. Setting this easily attainable goal for myself forces me once a week to give thought to the world of Spacemouse 9. Hopefully, this will keep me focused on the project and motivate me to continue making progress on the book.

Write blog posts that contribute to the back-story of Spacemouse 9. The works of literature that I find enjoyable (such as the books of J.R.R. Tolkien) have well developed back-stories. I hope to develop the Spacemouse 9 universe in the same way, all the while documenting my progress through blog posts. In theory, I will later be able to group these back-story posts together to form a sort of online encyclopedia or appendix. This appendix would contain details about the Spacemouse 9 universe that might be alluded to, but not fully explained in the book.

Expand the Spacemouse 9 blog. Currently, the Spacemouse 9 blog is a somewhat bare bones affair. I want to add more features to the blog including the aforementioned appendix as well as an "about the author" page and any other features that would befit a published *fingers crossed* author.

Looking over these goals I see that they each have more to do with blogging than they have to do with writing a book! Ah well, it just goes to show I am a blog writer first and a book writer second. And yes, I do have another blog, but I leave that story for another day.

The Journey Begins

When my children were young, I used to tell them impromptu bedtime stories. The stories were invariably Fantasy themed with the tales continuing from week to week in serial form. Often it would take months to reach the end of a story. The protagonists of the stories tended to be somewhat bizarre: a living pickle with magical powers in one case, a piece of toast brought to life by a fairy in another. But the improbability of the characters and the unexpected turns in their adventures brought a sense of wonder to my children's eyes that I loved to see.

Another thing I did for my children was draw cartoons for them in church services when they became bored and squirmy. One continuing character was a mouse in a space suit. We referred to the character as simply "Spacemouse" for lack of a better name. As the children grew, there became less and less need to draw Spacemouse and eventually the drawings ceased.

A year or two ago, my wife and children began gently prodded me to unite my Spacemouse character with my story telling skills and write a book. Reluctant at first, I eventually took their urging to heart and decided to give it a try. But where to begin? In my search for answers I read somewhere that all good authors in this day and age should have a blog, which brings me here. And so the journey begins...