A Short Story a Day

Over the years, I’ve read about people using tarot cards as writing aids. I’ve always wanted to give it a shot. The archetypal and iconographic imagery seemed like they could be really useful. But a) I didn’t have a tarot deck, b) most available tarot software wasn’t that good [*] and had chintzy public domain artwork, and c) I always felt silly just looking at the tarot decks at the book store, much less picking one out and buying a deck.

Last week, though, I overcame the silly feelings and used some birthday money to buy my first tarot deck. It’s very pretty.

Since then, I’ve been reading about the tarot, soaking up the meanings of the cards and reading about the history of the cards, both for playing games and for divination. Three cheers for the World Wide Web–and the local public library!

Starting on Wednesday of last week, and continuing through today, my stories have had their seeds in tarot spreads. “Fresh Air” and “Nail by Nail” started out with very simple 3-card spreads, basically just past-present-future readings.

Friday’s “Afternoon Gloom” came out of a 7-card spread that I found here. The seven cards in the spread are:

1) Hero

2) Teacher

3) Bad Guy

4) Mission

5) Problem

6) Help

7) Reward

If you’re keeping score, the “bad guy” in “Afternoon Gloom” is Becky’s own frustration. I’ve noticed that I have fewer actual “antagonists” in my stories. I tend to let people beat themselves up.

Over the weekend, I tinkered around, and created my own story spread. It requires nine cards:

Protagonist/POV

1) Past

2) Present (Situation)

3) Goal

Antagonist/Conflict

4) Past

5) Present

6) Goal

Plot

7) Help

Reversal

9) Resolution

I used that one today, for “Victor Comes Home”. It seems to work. I expect, though, that I will be tinkering with the spread some more.

Overall, fun stuff.

The four stories, though, only “sorta” match the readings created from the cards. That is, if you squint and keep an open mind, you might be able to see how I got from the cards to the final stories. I can’t provide any examples, though. Because I have (rather intentionally) kept no records of the initial cards, nor of the readings made from the card, once I finish the story. Just doesn’t seem that useful to keep track of.

So, yah, it’s been fun. But I haven’t totally abdicated my creativity to the cards.

If anyone else has used tarot cards for story idea/structure generation, I’d love to hear how you did it.

-David

[*] This has changed. Check out Orphalese Tarot. It’s a bit quirky, but once you get used to the interface, it’s actually pretty snazzy. Thing is … I like to roll my own dice, and I want to shuffle and deal my own cards.

The first time, it’s a happy accident. A serendipitous “A ha!“

The second time might not be even recognizable as the second time.

The third time you do it on purpose.

The fourth time … well … even if it sneaks up on you have to admit you were waiting for it, even as you kept busy with something else and/or some other approach.

And when you get to the fifth time … Just learn to live with it.

Too vague?

It seems–and I’m not sure this will be a surprise to anyone–that I like structure. I rebel against structure and organization in so many ways. But if I want to get anything done, I have to approach the task in an organized way.

And, I guess, in a nod to “Full Disclosure”, I must admit that even when I’m chaotic and anarchic, I tend to be so in a systematic, consistent way. *sigh*

Anyway, here’s how I plotted my first (still unpublished) novel: I decided I would borrow the structure of another novel. Two other novels, actually, but one at a “lower level” than the other. If that makes any sense. In other words: one novel provided a template for the plot (lower level), the other one provided a template for the context (higher level).

I wasn’t trying to copy either one, but that hybrid/bastard gave me a place to start. I could summarize, using those other stories as guides, my own story very succinctly. I could see the structure, and then see how my own novel would progress from beginning to end.

The book isn’t published (and might be on the verge of a total re-design and re-write, all of which is beside the point)–but the book is finished. Written to completion. My first completed novel. An important milestone (for me). And I was able to get the novel finished because I could (finally) envision the entire story arc (albeit with training wheels). I knew where I was going, and I wandered from plot point to plot point until I got there. An amazing learning experience, even if it was stretched out over nearly 2 years.

Regardless, I had found a structure. And it worked.

The second novel I plotted evolved out of an extended bit of personal journaling. I had finished writing the first novel, and was pondering the future. After much verbiage, I decided to write a “post modern” novel. I don’t know how “post modern” the final result will be, but once I had a visual image of the structure for the novel, the full outline of the novel began to emerge. I haven’t written this one yet. I’m expecting, though, that I’ll get to it next year (maybe for NaNoWriMo 2007).

The third novel I plotted started out from a single word. What I thought would be the title of my NaNoWriMo 2006 novel. I was wrong. But that word suggested a structure, which became another visual image: a spiral. I tinkered with the spiral image until I had a workable story structure, with separate stories spiraling out from the center.

I just finished the first draft of this one: The Summoning Fire. Since I knew I would be writing the novel as a series of interrelated stories, I figured the structure would keep the sequence of stories from being too obvious, too “chapter-like”. Maybe the spiral structure worked, maybe it needs to be tweaked some more (it’ll probably be tweaked some more), but either way it gave me a starting place, a superstructure to build a complex story on.

In both cases, lots of flailing about, until I had a … oh … what’s that word again …

The fourth novel I plotted was Incomplete Strangers. There wasn’t so much of a visual aspect to this plot, just 3 converging storylines (Blue, the Traveler, and the Tyrant), but it was the first time I deliberately created a structure “out of thin air”. In fact, I created the structure before I even had an idea for a story to hang on it. The structure required certain elements to work (3 main characters, 3 world views, all coming together to a final conflict/resolution), and considering/journaling about the structure brought to mind ideas that would fit.

And then there’s today. I sat down to kick around ideas for a novel. I started out with one idea. That triggered another. And then I had this visual image. Of a structure. And I began to see how the story could fit that structure. Or a different story. So, now my fifth novel plot is under construction. It might be the re-design and re-write of my first novel that I mentioned before (which is not, BTW, the idea I first sat down to kick around). Or it might be something completely different.

Either way, I have a structure.

So, yah, I like structure.

But if you read between the lines, you can see another superstition and/or work habit emerging: A willingness to start somewhere, anywhere, to just get in the car (or The Journal) and go. And accept that where I thought I was going when I took off is not where I’m likely to end up.

In other words, an acceptance of chaos and uncertainty.

There’s also this odd need to see something, which is unusual (I think) in someone as verbally oriented as myself. But a) I’ve always worked better when I have examples to look at; and b) that’s not what we’re talking about here.

What we are talking about is my growing habit/superstition of structuring stories and then writing stories that (mostly) fit that structure.

Or that’s what we were talking about. Because I’m done now.

Almost. One last word: I very much believe that everyone has to find their own writing process that works for them. But maybe my ramblings here about my emerging process will prove helpful to someone else. I hope so.

Have fun!

-David

My first post mortem focused on the novel I wrote in November for NaNoWriMo. This post mortem will look at my experience with NaNoWriMo, overall.

1. I like NaNoWriMo’s mission. Ever since I first heard of NaNoWriMo several years ago, I’ve been an enthusiastic fan. Too many people suffer from “someday syndrome” when it comes to writing. NaNoWriMo strives to make it easy for those people to move “someday” to “today” (or at least “this month”), with a writing goal (50,000 words in a month) that is at once significant and yet still do-able–and over 12,000 people did it this year (including me ).

2. I like the NaNoWriMo forums/community. As a rule, NaNoWriMo participants are energetic, motivated and friendly–especially in the month before November. There are dozens and dozens of forums, based on genre, location, and even general attitude. 70,000+ people from all over the world, all poised to write and talk about writing and support each other through a long, grueling month. What could be cooler?

3. I liked the synergy-energy. Writing is, for me, largely a solitary activity. Sure, I work at home so the wife and kids are knocking about, making noise, asking random questions, and generally being distracting. But the act of writing is just me. With NaNoWriMo, though, you know you’re not alone. There are thousands of other people out there banging away on keyboards, sweating the details and the descriptions and hoping they can hit the word count for today–and maybe even finish early.

There is no real competition in a “contest” like NaNoWriMo, but … well … sure there is. Still, no matter how fast you write, there’s almost always someone writing faster–and longer. And no matter how slow you write, there’s probably someone looking at your numbers with envy and wishing they could produce at your rate. All in all, NaNoWriMo was just a good experience.

I don’t really want to say I “didn’t like” something. So “found questionable” will have to do. Besides, this is all my personal opinion. Hardly gospel.

1. There is too much emphasis on the “50,000″ number. Except for a few instances, like young adult fiction (and not always there; look at those doorstops Rowling’s been writing lately), 50,000 words is a very short novel. For many modern genre’s, 50,000 words is the first half or first third of the text. So, just reaching 50K words–while notable and commendable–doesn’t mean a lot. I came in at 61K words, and I figure I will have to add at least 15K more words just to be salable, and maybe 30K more would be a better target.

2. There is too much emphasis on raw word count. When you start finding “tips and tricks” like “don’t (do not) use contractions”, “always use every character’s full name”, “quote passages of text that the characters read”, “talk to your characters in the body of the text and ask them what the hell they’re doing and why” … well … maybe the intent of NaNoWriMo has been somewhat subverted. I agree with the premise of “just get the words down, edit later”. But I don’t think it’s useful to generate words that you know you’re going to cut later.

3. There is a lot of bad advice and criticism on the forums. I guess that’s to be expected when a large number of enthusiastic amateurs get together. And when the quest for quantity of words trumps anything else. Good advice is given too, of course, sometimes great advice. But it’s often lost in the deluge of posts (70,000 people generate a lot of posts)–and if you didn’t know the good advice beforehand, you’d likely have a hard time spotting it.

4. Finally, there is too much emphasis on November. Perhaps because of #2, people turn their lives upside down and do the equivalent of “binge writing”. Sure, they hit 50K words, and maybe they get to the end of their novel, but they haven’t created a habit of writing. “Real life”, ignored for 30 days, demands attention, and no further writing happens until the next November. I’m somewhat guilty of this. I’ve already admitted that I got damned little else done in November. But I already had a sustainable, near-daily habit of writing, and I’m reverting back to that. If people want to become better writers, they need to do it more than once a year. The rush to the finish of NaNoWriMo doesn’t encourage the more useful, steady approach.

All of that said … I Really Liked writing as a part of National Novel Writing Month.

Even though I find myself wondering how good a 50,000 word story written in less than 24 hours can really be …

Even though I see no point in writing a novel that you have no intention of trying to publish …

Even though I think fan fiction is, at best, harmless …

Even though I consider asking random strangers on a Web forum for advice about plotting, structure, characterization or other crucial story matters  neither useful nor a particularly good idea …

Even though I admit I am a bit of a snob …

I think everyone who participated, whether they hit 50,000 words or not–so long as they wrote something–is to be commended and congratulated.

Because, as anyone who knows me will be sure to attest to: It’s not like I know everything. Or even know that much.

And, yah, I’ll probably do it again next year.

-David

On 1 November, I wrote the first story of The Summoning Fire, “Into the Fire”. And today, 28 November, I wrote the last, “Full Circle”.

# of stories: 23

# of words: 61,500

That comes to an average word count per story of 2670. Which nicely exceeds my original goal (2000 words per story), and even my revised target (2500). The shortest story, “Happy Stories”, is just over 1400 words. The longest, “Into the Defilum”, weighs in with a healthy 4150 words.

1. I finished it! My second novel-length work of 2006. Granted, Incomplete Strangers is significantly shorter than The Summoning Fire, but it still qualifies. I’m thinking I should set a goal of 2 novels per year every year.

2. I wrote over 60K words in a single month. A new personal record. I exceeded my targets for words per story. By a nice margin, as I mentioned above. And (currently) I can see more places to add text, rather than take it out. Which means that I have a good chance of expanding the word count to a more salable length (I’m thinking 90K words isn’t out of the question). Plus, I didn’t resort to any of the rather bizarre and (to my mind) counterproductive “Nano tricks” to pad out the body of the text.

3. I broadened my fictive horizons. I don’t think anything I wrote this month breaks new ground (or sets new lows) for bad taste, the horrible things people do to each other, and so on. But it was all very new to me. I’ve written about lots and lots of different things and viewpoints throughout the ASSAD project. But I hadn’t delved so deeply, I think. An advantage of novel-length stories, of course, because you can focus on one thing longer. Still … sometimes … ick. Also, I think I improved on my ability to describe the setting. I still have room for improvement, but I think I did a much better job this time. On the “experimental” front, I think I learned a lot writing the Summoned’s stories. The non-human POV proved an interesting challenge.

4. It doesn’t suck! Yah, I said this about Incomplete Strangers too, but I think it’s accurate. I have no illusions about it being publishable as it is now, but I’m looking forward to what the book becomes in editing (planned for February).

5. The outline stayed … on target? … for nearly the entire process. Unlike Incomplete Strangers, which outline became … largely metaphorical? … pretty early on, the outline for The Summoning Fire still mostly matches the completed manuscript. True, there were a couple stories cut (because they became redundant), and the last 4 stories–especially “The Hope of Friendship” and “Happy Stories”–are loose (very loose) interpretations of their particular outline summaries. But, yah, the outline worked. Mostly because, I think, after what happened to Incomplete Strangers, I went through the outline over and over, envisioning the stories and making sure what I had outlined had a good chance of becoming what I wrote.

1. The outline changed towards the end. Not in a bad way, but in a significant way, as I described earlier. Twice, I had to go back to stories already written and … adjust … them to fit what reality had morphed into in the meantime. In one place, a time of day. In another, a gender.

2. I added the character of Dancer pretty late in the game, and that needs to be “rippled back” through a handful of stories. I’m not sure how I missed Dancer during the month or so I spent outlining this novel. Probably related to that whole “best laid plans” thing. Still, having done this novel thing twice in the past 3 months, I can see how I made the same mistake in Incomplete Strangers. I need to flesh out the secondary characters more before I start writing.

3. I got damn little else done this month. The average time per story was over 3 hours, I think, and probably closer to 3.5 hours. Part of the reason for this, I think, is that I was trying to get a full, complete story done each day. That brings extra demands that might not have been present had I just been writing 2K words per day based on an outline of chapters. That is, if I had outlined in chapters, instead of stories, I wouldn’t have felt compelled to write a full chapter each day. I would just hit the daily word count, maybe exceed it some for that feel-good feeling, and then call it a day. Sounds good, anyway. I’ll try it out next year. Anyway, my hat is off to anyone who participates in NaNoWriMo while also holding down a full time job.

4. Dark dark dark. I really didn’t expect the story to get as dark as it did. Or rather, I expected the darkness to be more flippant than it turned out. And easier to write. My earlier stories about Reese and Sam (may she rest in peace) had been quite easy to write. They didn’t exactly “write themselves”, but I was able to get into Reese’s voice quickly, point her in a direction, and let her go. When exploring the less … fun? … parts of Hell on Earth, though, I didn’t have such a friendly (in a manner of speaking) guide.

5. The Old Man died. And so did Sam. Of course, I knew that going in. I planned for them to die. I can see myself writing other Reese stories. But without her supporting cast, I’m not sure it would work. I might have to do “prequels” or just have to wait until I can come up with other characters for her to interact with and/or fall in love with. Probably won’t happen soon, though. And, speaking of Sam, I think her character needed more fleshing out. She was getting more defined by the end of the novel, but I can’t help but wish I had known more about her sooner.

Last night I kept thinking, “It ends tomorrow.” And I was … melancholy. As hard as it’s been to write sometimes, I found myself reluctant to end it.

Overall, I’m pleased with how The Summoning Fire turned out. And I look forward to hammering on it next year in preparation of hooking an agent, or a publisher, or maybe both. Here’s hoping.

Thanks for reading!

-David

A week ago I asked my wife for “an unusual name” for a bit part character. She suggested “Vance”. I morphed that to “Dancer”, used it twice, and went about my life.

Today, I realized that Dancer was a woman. (I should get my contact prescription checked, I guess.) With purple–violet–eyes (natural) and hair (heh). And not just a woman–she and Reese had history. Pre-Sam history. And she further advanced her role into a rather more significant story figure. Almost a plot point.

I’ve had to make notes about all the stories I’m going to have to go back to in the second draft and weave her in so that her appearance isn’t so sudden here at the end. And I already updated the pronouns referring to her (instead of him) in “The Backstabber”, written when she was still barely a footnote.

Novel writing in action, folks. It’s hardly a spectator sport, but sometimes it can surprise you. Or me. Or him-her.

-David

As of today’s story, “Into the Defilum”, The Summoning Fire has passed the NaNoWriMo target of 50,000 words. 52,843 according to the official NaNoWriMo word counter. (53,120 according to The Journal’s word count command. 53,200 according to MS Word. Go figure.)

I had planned to pass 50,000 in 25 days with 25 stories. I managed to hit that mark with only 19 stories in 19 days. Go, me!

There are 4 stories remaining in the novel. Since I expect to take tomorrow (Thanksgiving) off, and Sunday, as well, I’ll likely finish up next Tuesday, 28 November. If the bug bites me, though, I might decide to just keep going and finish up by Sunday. One way or the other, it’s getting finished, and it should end up a bit past 60,000 words.

In related news, “Into the Defilum” is another personal record, weighing in at ~4150 words, exceeding the previous record set by “The Backstabber”. Of the 4 stories remaining, 2 of them might come close to these numbers. Never know, though, until I write it.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

-David

Total word count for The Summoning Fire is over 43,000 now, in 16 stories. I expect I’ll pass the NaNoWriMo goal of 50,000 words on Tuesday or Wednesday.

My story from this past Wednesday, “The Backstabber”, weighed in at 4000 words, making it my longest single-day story and my largest one-day word count.

I’d be more excited about all of this if I wasn’t getting a bit … fatigued.

“The Backstabber” took over 4.5 hours to write and edit. Thursday’s story, “The Games of Hell”, took 4 hours (and was only 2900 words). None of the stories this week took less than 3.5 hours, even the short one (”Black Grace”, 1900 words).

Which means I’ve done very little else this week besides writing. Been too hard to focus on anything else that requires … focus, or concentration (like programming and design). Customer support via email has been about the extent of “real work” I’ve done this week.

Right now, my opinion of The Summoning Fire isn’t too positive. I’ve written some good stuff–or at least I’ve written some “bad stuff” well. But the overall story has proven harder to write than I anticipated.

And it got way, way darker than I ever expected too. I was thinking “dark but fun” when I outlined it and started on 1 November. But for the most part it’s just been dark, dark, dark. Not so much “but fun”. With a few exceptions, maybe.

And I can tell from my Web traffic logs that I’ve lost a good number of the readers I accumulated in the year so far. Not sure I blame them.

A year ago I hadn’t even read books that contained this sort of content. Sure, sex and violence, anti-heroes … but, damn … It’s like I read Andrew Vachss and Neil Gaimin (two of my biggest influences this year) and decided, “Hey, if they can do it…” Or maybe it’s more like a little boy when he first learns the words “poo poo” and “wee wee” and says them constantly for the next week, and I just had to get a lot of stuff out of my system.

A year ago, had anyone shown me this manuscript and told me I would be writing it, I would’ve been … surprised. At least.

I dunno. I’m not gonna psychoanalyze myself.

I have received one bit of positive feedback so far (referring to “Backing Into the Knife”): “It’s so complex. Yes, creepy and awful, but shockingly complex. I liked reading it. The imagery is amazing. I was watching it happen from his perspective (which was seriously creepy during the defiling of the virgin).”

I haven’t received any actual negative feedback, really. Except a friend telling me that he’s been worried that his company’s IT guy is going to come yell at him for reading “that kind of stuff” while at work and revoke his Web privileges.

So maybe there’s hope.

Of course, I’m still too close to the material have an objective viewpoint. But I have no doubt I’ll have to do considerable editing, as well as expansion, to get the book into shape in 2007.

And I’m very much looking forward to wrapping it up.

-David

After reviewing the remaining, yet-to-be-written parts of the outline this weekend, I’ve tentatively eliminated two stories. For those who recall the “Graphic Aid” posted last week, the two stories eliminated are #14 and #22. Further, #18 has been moved to replace #14.

So, yah, the usefulness of the Graphic Aid has now been significantly reduced. And so has its symmetry.

In all three cases, the eliminations and the move, the goal is make the last half of the novel “flow” more smoothly. And not drag. Because dragging sucks.

And, maybe more importantly, because of those changes, with today’s story I have now passed the halfway point in the novel of stories. Hence, “progress by elimination”. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be halfway until tomorrow.

Even with only 23 stories (instead of 25), I’m still estimating the final word count to be over 60,000, and maybe as high as 65,000. Which should be quite enough for one month.

-David

Today’s story is only #9 in the planned sequence of 25 for The Summoning Fire. So in that respect, I’m only just past a third of the way through. The halfway mark won’t show up until sometime next week.

However, my word count for the project as a whole is right at 25,000 as of today. Which is halfway to the 50,000 word NaNoWriMo goal. So, Yay!

And so far I’ve been averaging over 2700 words per story (~2778), which actually exceeds the 2500 words per story target I set for myself back in late October. So, Yay! again.

On the other hand…had I known I would be hitting those kinds of numbers, I probably would’ve planned a shorter story.

Nah. I’m pleased that The Summoning Fire will weigh in, when finished, about 65,000-70,000 words. That’s closer to “real novel” length, so editing the manuscript with intent to find an agent and/or a publisher won’t require so much new material. Hopefully.

All of the stories this week have been a struggle to write, and I hope I’ve been doing a decent job with what has for me been rather tough material. And, yah, some of the material has likely been tough to read. Sorry about that. Maybe my next novel will be about happy bunnies.

Another reason they’ve been a struggle goes back to what Morpheus told Neo in The Matrix: “There’s a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path.”

It’s one thing to plan a story about an old witch-woman telling/giving Reese something important. It’s a very different thing to sit down and create that character and develop a voice for her and build a life for her and all of that so I can write a short story that accomplishes the planned bits of story/plot and fits with the stories already written and lays groundwork for those not yet written.

So I’m tired of hearing from those writers who say that outlining a novel is the same as actually writing the novel. It’s just not true. Write with an outline, or don’t, that’s your choice, of course. Just don’t try to tell me that writing the outline comes anywhere near the same, in time or effort or sweat or blood or especially feeling of accomplishment, as writing the actual novel.

Some writing issues that I have been trying to keep in mind as I write this month are:

Anyway, enough for today. Have fun!

-David

To assist with understanding the order of the stories for my NaNoWriMo 2006 novel-of-stories, here is a graphic aid:

In short, the story is presented as a spiral, expanding outwards.

Why a spiral?

Why not?

The idea for a “spiral structured story” occurred to me back in August, appealed to me immediately, and I refused to let it go. My original idea was to spiral *in*, instead of *out*, but the storyline I came up with seemed to work better going out from the center.

It took me a couple days to decide on the shape of the spiral, including the positioning of the little “spurs” that come off the main arms (which represent the stories of secondary characters related or tangential to the particular main storyline). And for some reason, I insisted on having the shape visually balanced.

The vertical axis is time, with the past at the top and the future at the bottom. The horizontal axis is less well defined. I started out with the idea that the horizontal axis indicated “relevance” to the central event. But that’s not quite it. And, frankly, the time aspect of the vertical axis gets abused quite a bit (I abused it some today when writing story #6).

Ultimately, though, it doesn’t matter what either axis represents. I wasn’t trying to create a 100% accurate representation of the story in 2D space. And I’m not even sure what that means.

So, once you get down to the essentials, this picture is just a graphic aid, a pretty diagram for a story with 4 main storylines that either converge toward or diverge from a particular event.

I liked the experimental, non-linear nature of the spiral. It might even work.

-David