Apostate 2.2

     Weeks have passed since my last post in the Apostate series. That is because I am going to do something I do not want to do.
     I am going to disagree with Libbie Hawker.

     "OMG I met the perfect guy! Maybe I can fix him." –Women --@MensHumor (Twitter)

     In my view, that quote encapsulates Libbie's paradigm. Libbie sees her hero as starting with a flaw. (She uses the word 'flaw' 155 times in Take Off Your Pants!) The hero has two quests: 1) one to achieve an external goal (toss the ring into Mount Doom) and 2) another to overcome an internal flaw (give up the love of power). The hero fails to achieve the external goal until he has repaired his flaw, overcome his flaw, or grown beyond his flaw.
    One of those. I dunno.

    Libbie's paradigm is valid, and it works. I know it works. I have seen it over and over and over again in countless stories.
     But I find those stories cookie-cutter predictable and a little boring. And they feel 100% fake.

     Who is the hero of Star Wars?
     If, like me, you are old enough to remember the movie as just Star Wars and not as A New Hope, you may think Luke Skywalker is the hero, and it is a coming-of-age story. But once you have the series -- either Episodes IV, V, and VI or Episodes I - VI -- according to Libbie's paradigm, the hero is clearly AnakinSkywalker, aka Darth Vader.
     I don't buy it.

     In The Return of the Jedi, Darth Vader 'fixes' his flaw and defeats the Emperor. (Click the title for the clip to see how contrived the ending is.) At the beginning of the scene, Vader offers Luke a choice: join me or die. Five minutes later, paternal feeling arises and Vader saves Luke from death by flinging the evil (and needlessly ugly) Emperor to his doom. Flaw fixed. External goal -- return to the Light Side -- achieved. All is right with the galaxy.
     Really?

     When did Vader develop this paternal bond?
     Anakin Skywalker was not present when his children were born. He never held either in his arms when they were babes. He did not read to them while snuggled in blankets. He did not walk them to the park. He had no hand in their upbringing.
     Parenting is not instinctual. It is learned. The bond between parent and child is a chainmail shirt that is forged link by link, day by day.
     Vader never had it. George Lucas forced the ending to fit the paradigm.

     That Lucas's story fails is not an indictment of the paradigm. The paradigm of the 'flawed' hero can work.
     But it ain't for me.
     As I see it, people have strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes a trait that is a strength in on situation can be a weakness in another.

     There is a scene in John Carter that defines the man and the movie for me. John Carter dismounts and tells Sola to take Dejah Thoris to safety while he fights the Warhoon to buy them time. He says to Dejah, "I was too late once. I won't be again."
     That's it. That is a man. That is a character.
     A man is defined not by some 'flaw' that he 'fixes' in an epiphany. No. He is defined by all the moments in his life that have gone before, and these build his character and motivate him to rise above the commonplace and fight.
     That is the message of Robin Hood: Rise and rise again, until lambs become lions. Brian Helgeland's version of Robin Hood's story is the best I have seen. It neatly explains the reason a nobleman, Robin Locksley, was capable with a yeoman's weapon, the longbow. But I ask you, at what point does Robin Hood overcome his internal flaw?
     He doesn't.  He is as flawed at the end as he was at the beginning. But he follows the maxim his father chiseled into stone: Rise and rise again, until lambs become lions. And he wins.
     To beat a dead horse, what flaw did Sherlock Holmes overcome? As he was when each story began, so he was when each story ended. Okay, maybe he was a little more arrogant and disdainful of others, but flaw-fixing? Nah. That's not Sherlock's thing. (I'm talking about the original, the Basil Rathbone movies, the Jeremy Brett TV episodes, the Benedict Cumberbatch TV series, and the Robert Downey, Jr, movies. Not the TV series Elementary which tries to inject some flaw-fixing into Holmes. I pay little attention to it, but I do watch it, because I am a big fan of Lucy Liu. I would watch this show just to see her walk into a room. Hey, you like what you want and I'll like what I want.)

     I say again, Libbie's approach is valid and you can use it to write some great stories. If you go down that road, your skeleton outline is right there in the book Take Off Your Pants! All you have to do is add some meat here and there.
     But it ain't my way.

     I shall go back to Rachel Aaron; 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better and her three pronged approach: knowledge, time, and enthusiasm.
     Next time, Apostate 3.0.

Stay tuned.

Happy trails.

Links to the posts in this series:
Apostate 2.1
Apostate 2.0
Apostate 1.4
Apostate 1.3
Apostate 1.2
Apostate 1.1
Apostate 1.0
Apostate 0.2
Apostate 0.1
Apostate

Links to the books:
Rachel Aaron; 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better
Libbie Hawker; Take Off Your Pants!

Links to the authors' websites:
Rachel Aaron
Libbie Hawker

Apostate 2.1

     I shall not comment on the 'outline' method in Libbie Hawker; Take Off Your Pants! To do so, will be to give it all away. If you want to know, buy the book.
     Libbie's method is, to my mind, not an outline. It is a structured way to conceive a character-driven book. There are other ways, but Libbie's way is good.
     What I choose to write about this time is

Antagonist.

     "How do you determine your [main] character's key antagonist? His external goal will reveal the antagonist to you. The antagonist is always the person who is most heavily invested in achieving the same external goal." --Libbie Hawker, Take Off Your Pants! (LH, TOYP!) (italics in the original)

     I swallowed that whole for two seconds, but it came back up in a heartbeat. Counter-examples flooded into my mind. Within a few lines, Libbie contradicted herself.

     [In the book Lolita] "Humbert's goal is to possess Lolita. Lolita's goal is to achieve and maintain autonomy." --LH, TOYP!

     Humbert's goal is not the same as Lolita's goal. Libbie herself sees that:

     "The conflict between them is clear . . . ." --LH, TOYP!

     Your protagonist and your antagonist need not have the same goal. Likely they will not. But their goals must conflict and not a little. A lot. To the point that achievement of one precludes achievement of the other. Maybe to the point that achievement of one requires someone to die.

     Anyway, Libbie got me thinking. What makes the antagonist? Not an antagonist, but the antagonist.

     The antagonist is the one whose goal conflicts with and precludes the goal of the protagonist.

     Okay. What makes a 'good' antagonist?
     Let me think about this a little. Or maybe a lot.
     Start with the protag. I want a protag that the reader can identify with and empathize with. I want the reader to feel he walks in the protag's shoes as the story moves forward.
     How does that help me define the antag?
     I want an antag that the reader can also identify with and empathize with. I want the reader to think 'There  but for the grace of God go I.'
     My go-to source for examples of what works and what does not in fiction is  Stargate SG-1. I shall cite to it again and again in this post. I shall cite other works, too, but Stargate SG-1 provides on-the-nose examples of everything right and wrong with protags and antags.
     The first thing I can think of when I think about antags is that the antag has to want something. If the antag does not want something, who cares?
     SG-1 tried this to some degree with the Replicators. The Replicators debuted in Nemesis (season 3 episode 22). The Replicators want to consume everything in order to make more replicators. The protag does not want to be consumed. I think the conflict is simple. And thin. It does not generate a lot of complex relations. You destroy the Replicators or they destroy you.
     I cannot identify with nor empathize with Replicators. Can you?
     Perhaps more to the point is the movie K2. It is a man-against-nature story. A bunch of guys scale K2. They deal (or not) with their interpersonal problems along the way but man-to-man interactions pale beside the struggle to stay alive. Who is their antag? The mountain. What does the mountain want? Nothing. And the film fell into a crevasse at the box office.
     I cannot identify with nor empathize with a mountain. Can you?
     Or let's take Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea. Man against the Fates, with the Sea standing in for the Fates. Who identifies with the sea? No one. I read this once. Once was enough, Nobel or no.
     I cannot identify with nor empathize with the sea. Can you?

     Thus --
     1) The antag must have a goal he strives for, and that goal must conflict with the protag's goal so much that the achievement of one precludes the achievement of the other.

     Is that enough?
     No.
     Even if all the members have the same goal, nobody can do antag by committee.
     SG-1 tried to do antag by committee with the Ori. The Ori first appeared in season 9 and by season 10 they succeeded in killing the show. For the same reason, Stargate Atlantis (SGA) started from the get-go with shackles on its feet. The antag in SGA was the Wraith, a race of beings who were, in essence, vampires. I never saw enough difference from one Wraith to another to distinguish the two. They were not separate beings. They were clones.
     Antag by committee did not work for SG-1 and did not work for SGA. Antag by committee does not work ever. I cannot identify with nor empathize with a committee. Can you? The antag can have minions who do his bidding -- Sauron in The Lord of the Rings had thousands -- but "in the end, there can be only one."
     Antagonist is singular, not plural.

     Thus --
     1) The antag must have a goal he strives for, and that goal must conflict with the protag's goal so much that the achievement of one precludes the achievement of the other; and
     2) The antag must be an individual, not a committee or a group.

     2001: A Space Odyssey; Colossus: The Forbin Project;  Star Trek: The Motion Picture; and Alan Dean Foster, The Mocking Program. What do these movies (and one book) have in common.
     The antag is a machine.
     In each case, the machine fails to satisfy as an antagonist. Have you heard of The Mocking Program? Did you enjoy Star Trek: The Motion Picture? Will you pay to see Colossus again? Even 2001 is not known for its antag but for its visuals. What did you feel when Dave overcame HAL? (BTW wanna know where HAL came from? For each letter in HAL, take the next letter in the alphabet. ) I was a kid when I saw 2001 and I felt nothing when Dave took out HAL. Not triumph, not excitement, not elation. Nothing.
     But wait, you say. What about The Terminator? you say.
     Good point. In fact, great point. Great point because the Terminator started with a human form and ended with a machine form. When it had human form, I identified with it when it busted up that biker bar. When the lights went out on the machine under that hydraulic press, what did I feel? Nothing.
     I cannot identify with nor empathize with a machine. Can you?
     Which leads back to SG-1. In their native state, the Goa'uld are short extra-terrestrial rattlesnakes. In their native state, they are dangerous to each other and little more. But once one inhabits a host, he is dangerous to all the inhabits of the galaxy. The Goa'uld are The Puppet Masters. In appearance, the Goa'uld are no longer short extra-terrestrial rattlesnakes. In appearance, they are their hosts.
     SG-1 began its two-hour pilot with Apophis (Peter Williams), a Goa'uld system lord. Before the pilot was over, Apophis became the antagonist for SG-1 and remained so for two seasons. Yeah, during those two seasons, there were episodes in which Apophis did not appear (for examples, Emancipation, Cold Lazarus), but even when he did not appear his presence loomed over SG-1. I knew SG-1 would return to the fight against Apophis.
     Peter Williams's portrayal of Apophis was masterful. Handsome, charismatic, disdainful, powerful, and evil. He cared not at all for others. Do not underestimate the point that Apophis was handsome and charismatic. Given these traits, I saw why some would follow him. Peter Williams played a god and looked the part. He inhabited the role.
     Peter Williams made SG-1.

     I cannot identify with nor empathize with a short extra-terrestrial rattlesnake, but I can identify with and empathize with the inhabited host.
     We have a winner.

     Could SG-1's antag have been done differently?
     They tried. All other attempts failed. (That the writers tried other means after they succeeded with Apophis tells me that they were jackpot-lucky the first time. They did not know what they were doing or why it was working, so they did not know why they failed.)
     After the writers killed off Apophis, they tried antag by rotation: here a Goa'uld system lord, there a Goa'uld system lord, everywhere a Goa'uld system lord. Male and female they tried, skipping from one to another each week.
     Didn't work.
     Then they tried the faceless menace of Anubis. Even the Goa'uld feared him. Or so it was said. Me? What did I think? He was a faceless bogie-man in a hoodie.
     Didn't work.
     Screw him. I've faced scary things on the streets of Oakland.
     Once they tossed Anubis onto the trash pile of forgotten nemeses, the writers descended into the pointless insanity of faceless evil by committee, the Ori. I doubt that Apophis himself could have saved the show once it covered itself in that abomination.
     Didn't work.
     Farscape did much the same thing. When Crais defected to Moya I knew the show was dead. I just did not know how long it would take for the rot to become apparent.

     Thus --
     1) The antag must have a goal he strives for, and that goal must conflict with the protag's goal so much that the achievement of one precludes the achievement of the other;
     2) The antag must be an individual, not a committee or a group; and

     3) The antag must show a handsome human face. 

     This lays open the question 'Can the antag be a woman?' 

     SG-1 tried women as the antag time and again after they offed Apophis when they were doing the round-robin nemesis-of-the-week bit. 

     Didn't work. 

     I cannot think of a single franchise in which the antag was a woman. Star Wars, X-Men, Batman, Mission Impossible, Hannibal, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter. Even when there was a woman baddie (Poison Ivy in Batman), she never carried the load of evil alone. There was always a male antag to share the load. 

     Protags are another story. Lots of women protags. But that's another post. 

     Thus endeth the reading from the Book of Antagonists According to Antares. 

Stay tuned.

Happy trails.

Links to the posts in this series:
Apostate 2.0
Apostate 1.4
Apostate 1.3
Apostate 1.2
Apostate 1.1
Apostate 1.0
Apostate 0.2
Apostate 0.1
Apostate

Links to the books:
Rachel Aaron; 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better
Libbie Hawker; Take Off Your Pants!

Links to the authors' websites:
Rachel Aaron
Libbie Hawker

Apostate 2.0

     This post, I shall write about Libbie Hawker; Take Off Your Pants!
     Like Rachel Aaron, Libbie Hawker has a construct with three legs.
     Rachel's three legs: 1) knowledge, 2) time, and 3) enthusiasm. According to Rachel, if I have these then I will write faster. I tried this and reported the results in Apostate 1.3. Yeah, it helped me write faster. Significantly faster.
     Libbie's three legs: 1) Character Arc, 2) Theme, and 3) Pacing. (Caps in the original.)
     According to Libbie, these three are the elements of an effective outline.
     When I read that, a sizable part of my brain said, "No."
     Note that plot is not included. She explains that by saying "[P]lot is not the same thing as story -- at least, not within the context of this book, or within the practice of outlining."

?

     To Libbie, story is all about 'character growth'. Just so's you know, growth means a change of attitude in a way that the author finds better. After all, Adolf Hitler changed over time, but the view of the majority now is that he changed for worse, not better. Helen Keller changed, too. She became a radical Socialist and supported Eugene Debs for president. Not just once. Many times. (Betcha didn't know that, didya?)
     Well, I read that and I thought, "Chick lit." Libbie's telling me not how to write faster but how to write chick lit. That's fine.
     But I don't write chick lit.
     Orson Scott Card says there are four kinds of stories and the mnemonic to remember them is MICE: 1) milieu, 2) idea, 3) character, and 4) event. All are present in a story, but one dominates. According to Libbie, character should dominate. Always.
     Nonsense.
     I just finished Patrice Sarath, Gordath Wood. It is all about the milieu; that is, the world on the other side of the gordath. Maybe Patrice thinks it is about the characters, but it is not. How do I know that? Once the characters escape through the gordath, once they return to their world, the story is over. Any character change that happened was incidental to or directly driven  by the effort to return.
     OSC says that Lord of the Rings is a milieu story. Yeah, Frodo or Bilbo or Dildo or whatever-his-name-is undergoes some personal change, so some will say it is a character-driven story. There is a quest and lots of things happen, so some will say it is an event-driven story. But the story ends with the end of Middle Earth. It is a milieu-driven story.
     For the same reason, the Star Wars saga-in-six-parts is a milieu-driven story. The Empire rises; the Empire falls. And the story ends.
     Isaac Asimov, Spell My Name with an S is an idea-driven story. The idea is that large consequences may follow from small events. The same idea drives Ray Bradbury, A Sound of Thunder. Once the idea is expounded, the story ends. Likewise, A Clockwork Orange is idea-driven.
     Now we come to character-driven stories.
     I expect that all of Libbie's works are character driven. All coming-of-age stories are character driven. Joe Haldeman, All My Sins Remembered is character-driven. The separate parts are event-driven, but the book as a whole traces the changes in Otto McGavin. I modeled Heart of Stone after AMSR, but I bet you cannot guess who is the character that changes. Character-driven movies abound: Stand by Me, When Harry Met Sally..., and Dances with Wolves to name three. Make it four: Bull Durham.
     Last there are event-driven stories: guy lit. All the detective stories ever written are event-driven. Sherlock Holmes. Hercule Poirot. Nero Wolfe. Nick Charles. Peter Gunn. Jim Rockford. These characters never changed. They just found themselves thrown into threatening situations (events), and they figured out a way to succeed. Movies? Mission Impossible, The Fast and the Furious, The Shawshank Redemption.
     It is clear to me that if I follow Libbie's three-legged construct, I shall be limited to character-driven stories. I don't want that.
     I will read further, but, as of this writing, I'm sticking with Rachel Aaron 's triad: knowledge, time, enthusiasm.
   
Stay tuned.

Happy trails.

Links to the posts in this series:
Apostate 1.4
Apostate 1.3
Apostate 1.2
Apostate 1.1
Apostate 1.0
Apostate 0.2
Apostate 0.1
Apostate

Links to the books:
Rachel Aaron; 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better
Libbie Hawker; Take Off Your Pants!

Links to the authors' websites:
Rachel Aaron
Libbie Hawker

Apostate 1.4

     With some exceptions, I hate doctors. I am old enough that I know from bitter experience what diseases I get and what I don't get. For example, the flu.
     If I get the flu, I will be sick, sick, sick for three days. And then I will be well again. If I get a flu shot, I will be sick, sick, sick for three days. And then I will be well again. So why should I trade the chance of the flu for the certainty?
     Anyway, I was sick in May -- coughing, rivers of mucus, and brown sputum. The cause was all the drainage from allergies. I knew what it was. It was a bronchial infection. I have had it before. I can diagnose it myself.
     Unfortunately, I am not allowed to treat it myself. The treatment is simple: antihistamines and antibiotics. Were I in Mexico, I would stumble to a pharmacy and buy what I know from experience would remedy the infection.
     But no.
     As a result of the imputed wisdom of our legislators, I require a script written by some goon with a medical license to do for me what I am quite capable of doing for myself.
     My favorite doctor was Johnny Jeff Jerome. Hand to God, that was his name. He did FAA medicals for me back when I was a kid, before I went into the Air Force. I remember one consultation with him. His nurse called me and stuck me in one of those little examination rooms. She took my temperature and blood pressure and scratched the results in my file. She left. Less than five minutes later, Johnny came in.
     Johnny. "How are you?"
     Me. "I'm sick."
     Johnny. "What do you have."
     I told him.
     "Have you had it before?"
     "Yeah."
     "What did you take for it then?"
     I told him.
     "Did it work for you?"
     "Yeah."
     "Do you want it again?"
     "Yeah."
     Scratch, scratch, scratch. Tear. He handed me the script. "Good to see you. If this doesn't work, come back, and we'll try something else."
     He left. I left, went to a pharmacy, and traded the script for meds. Better in three days.
     Total time in consultation with Johnny Jeff, 1 minute. Total cost, $80.00. For the consult. Meds were extra.

      Things change. In May, I did not have a doctor with whom I had a relationship. My wife took me to a clinic. You know. One of those 24-hour jobs that have sprung up.
      We went in. The nurse took my temperature and blood pressure. In this clinic, the doctor had her examining table in her office. I went in. She looked at my file, slapped a spatula on my tongue, and proudly announced, "You have a common cold."
     At this point, I knew she was a quack. I have never had a cold in my life. Other people get colds. I don't. I don't know why I am immune to colds, but I am. My wife drags around with a cold from time to time, and I dote on her but still buzz merrily along, exacerbating her misery by my failure to produce so much as a sniffle. Same for mosquitoes. Mosquitoes don't like my taste and leave me alone, but they flock to my wife.
     I suffered through three days of misdiagnosis and failed meds before we returned to the clinic to a new doctor whom I bullied into a correct diagnosis -- acute bronchitis -- who then wrote me a script for the right things: antihistamines and antibiotics.
     I got better.

     Why am I telling you this? My health is of no interest to anyone but me.

     I tell you my health woes to tell you the reason the Apostate series is delayed. I have not written a word on my wip since this bronchial infection hit me.
     My bronchial infections are bacterial. They come with wet cough that is ripe with the infectious little devils. A few days of antibiotics and the little devils die.
     But they do not disappear.
     No.
     Their hideous microscopic corpses continue to contaminate my lungs. Now I have a dry cough as my lungs try to expel the dead bacteria.
     For those of you who have not had a persistent, frequent cough lasting weeks, I envy you. In truth, it is not the cough that bothers me. It is the fatigue.
     Coughing consumes a lot of energy. It is tiring. For weeks, I have slept tired and waked tired.
     In the midst of all this, I have forgotten almost everything I learned about writing faster through plotting. That is why I am not presenting you with Apostate 2.0 today. The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men / Gang aft agley, / An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, / For promis'd joy!
     My plan is to read Libbie Hawker; Take Off Your Pants! and Rachel Aaron; 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better again to refresh my memory. This pass, I shall read TOYP first. Then I shall write Apostate 2.0. And -- God willing -- I shall finish Navel of the Moon.

Stay tuned.

Happy trails.

Links to the posts in this series:
Apostate 1.3
Apostate 1.2
Apostate 1.1
Apostate 1.0
Apostate 0.2
Apostate 0.1
Apostate

Links to the books:
Rachel Aaron; 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better
Libbie Hawker; Take Off Your Pants!

Links to the authors' websites:
Rachel Aaron
Libbie Hawker

Apostate 1.3

     What did I learn from Rachel Aaron; 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better? Did it help me write faster?

     I learned that Rachel's method for writing faster and better stands on three legs: 1) knowledge, 2) time, and 3) enthusiasm. I learned that this works for me, too.

     Knowledge.
     Knowledge means knowing what you are going to write before you write it. Think of this as a map to get you from here to there. If you want to go someplace you have not gone before, do you strike out randomly or do you consult a map?
     Rachel called this an outline. My idea of outline is formal, and I cannot get that rigid structure out of my head. I use what I call story notes. For example, these are my story notes for the first chapter I will write today:

[--. 25Oct2012. J sends 4th installment to Deidre.
[26Oct2012. Friday. Jane's stitches removed at Hospital de las Mujeres. Maria acts as interpreter. Doctor impressed with how well foot healed; take pictures for Jane's medical file. Maria copies the medical file including pix. 

     These may be meaningless to you, but they are enough to prompt me to write 1,600 to 2,000 words.

     Time. 
     For me, this means tracking the time I spend editing and writing. And tracking my daily word count.
     Last installment -- Apostate 1.2 -- I inserted the part of my spreadsheet that tracked my editing and showed how I reduced my daily editing time from an hour to 20 minutes. To see it, click the link, 'cause bullying a readable spreadsheet into this blog is such a pain that I am not going to do it again.
     The purpose of tracking these things is to improve efficiency. It works for me. Yesterday I had the idea to write in bed. I set up my laptop on a little table and sat there propped up with comfy pillows around me. Word count for the day: 848. Before that I cranked out 1,600 words an hour.
     I won't write in bed anymore.

     Enthusiasm. 
     Stated in one sentence, are you excited about what you write?
     When I wrote Heart of Stone (see sidebar),  the passion for the book drove me to the keyboard and chained me there each day until darkness fell.
     You know what?
     I don't feel that burning passion for Navel of the Moon.
     Oh, I like it well enough. I think it is a good story. But it does not burn within me with the white hot passion of Heart of Stone.
     This may sound funny, but bear with me: As a pantser, I did not have enough enthusiasm to finish Navel of the Moon. As a plotter, I do.
     What I mean is that plotting moves me forward. That movement generates enthusiasm and that enthusiasm spurs more movement. With pantsing, enthusiasm generates movement. It is a chicken and egg dilemma. This one I solved by plotting.
     For me, the benefit is that it frees my subconscious to surprise me with little twists along the way. And sometimes big twists. Like the ending that hit me at lunch last Friday.

     Did it help me write faster? 
     Swapping pantsing for my interpretation of Rachel's method of plotting during April NaNoWriMo Camp changed my daily word count from 723 to 1,635.
     07 May 2015 I clocked 3,391 words in 5 hours.
     I need to write 1) to become consistent and 2) to reach my goal of 4,000 words a day. I have confidence both of those will come with time and practice.

     This is what I took from WF,WB. YMMV.

     Next time, Apostate 2.0.

Happy trails.

Links to the posts in this series:
Apostate 1.2
Apostate 1.1
Apostate 1.0
Apostate 0.2
Apostate 0.1
Apostate

Links to the books:
Rachel Aaron; 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better
Libbie Hawker; Take Off Your Pants!

Links to the authors' websites:
Rachel Aaron
Libbie Hawker

Apostate 1.2

     I finished Libbie's book. That means the title of this post should be Apostate 2.0. Well, that's gonna have to wait, 'cause I still have things to write about from Rachel's book. Looks like at least this post and one more before I get to Apostate 2.0.

     In Rachel Aaron; 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, Rachel mentioned the use of a spreadsheet to track her time: when she wrote (time of day), how long she wrote, and how many words she wrote each day. As I recall, she promised an example of the spreadsheet she used, but I never saw such.
     Sometimes just knowing a thing can be done spurs imitation.
     I knew Rachel used a spreadsheet for her purposes, so I constructed one for mine. Here is part of mine for the month of April:

Navel of the Moon
	Editing
Date	Start	Stop	Duration
2015Apr05
.
.
.
2015Apr21	<--started using technique from WF,WB
2015Apr22	06:25	07:23	00:58
2015Apr23			00:00
2015Apr24	14:30	14:56	00:26
2015Apr25			00:00
2015Apr26	18:11	18:27	00:16
2015Apr27	08:58	09:23	00:25
2015Apr28	14:15	14:28	00:13
2015Apr29	09:36	10:02	00:26
2015Apr30	07:14	07:31	00:17

     (FWIW getting this table into blogger was a huge pain in the ass. Well, getting it in wasn't, but getting it in in a readable form was.)
 
     Navel of the Moon is the name of the work.
     This post deals with editing. I got my editing technique from Stuart Woods (SW). Each day SW reads what he wrote the previous day and edits that. Then he writes new copy. I do the same. Makes for a clean first draft.
     I may post writing times later, but so far I have learned nothing from analysis of my writing times and durations. Rachel wrote that she had two months of data before she noticed anything. Maybe I expect too much from ten days of data.
     The first thing you may notice is that the entries from 2015Apr06 to 2015Apr20 are missing. I edited those out, because they all looked like 2015Apr05: nothing. Who wants to look at lots and lots of nothing?
     The times are in 24 hour clock. The durations are in hours and minutes.
   
     The first thing I noticed was how long I spent editing 2015Apr22: almost an hour. What you can measure, you can change. My average (mean) editing time for the last five days is under twenty minutes. I changed my editing habit. It is now more efficient.

     I see now that last time I promised to write about "clocking editing and writing." I've done that for editing with this post. On the writing side, there are three more columns to the right of the editing times. Substitute 'Writing' for 'Editing' and they look similar.
     One hiccup I ran into was how to deal with split writing times; for example, write from 07:00 to 07:45, break, and write again from 19:25 to 20:35. What to do with that?
     My solution was inelegant. I copied the first duration to the cell to the right, entered the times for the second period, and added the duration for the second period to the copy. Not precise, but close enough for government work.

     No output today because I spent the day editing Navel of the Moon from the beginning and building a complete timeline for the novel. Looks like those tasks will also consume tomorrow. In the end, these efforts will make for a tighter novel and a better read.
     The idea for the climactic scene hit me at lunch on Friday, and I whipped out my little yellow notebook and jotted furiously for about ten minutes. Scared hell out the other patrons in the restaurant.
     It's good. It's really good. And it ties up everything in a satisfying way.

     I've not decided if there will be an Apostate 1.3 or if I shall go straight to Apostate 2.0. Stay tuned and find out next time.

Happy trails.

Links to the posts in this series:
Apostate 1.1
Apostate 1.0
Apostate 0.2 
Apostate 0.1
Apostate

Links to the books:
Rachel Aaron; 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better
Libbie Hawker; Take Off Your Pants!

Links to the authors' websites:
Rachel Aaron
Libbie Hawker

Apostate 1.1

     Next time I will put up the numbers from my NaNoWriMo Camp.

     That is what I said last time. That means this time is last time's next time. That means I put up the numbers from my NaNoWri Mo Camp.

     As advertised:

	Navel of the Moon
		Word Count
	Date	Day	Total
	2015 Apr 05 Sun	6,424	6,424
	2015 Apr 06 Mon	1,003	7,427
	2015 Apr 07 Tue	0	7,427
	2015 Apr 08 Wed	0	7,427
	2015 Apr 09 Thu	2,135	9,562
	2015 Apr 10 Fri	0	9,562
	2015 Apr 11 Sat	0	9,562
	2015 Apr 12 Sun	0	9,562
	2015 Apr 13 Mon	0	9,562
	2015 Apr 14 Tue	976	10,538
	2015 Apr 15 Wed	475	11,013
	2015 Apr 16 Thu	2,194	13,207
	2015 Apr 17 Fri	123	13,330
	2015 Apr 18 Sat	0	13,330
	2015 Apr 19 Sun	0	13,330
723	2015 Apr 20 Mon	1,127	14,457
	2015 Apr 21 Tue	1,424	15,881
	2015 Apr 22 Wed	814	16,695
	2015 Apr 23 Thu	854	17,549
	2015 Apr 24 Fri	0	17,549
	2015 Apr 25 Sat	3,069	20,618
	2015 Apr 26 Sun	2,124	22,742
	2015 Apr 27 Mon	2,016	24,758
	2015 Apr 28 Tue	1,679	26,437
	2015 Apr 29 Wed	2,614	29,051
1635	2015 Apr 30 Thu	1,753	30,804

     Navel of the Moon is the title of the work.
     I did not track my word count until the fifth when I finished with a total of 6,424 words.
     April 1 to April 20, I wrote according to my former pantser model. If you look to the left of the entry for 2015 Apr 20, you will see the number 723. That is my average (mean) daily word count for the first twenty days of the month.
     A lot of goose eggs in those first twenty days, eh?
     April 21 -- highlighted above -- I began to use part of Rachel Aaron's system. Specifically, the knowledge part. I wrote a note about what was to happen next and then wrote the scene. The difference is clear. My average (mean) daily word count for the last ten days of the month was 1,635, more than double what it was previously. And only one goose egg.
     I think the results speak for themselves. If you disagree, leave a question in the comments. I will address it.
     Next time, clocking editing and writing.

Happy trails.

Links to the posts in this series:
Apostate 1.0
Apostate 0.2 

Apostate 0.1
Apostate

Links to the books:
Rachel Aaron; 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better
Libbie Hawker; Take Off Your Pants!

Apostate 1.0

     Day . . . ah, who's keeping track of the days of my apostacy anymore? Not I.
     This post is numbered 1.0 because I finished Rachel Aaron; 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better. Now reading Libbie Hawker; Take Off Your Pants! When I finish Libbie's book, I shall change the numbering to 2.x.

     These are my highlights from WF,WB, with edits to make things clear:

1. I was doing the hardest work of writing (figuring out what needs to happen to move the story forward . . .) in the most time-consuming way possible (ie. (sic), in the middle of the writing itself).

2. If you want to write faster, the first step is to know what you're writing before you write it.

3. Every writing session after this realization, I dedicated five minutes . . . and wrote out a quick description of what I was going to write that day.

4. Of the three sides of the triangle, I consider knowledge to be the most important. This step alone more than doubled my word count. If you only try one thing out of this entire book, this is the one I recommend.

5. I . . . note[d] the time I started, the time I stopped, how many words I wrote, and where I was writing on a spreadsheet.

6. A happy writer will always produce more and better than an unhappy one.

7. If writing feels like pulling teeth, you're doing it wrong.

8. [W]hile I loved having written, I didn't actually seem to like writing, and that terrified me.

9. [I]nstead of treating bad writing days as random, unavoidable disasters to be weathered, like thunderstorms, I started treating them as red flags.

10. If you are not enjoying your writing, you're doing it wrong.

11. If your goal is to become a faster writer, the single most efficient change you can make isn't actually upping your daily word count, but eliminating the days where (sic) you are not writing.

12. [D]on't blame your subconscious when it doesn't want to write. Listen to it.

13. [T]he most important step of writing fast is knowing as (sic) what you're writing before you write it.

14. I can easily explain why other people would want to read it.

15. [Y]ou can't afford to work for free.

16. [T]he three pillars of story: characters, plot, and setting.

17. Figuring out the end of a book is my number one priority.

18. If the basics (the plot, characters, and settings . . .) are the scaffolding, [creating the timeline, map, character bios, and scene list] is the concrete foundation the will support my novel through the writing and edits to come.

19. [Y]ou are not nearly as good at keeping track of things in your head as you think you are.

20. Draw a map.

21. Write out who knows what, when.

22. Just because you've already made a decision doesn't mean you can't make a better one. No one has all their good ideas at once so don't be afraid to let go and just write. Plotting exists to make your life easier, not harder.

23. Even if characters start out as passengers in the story . . . they must eventually get up front and start pulling or they'll never be anything more than a point of view.

24. [C]haracters with proper agency will write their own stories.

25. Every character in a book, even the most minor, needs a motivation. They have to want something.

26. [P]lot and character development should be so tightly intertwined they can't be separated.

27. Act I, put your characters in a tree.
Act II, light the tree on fire.
Act III, get your characters out of the tree.

28. The point of the denouement isn't happiness or sadness or even wrapping things up neatly. The point is tension relief.

29. [T]he core part of the writing triangle is knowledge. In day-to-day terms, this means knowing what you're going to write before you write it.

30. If you want your writing process to be fast and reliable, it's not enough to just trust your feelings for what works. You need to know why it works and how it works.

31. [T]rusting you gut is different from being at its mercy.

32. [S]cenes do three things:
• Advance the story
• Reveal new information
• Pull the reader forward

33. [I]f all we're adding is bulk and not substance, we're doing more harm than good.

34. My ultimate goal as a writer is to be able to put out fantastic novels as efficiently as possible.

35. The most effective way [to get better at editing] is to write a lot of books and edit them.

36. [O]nce you invite people inside [your book], it's no longer yours alone.

37. [K]nowledge makes you go faster.

     I put that last one in bold because I found it true for me. I write notes about what will occur in my work-in-progress (wip) at the end of the chapter I am writing. When I finish a chapter, I cut out those notes and paste them into the template for the next chapter. I have things in there that I will not write for several chapters, but a short pencil is better than a long memory, and I will not forget them.
     That is tangent to the point. The point is that by using these notes, my daily word count rose during April NaNoWriMo Camp from 723 words/day to 1,635 words/day.

     Next time I will put up the numbers from my NaNoWriMo Camp. Until then, happy trails.

Links to the posts in this series:
Apostate 0.2 

Apostate 0.1
Apostate

Links to the books:
Rachel Aaron; 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better
Libbie Hawker; Take Off Your Pants!

Apostate 0.2

    Day 5 of my apostacy.

     There is no Heaven but clarity, No Hell except confusion.
     -- Jan Struther 

     In our last episode, I was reading Rachel Aaron; 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better and Libbie Hawker; Take Off Your Pants! concurrently. I stopped that.
     Why?
     Both Rachel and Libbie use a three-legged stool metaphor and give detailed suggestions for outlining. Reading both concurrently, I confused who said what and was not able to keep them straight.
     Since I began WFWB first, I shall read it through to a conclusion. Then I shall return to TOYP.

     So you wanna know my word count? Yeah, of course you do.

Day 1: 1,424
Day 2: 814
Day 3: 824
Day 4: 0
Addendum:
Day 5: 3,069 (Equal to my best day ever.)

     If you missed them before, here are the links to the posts in this series: 

Apostate 0.1
Apostate

     And links to the books:
Rachel Aaron; 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better
Libbie Hawker; Take Off Your Pants!

Apostate 0.1

     Half an hour ago, I decided to blog my conversion to pantser apostate step by step. Twenty-five minutes ago, I figured out 'step by step' reporting was impossible, so I settled for reporting by milepost.

     This is the first milepost.

     So you can follow along, let me tell you how I will organize these posts.
     My conversion shall be based on these two books:
1. Rachel Aaron; 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better and
2. Libbie Hawker; Take Off Your Pants!
     Because I'm lazy, I shall refer to Rachel's book as WFWB and to Libbie's as TOYP.  When it's not too much trouble, I shall italicize the abbreviations. 

     I read both WFWB and TOYP concurrently on my Kindle. I just started 'em.  I've read far enough in WFWB that Rachel has named the three legs of her method -- Knowledge, Time, and Enthusiasm -- and I've read her descriptions of the first two (okay, now I've read all three). In TOYP, Libbie has laid out the Story Core (she chose to capitalize the term) and gave examples, but 16% deep into TOYP she's still selling me the book.
     When I finish both books, the post I write then will be Apostate 2.0.
     When I finish one book, the post I write will be Apostate 1.0.
     Between Apostate 1.0 and Apostate 2.0, the posts will be titled Apostate 1.1, Apostate 1.2, Apostate 1.3, and so on.
     Until I finish the first book the posts will be titled Apostate 0.1, Apostate 0.2, and so on. 

     Get it?  

     In the Gospel according to Rachel, Knowledge is the outline. It is the map that shows you where to go and how to get there. 

     This is what I expected.
     I have mapped out my writing before. I mean, I finished my writing for the day and left myself notes about what I wanted to see happen next in the story, which characters were where, what was at stake, and what I needed to set up the next scene. This was my map. It formed the skeleton for me to write over the next day. And because I appended it to the end of the day's writing, I often literally wrote over it.
     I do not know if this is what Rachel meant by Knowledge, but this is the way I took it. So I spent 5, maybe 10 minutes sketching out where I was going and how I was going to get there in the next several thousand words in my work-in-progress.

     So how did I do in my first day of apostacy? That's all you really care about, isn't it?

     Drum roll . . . .

     Day 1 as an Apostate: 1,424 words. 

     Disappointed? I'm not. That's my third highest daily word count this month. And here is the kicker.
     I spent my morning in a dentist's chair having a crown applied. I started my 'day job' this afternoon, and because I started late, I stayed at it until 8pm. Next came dinner and then I got to write.
     My day's word count came from less than an hour of writing.

     But you wanna know what's really great about that? Greater than the speed? 

     Drum roll . . . .

     I was excited about the writing. I was enthused. I knew where I was going and the words poured out of my fingers. I enjoyed it more than I enjoyed writing since 'Certified Street' grabbed me in my sleep and drug me to the keyboard at 3 in the morning.

     Dean Wesley Smith calls his style (pantsing) 'writing into the dark', so I'm not going to apologize for calling pantsing The Dark Side.
     I now write on The Light Side.

The Jedi has returned.