How I learned to embrace the narrator voice.

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For the longest time I’ve had a fear of using the narrator voice while writing.

As I write mostly fantasy, horror, and science fiction, I’m sure this fear comes from being told show don’t tell and of the dreaded info dump.

I spent the latter months of 2018 dealing with this fear.

I knew a couple things would have to change in my writing, and mindset, to fix this.

I would have to let the narrator speak what needed to be said and I would have to stop worrying about info dumps. Sometimes a small info dump is needed in a story.

When dealing with an info dump, I’ve made sure it’s either a character explaining things or if I’m using the narrator, it’s in small chunks.

I also didn’t want to sound pretentious. Which is something my wife says I’ve done with the narrator.

I read a lot of books this past year, and I took to analyzing how the author would speak with the narrator, either in description or in regards to world building.

The Wheel of Time series writer by Robert Jordan and finished Brandon Sanderson are a few of the best examples of this.

I love how Jordan does narrator voice. I don’t feel like there is an info dump when he’s world building and the narrator is consistent throughout the books I’ve read in the series. I’m on book 5 in the series.

With horror, it’s the same. I looked for how the author differentiated between the narrator voice and character voice. Doing this helped my writing a lot.

From the end of September until the end of November I focused solely on improving my narrators and how they dealt with the world.

These stories turned out well and I’m happy with them. I only wish I would have done it years ago instead of being afraid.

I’ll be talking about how I did this for the month of January.

What did you improve upon in your writing or life the past year?

Let me know in the comments.

The way through…

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There are moments in life when we’re taking our time, creating things, and something from our past rears its ugly head.

This happened the other day.

I’ve written since middle school. It’s only been in the last five years I decided to take my writing seriously. The main reason I decided to pursue my writing full-time is that of my wife’s encouragement.

Before that time I’d only done it on the side and never considered my writing worthy of publication.

Then, something happened. Someone told me I’d never be a writer.  That I’d never do what I love doing. It was a hard blow. Afterward, I contemplated a lot of things, suicide one of them.

Then, I realized something. That person didn’t know who I was and had no interest in discovering the person I was.

It wasn’t that they said those words, it was more that I took it to heart. I believed them. I felt like they were right about me.

Today, life is different. I understand that person didn’t know me and never cared to.

Without my wife’s encouragement, I’m not sure I would have continued to write.

I’m at a crossroads with my writing. Do I keep going, take a chance, and struggle a little more or do I quit?

After all, I’ve done in my life I only have a couple of things I’m proud of: My wife, my kids, and my writing.

I’ve written seven novels, over a hundred short stories but I haven’t published any of them. Maybe that person’s words influenced my thinking for a few years afterward. Now, I don’t feel that way.

The road used to be cluttered with doubt and fear. Today, I that same road is full of possibilities.

I’ve found the way through. I found it on my own and now it’s time to crush it.

The record is only playing one song…

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I intended to write a project for NaNoWriMo, then I realized there are three novels that need edits. I hit 5k on the NaNo project but it will have to wait until I’ve edited the three novels.

It will take me a while before I’m able to tackle something of long form. I have ideas for more novels, one that I know will be the next one I write.

I wrote two novels this past year, both of them need editing. One of them still needs a first pass.

I have a big fear in doing this: I often worry something won’t get written because I’m editing or writing short form. I’m not sure where this idea comes from. I’ve written about it before.

I have stories to write. and one of my goals for this year is being published. This hasn’t happened. I believe its because I haven’t been editing.

I’ve talked about this editing issue numerous times. I thought it would interfere with my creative process, what I’ve learned is it’s part of my creative process. Without learning how to fix story issues I’d have fifty novels written, none edited, which was where I was headed before making this decision.

For the rest of the year I’ll only be writing short stories, focusing on improving my problem areas, narration, dialogue, and visuals. I’ll be editing the three novels into the new year. The short stories I’m writing will go through an editing process after I feel the novels are in decent shape.

I love creating new stories, but I don’t want to have fifty novels written and none of them edited. Yes, my writing is improving, thanks to the writing group I joined and determination, but I feel its time to step away from writing novels for a while. It’s time edit the work I’ve already done.

I want what any writer wants, I want to see my books published. They won’t get there without improvement.

I’m breaking this record, it keeps skipping and coming back to haunt me. If you’ve read my recent posts, you’ll understand.

Back to work my Wretched.

Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.

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I follow a lot of various motivators on social media, Gary Vaynerchuk, Lewis Howes, Tom Bilyeu, and others. I follow these people for various reasons. I love Gary’s honesty, Lewis Howes the same. I follow Tom because I love his podcast.

There is something that’s been nagging me about following these motivators. I shouldn’t need them. I should be able to write without having someone tell me to keep going.

But that’s the problem, I don’t. It doesn’t compute that I can’t do this myself. I need that kick in the ass every once in a while.

Today was a good example. Gary posted on Instagram about doing one thing that makes you uncomfortable.

My thing is editing. I feel like the time I spend editing is the time I could be writing. I also feel that I’m doing it wrong. That there is some magical formula to editing. After writing seven novels, I feel like it should get easier to edit, it doesn’t.

The fact that I’ve written seven novels and I’ve only submitted one of them to agents is appalling to me. It didn’t use to be. I thought I’d get better at writing through writing, I was wrong. I get better through editing.

It’s taken me thirteen years to realize this. It shouldn’t have taken this long.

When I finished my first novel, a vampire book that I love, I thought I’ll just keep rewriting. There are 8 drafts of that novel on my hard drive. None of them will ever come out. At the time there was no one, other than my wife to bounce ideas off of. Now that I have a writing group, I feel like I can do this.

Editing is the hardest part of writing. The taking away of pieces I loved in the draft, moving them around and creating a coherent, cohesive story is more important than writing something new.

I hate that it has taken this long to understand this.

Here’s what I’ll be doing to finish, truly finish the last three novels I’ve written: By the end of March 2019 I’ll be editing each novel through my writing group. I’ll post the progress on Delusions of Ink for each project.

What are you doing that makes you uncomfortable? Tell me in the comments. Let us keep each other going.

Things…etc.

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When you feel life slipping and your goals trying, you have to understand that the world is difficult.

The difficulty of this life is that we have to get through it in any way possible.

Our any way possible can be whatever but our decisions along the road to our goals determines longevity.

I don’t usually think about these decisions but something changed. I’m not sure of the content of the change, but I do know it’s effects.

I’m aware of where my writing is going but there are times I’m unsure. I believe it’s impossible to be completely sure of our course. It’s not something we plan; only what we create.

I’ve written stories which were difficult to write and others I had no idea whether I’d come out the other side intact.

We get to where we need to be by working. There is nothing else.