Tag Archives: Fiction

Finding darkness, embracing it, and keeping going.

Posted on by
Reply

I fell down a rabbit hole recently.

It wasn’t too deep but it got me to thinking about darkness and how I deal with it, hell, how any of us deal with it.

Let’s start earlier.

Since I was a little kid I’ve always liked scary things. I was a vampire almost every Halloween as a kid. When I wasn’t, I was a werewolf.

As I grew up, I watched a lot of horror movies.

I saw Halloween when I was eight, Children of the Corn at about the same age.

Then my sister introduced me to Hellraiser.

Those movies are my go to for anyone who wants to understand me.

Watch the first three and you’ll understand me a bit better. Read Barker’s book, “The Hellbound Heart” and you’ll understand me more.

That erotic, bloody, torturous movie and it’s sequels helped me to find myself.

Now that I’m 43, I think about what type of horror drives me.

It’s visceral. Dark. Dirty.

Sometimes it makes me take a step back. That’s when I know I have something good.

When what I put on the page scares me. Then I have something good.

Pushing the boundaries is what we do. Especially horror writers.

I remember an interview with Stephen King about Pet Semetery. He said that’s one of the books he thought he went too far in.

But can you imagine that book changed? It would mess it up. That book scared the hell out me.

There are so many books where I thought a writer went too far but I can’t imagine the story without those scenes.

I strive to be a good horror writer because I love the dark. I’ve always loved it. Watching a horror movie gives me more joy than almost anything except my wife and kids, though the goods ones eclipse them too.

Reading horror is new to me.

Growing up, my father restricted me to certain types of books. I’ve mentioned this before.

But I would still pick up a copy of Fangoria at the bookstore.

I could watch horror movies when I was a kid, but the books were off limits.

In the last few years I’ve tried catching up on some of the classics. There are a lot of them and I’ve had to be picky.

But a good horror book or movie will always be my favorite. I’d rather watch or read those than anything else.

It makes sense for me to write that stuff.

I love it and it will always be what keeps me going.

When I found my voice.

Posted on by
Reply

There’s this often referred to mystical thing called voice.

It’s talked about in books, podcasts, hell I’ve even seen it referenced in movies.

There are many types of voices within a story. There is the narrative voice, each characters particular voice and then there is the distinctive voice each author gives to the story.

Some authors find it early in the writing career, others keep going and find it after writing 9 books.

It’s taken me to the latter of these.

It was never explained to me what this voice means. It’s difficult to explain.

The only way I can describe it is like this.

When you read a Stephen King book, you know it’s King by his description, by his character creation and the way he handles his monsters.

The same goes for any author. Neil Gaiman is another.

You know his work by the mood he sets in his books.

There is a moodiness or vibe to all of Neil’s books. I’ve loved his writing since Sandman. I’ve read a lot of his books. Anansi Boys is my favorite.

With every author you know that author from how they construct, how they build, how each of their stories flow.

This is what your voice is. I can’t tell you how to find it, only that you will.

You’ll discover it while reading one of your stories. You’ll set it down, step back and wonder when it happened.

It will happen, but you have to keep going to discover it.

When it does, you’ll understand why, and you’ll also understand why other stories didn’t work.

You’ll find it. Keep writing.

When writing things click.

Posted on by
Reply

A while ago, like ten years or something my cousins who is published traditionally, and who publishes independently gave me a book.

It’s John Truby’s Anatomy of Story.

At that point I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand how to use the book, didn’t think I needed the book, and was determined to do it on my own.

Here’s a tip, when someone gets you something and they’re trying to help you, use it. Do whatever it takes to understand it .

If you don’t get it, ask for help. It’s really okay to ask for help.

Go to Reddit and ask. The people on R/writing are awesome.

But use whatever is at your disposal.

I never asked. I was stubborn and borderline asshole.

The belief that we can do something ourselves and ignore what people tell us is stupid.

You need help, ask.

Now that I’m trying to figure this out(ten years later)I’m struggling to do so.

I should’ve listened to her. Paid attention and not just read the book and not understood it. I should have done a lot of things differently.

Now that I am doing things different, I understand she was trying to help me.

She was trying to get me to understand writing on a different level.

It’s taken me a while but I’m getting there.

Patience is the greatest virtue.

Posted on by
Reply

This week has been one of the most difficult as a writer.

This rethinking how to write with an outline is not only trying my patience but also my wife’s

I’ve ran things by her numerous times and like the trooper she’s always been, she makes suggestions. I hear the little hint of frustration in her voice as I ask for suggestions, but it’s a new thing for me to use an outline for a project, and it going along better than I thought it would.

I’m learning to diagnose issues with the story I have in my head and analyze where things went wrong, where I could change them and how to do so.

It feels like I’m learning to write all over again. I know it will improve the story, but damn it’s hard.

I’ve been writing as a discovery writer for over 10 years. I have to teach my mind that what I’d done before didn’t work and this is the new way we’re doing things.

Needless to say, there’s been pushback.

I’m using K.M. Weiland’s outlining workbook to do this. The reasoning is she knows what she’s doing and I’m only guessing on how to do this.

I see things in the story that could go another way, and other things that I’ll do away with all together.

There are things I’m changing I never would have if I’d rewritten the entire book.

I see the scope of it growing and with it the number of words I’ll have to write in order to fit everything from the outline within the book when I begin drafting.

The drafting part will be interesting. I don’t know how that will go. It’s going to be a while before I get there, a month or longer, but I’ll get there with a blueprint for the book I should have written the first time.

It’s awfully frightening to realize that you should have done something a certain way, but your mind said, “it’s fine. If King, George R.R. Martin, and Patrick Rothfuss can do it this way, so can you.”

The problem is, I’m not them. My brain obviously doesn’t work that way.

I’ve never really planned things out. Now that I am, I’m seeing more clearly.

I’ll keep updates going, but for now I’m just happy to get this going. I’m happy I’ve found a better path but I wish I would’ve done it years ago.

Now that I understand how to outline, I’ll do it for every project.

Have a good weekend and happy writing.

Rewiring my brain.

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve recently converted to outlining. It’s been hard. There haven’t been any knocks on the door about changing, but I’ve been working on fixing the way my brain works.

Having been a pantser, discovery writer, I’ve had to funnel information into my brain differently. I also have to block my brain from yelling, “NO, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG,” which has have been the most difficult.

Once you convert things get hard. I fight myself every day over just doing the way I used to. But it doesn’t work, like I said Monday, maybe it never really has.

I’m down a new rabbit hole. There is nothing but my the other side of my brain telling me, “you can’t go on like this and expect to get where you want to be.”

That voice is the same one I heard on a 9th grade English test. It was supposed to be a story using the spelling words, I forgot to use the words and still got an A on it.

That little voice told me to keep going.

At 23, the voice resurfaced. But I kept writing by the seat of my pants.

It’s 20 years later, and I realized something has to change.

This week I’ve been working through the fantasy book I wrote last December. I’m outlining it, as I should have done.

Trying to wrap my mind around this process after writing another way for 20 years has been difficult, but I know the book will be better this way.

Once I start the drafting process I’ll know how I’ve done.

That I had to change is one of those things you don’t understand at the time, but I know I had to do it.

I’m working my way through the books I have on outlining and beat sheets. I have a few of them. They’re helping.

I’m going through those to find my way to the end.