My Short Stories

There is not a lot of news to report in regards to the novel. The cover artist has been forced to delay getting started for reasons that are not only understandable but kind of exciting in their own way. I'll explain further once the artist has been announced.

In the meantime, I have been going back over the edited manuscript and figuring out the story beats for all the subplots in Book 2. I hit the road for a business trip on March 7th and I plan to have my stack of index cards ready by then so I can start working on the second volume during that trip.

But how would you like to read a couple of my stories right now? A pair of my short stories have just been published in the super-hero anthology The Sentinels: Alternate Visions.

I wrote the first one two years ago and I knocked out the second one last September. Both make references to Van Plexico's Sentinels series, but neither require having to read his books first. I'm pleased with both stories, I hope you enjoy them as well.

You can buy a copy directly from White Rocket Books or download the e-book for only $4.95 at the Lulu.com site.

It's exciting to see your work published and I have to thank Van for giving me this exposure. The Sentinels has been a successful enough series for a larger press to come in and buy the rights to it, so here's hoping the anthology can find the same audience.

Write right, Wright p1: Dialogue over Narration

Well, I've talked this up enough that it seems like I'm going to have something huge and profound to say.  That's not really the case at all. It's just that there's a certain in pitfall in writing that has tempted me.

I've worked so hard on my plot and in weaving together all the various plotlines that now I just want to tell everybody the whole story right away.

It's sort of frustrating to know all the major story elements of all three books but  yet still be forced to sit down and flesh scenes out.

The temptation in writing the scenes is to just describe the plot to the reader. But I know that's a huge mistake. I believe the success of any story is judged by the degree to which the readers can relate to and invest in the characters. 

As I started out constructing my scenes I had to remind myself to not just use my power as omnipotent storyteller to explain what is happening. I  have to allow the characters to arrive at their decisions and actions naturally. They each need their own distinct personality, preferences and agendas.

One of the keys is to rely on the dialogue and actions of your characters to carry the reader through the story. Sounds obvious. But if you are an amateur novelist like myself who is excited by the story you've cooked up, the temptation can certainly be there to get through everything as fast as you can so that you can describe the next cool thing.

Of course, by forcing patience and allowing the characters to carry the story, the writer opens himself up to one of the greatest joys of the process. As I discussed in "Characters Can Surprise You", it's a blast to see  your characters come to life and begin dictating to you what they are going to do.

This may be my last post for a while. I leave Wednesday for three weeks in Sudan, Africa. I'm shooting a documentary over there that will detail what missionaries have accomplished for the area. So it will probably be April before I can post again. 

I've got plenty of hours in airplanes ahead of me. I'm taking my laptop and hope to knock out a few thousand words while I'm gone.

Characters Can Surprise You

There seem to be two main approaches to writing. There are those that want to outline everything in advance and there are those that just start writing, letting the story lead them wherever it may go. In my case, I did heavy outlining because the story was generally already in place.

An outline is sort of like a road map. You can see where you are and you can see where you are going. You can see which route you are going to take and maybe even where some other roads cross your path several times.

But when you are writing you are actually on the road driving. You might know there's a town up ahead but you don't know what it looks like and how the people act until you get there. Or maybe there's a roadblock and you have to take a detour on one of those side roads. Unlike looking at a road map, you can look out your window and enjoy the scenery.

I'll quit stretching the analogy. What I'm trying to say is that no matter how much you have outlined, you are still going to be surprised. I've always heard writers say that characters write themselves. Or maybe they thought they were going to take the story one way until a particular character jumped up and said "No! I'm going this way!"

Guess what? I now totally understand that. It really does happen.

As I began writing, I discovered ways to involve my characters in a tighter narrative. What I mean is, there would be a scene that would involve characters A and B. As I wrote the scene, character C would show up. I wasn't expecting it, but C kind of popped up and told me that he belonged there.

This happened several times and what quickly emerged was a more cohesive throughline to the book than what I had planned.  Plotlines that were going to appear disparate at first began to flow into my keyboard much more intricately woven than I had anticipated. What a wonderful surprise that was! 

I also figured out very early that a character I introduced early could fill the role that was going to be needed at the climax of the third book.  It would have been a mistake to have a newcomer show up in the third act and play a large part in saving the day. Much better to have a well established character do that.

I'm still amazed at the phenomenon. I'm the writer of this thing. I'm holding the magic roadmap in my hand that shows me every road and small town. I guess I forgot that just because someone draws up the cartography, it doesn't mean they also populated the towns. Even though I had this all outlined, the story still has the capacity to surprise me. 

This is fun! You create a setting and a problem. You give your characters a personality trait or two and an agenda or motivation and then just let 'em loose. 

As of this writing, I'm about 27,000 words into my novel. So far, there have been two occasions where I was stuck. I knew for plot purposes I had to get from point A to point B, but I couldn't figure out how to get there. Both times a character stepped up and took care of it for me. I just came up with a scene that involved several characters with different opinions and goals and let them have it out. Thanks, guys!

It works. It really works. And that's an amazing discovery.

Next: the importance of using dialogue over descriptive passages