Ideas: Feast or Famine

Okay, why is it that ideas come in bunches?

I am currently finishing my final (and I do mean FINAL) edit of my solo novel, Forged by Betrayal, I am editing our fourth book in the Pathfinder series (which we are just finishing the rewrite of), I have 20,000 words or so done on another story that popped into my head in November and wouldn't go away and this morning... that's right, another story just popped into my head. Full blown, from beginning to end, characters, plot, setting, everything.

Why is it that when I have nothing on my plate I stare at a blank page and try to think of angry dinosaurs (my version of counting sheep for blocked writers) and nothing will form in my feeble brain but when I am too busy to do anything about it, I have stories popping into my head with music fanfares? I've heard of thinking about something else until you get the answer you're looking for but this is getting ridiculous. 

I once took a writing class where a student was hesitant to share his ideas for fear someone would steal them. The instructor (a NY Times bestselling author) told us that he had so many ideas, he’d never write a third of them. Later in the class he showed us how true that was by expanding on our ideas at the drop of a hat.

So my question is this. Is imagination strengthened with use? Do we function in the right brain or the left brain and get stuck in one spot?

I know that when I’m writing, or creating, I get thrown off by going back and editing. Editing is an analytical process and uses a different part of the brain than the creative process.  When I first started taking the series of writing classes with that instructor, the first rule he put in place was that we weren’t allowed to do any editing. Only writing. Editing would come later. It helped a lot. The ideas came easier.

Is that because we can strengthen our imagination and our creativity with use or because we slow ourselves down by switching back and forth from creativity to rationality?

I’m not sure what the answer is but I’m sure I like it when the ideas come out of the blue ahead of time and I don’t have to stare at blank pages and think of angry dinosaurs.

When that happens to you, make sure you write down all of the details before you forget. That way you’ll be prepared for that next blank page.

~Jeff

Life at the Comic Con

Last September, the three siblings had the opportunity to attend Salt Lake Comic Con to display and sell copies of our books (including book #3, Force of Reckoning, which was published just in time).

For anyone contemplating attending a Comic Con, I would definitely recommend doing it the way I did.  Renting a table meant that all the interesting characters paraded past me, instead of me having to traipse around the whole complex looking at all the great costumes.

Here's my favorite for originality:

As first-time vendors there were definitely things we would do differently if we had it to do over.  First, as you can see in the "Dark Helmet and Pizza the Hut" photo, vendors brought large backdrops to help sell their wares, something conspicuously missing from the top image of our booth.  Lost opportunity.

Second, we prepared flyers that walked through all that was published and what we planned to finish in the coming year.  The were remarkably hard to give away.  Bookmarks, on the other hand, practically flew off the table.

Third, after the first day, we put out a candy dish with chocolate to get people to stop and talk with us.   Again, these were remarkably hard to give away.  Everyone who did stop to get one had to ask permission first, and there were not as many of these as one would suppose.  I'm not sure what the answer is, but hopefully we can figure it out.

Lessons learned!

Where do I start?

I've been invited to join a science fiction/fantasy authors' discussion group at my alma mater recently. Today, I responded to the question, "Where do I begin?" The answer is, "It depends." Everyone is different, and everyone writes differently. Part of becoming a good writer is finding what will work for you. After getting to know the questioner a little, I found that we actually had quite a bit in common, so I was able to offer him this advice.

Steve- You sound a lot like me; coming from an engineering background, and only writing part time; so let me share what works for me, and hopefully that will get you going.

You have to understand that there are two general types of writers: those who plan, and those who don't, or don't plan very much. I know that my inclination is toward the former, but I could choose to do either and make it work. The problem is that the latter doesn't work as well for the hobbyist writer who can only spend half an hour here and an hour there working on the story. Most of your "writing time" gets used up rereading what you've written to "get back into the flow of the story."

I'm not mocking that; it is a legitimate requirement if you are writing the story with only a mental plan. You have to put everything else out of your mind in order to remember all the details you've stored in your mental file cabinet. Again, this works best when you can spend at least four hour chunks of time on writing, because then that half hour you spend rereading isn't most of your time.

For me, I find a written plan much better. The actual writing goes more smoothly, I don't suffer from writer's block, and I can take advantage of open blocks of time as small as five minutes. The drawback is that I spend a LOT of time writing the plan before I start writing.

First, you need to write down the whole story, beginning to end; say, two to four pages worth. Then, you divide your story up into chapters. For each chapter, you make a bullet point list of things that are going to happen in that chapter until you have 15-20 of them. If you can't think of that many, combine it with another chapter. If you have more than that, it's time to divide. The number of bullet points can vary, depending on the pacing you want in that chapter; fewer for a fast pace. Once you have your list, you'll want to review it to make sure the points are all consistent, and all necessary. Usually, I wind up crossing out two or three and not replacing them.

With that complete for every chapter, the writing is easy. I keep the list in the same Word document I'm writing in, and delete each bullet point when it's written. I usually spend five to ten minutes writing each one. I don't have to reread anything to get back into the flow, because the next bullet point tells me where to start.

So, I know this was a bit of a wordy answer, but if I were you, I would start with a plan.

What I didn't share with Steve, but I will share here, is that writing without a plan absolutely, positively will not work when you are co-authoring a book. You HAVE to have a plan written down with at least as much detail as what I described.

When you are writing a story as it comes to you, the story frequently takes an unexpected turn on the author. There's a quote from Louis L'Amour that I like to repeat: One day he was speeding along at the typewriter, and his daughter, who was a child at the time, asked him, "Daddy, why are you writing so fast?" And he replied, "Because I want to see how the story turns out!"

That works just fine when you're the only writer working on the project. But here's how well it would work for us:

Jeff: I finished chapter 19 today.

Craig: Great! I'll have 17 and 18 done this week, and then I can start on 22.

Jeff: I decided we should call the monsters "bat-gators," since they have such short legs.

Craig: What? We already decided on "cryptobeasts!" Now I'll have to go back and change it in 13 and 17. Why did you change it?

Jeff: It just seemed more menacing, and familiar. When you hear "bat-gator," it brings an image to mind. Plus, it was ironic that Ensign Hayes, the champion alligator wrestler, would be eaten by one.

Jared: Hold on! Ensign Hayes still has to be around for all of my chapters. What do you mean he got eaten?

Craig: We never discussed killing off Hayes. He is admittedly annoying, but--

Jared: Hey, he's just inexperienced. He'll improve.

Jeff: Not if he's dead.

Clearly, this would lead us down the "throttling each other" path we've been trying to avoid.

Publication Date Set!

We finally got every niggling little detail ironed out. Look for Day of Reckoning to be available on November 1!