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A Question and Long Answer About my Fiction Writing
11 years ago
(Update: One pass in editing. Still not 'perfect.' Forgive me.)
Question: What are some of the things about your story that you pay attention to while you write?
Answer:
I pay attention to a lot of things, really. The story fits together in three categories: characters, universe, and meta. So I'll answer this question by asking the questions I ask myself.
Characters:
My main focus is on characters because characters drive events and events drive the story. Characters are people and therefore demand the attention people should get. I do not write one dimensional characters.
I look at their motives, feelings, ambitions, desires, and how each of those apply to their life and situations. I usually do not predefine these as I write a story. I come to the story with a premise and let a character run through the premise in the course of the story.
My characters are typically developed in three ways:
Their Past: What do their previous actions say about them? How have they grown from these events? Are they shaped by their past more than their convictions? How does this affect their relationships?
How much of the past will be included in the story? Are they traumatized by their past? (A great deal of Starlight is about coming to terms with things that happened in the past. Three of the main characters have a form of PTSD.)
Their personality: In effect, their present. This is who they are at the moment and how they are affected by their current events. The personality of each character is fluid, even if it's only a little affected by the change. The main features of someone's personality may never change. Aaron Jaines, as an example, is a relentless friend and never stops caring about others, even as he's tested.
Their goals and desires are tested heavily by the events, even if we never see it. It's important to know that each of my characters is thinking, even if it's not apparent. :P
So how do my characters handle situations? Do they work on them in private, dread over them, internalize them, make a problem out of it, laugh it off, work with others?
How do they dress? Favorite color? Music? What do they like about others? Themselves?
Where do they get their morals and how do they value their morals?
Their potential:
My character's change and their development is important. This section is important not because it serves as a way to gauge character development but is great for characters to see others' potential.
Where do they want to go? Do they want a family? Kids? Love? A good job? How do they value service against how they feel about the world? How do they think their relationships will evolve? (A great deal of Starlight is how to deal with a ruined future as well.)
More about characters in the Meta section.
Universe:
The universe is something that I work on a lot. It affects the upbringing of the characters. It bleeds out what jobs can be done, what the people believe, how exactly they live.
Looking at how characters progress in their past based on their locale is very important. In Istana, for example, there are differences in personality between someone from Torkran than there would be from Kingdom de Dorveir (complete opposite ends of the continent). In the same way there are personality differences between someone from the US and someone from Europe.
So while writing, I consider outside events (events that take place outside of the main characters' frame of reference) as part of the universe. The Belt Incident from Starlight would be considered an outside event because the main characters had no part in it. So far, The Great Divergence lacks current outside events because time has not passed and things have not gone on. However, there are a great deal of past events.
As the universe develops, it's noteworthy to pay attention to static and dynamic objects. It's possible to look at the world in an animistic sense and say it's living. Certain things change. Certain things don't.
Earthmover, from The Warriors of Crystal is a massive example of a static object. He guards Origin and will wreck your shtuff hard if you approach. Origin itself is a permanently static and unchanging location, Eviscerator, the Soul Reaper, is another example of a static object that will also wreck your shtuff if you get near.
Yet, in Warriors, the mountain ranges are as flexible as a limb, since powerful magicians can create them to destroy massive armies or shape the world.
In Istana (The Great Divergence), the location of Myasmorkos is in the middle of a giant meteorite crater, fastened on top of the Hyvrex Nexus, a crystal of great and dark power. This plays heavily into the Supreme Council and the relationship between Torkran and Myasmorkos.
So, how is the universe shaped by events and vice versa? What events were necessary for the creation of the people that live there? What's the scale and scope of the landscape and events? How are they changing? Is there a decay or a construction going on?
The Meta (My favorite)
This is the best section because it looks at every factor. It is simply: how do things fit together and what do they mean?
It is symbolism. It is relationships. It is values. It is universal constants. It is objective. It is relative normalcy. It is more than I can list here.
This is also the vaguest part for the reader. Every story I write is so jam-packed with meta that it's hard to realize all of it. Each story could be read within the context of four or five different metaphysical conceits and not be wrong, and all would be supplementary to each other.
For example, what is the relationship between Aaron and Selena like? Salem and Selena? What does it mean for them to be close? Under what circumstance did they drive each other in their lives but still be distant? How is it that they were driven apart? What does all of this mean?
How does Tanna and Niko's friendship work? What will happen to them? What significance does the Jasper King have above His sea of crystal glass? The pendant? What does the conflict between The Kniessan Empire and the Triumvurate mean? How does it work?
How do the different types of relationship work? Speech acts? Speech dynamics? Affection? Friendship? Love? Romance? Where do each of these originate?
Exactly how does the world fit together and what does that imply?
It is stuff like this that I go through while writing. I'm thinking about it almost all the time because these things mean a lot to me as a writer and a reader.
It's interesting when I see what people glean from the story.
Question: What are some of the things about your story that you pay attention to while you write?
Answer:
I pay attention to a lot of things, really. The story fits together in three categories: characters, universe, and meta. So I'll answer this question by asking the questions I ask myself.
Characters:
My main focus is on characters because characters drive events and events drive the story. Characters are people and therefore demand the attention people should get. I do not write one dimensional characters.
I look at their motives, feelings, ambitions, desires, and how each of those apply to their life and situations. I usually do not predefine these as I write a story. I come to the story with a premise and let a character run through the premise in the course of the story.
My characters are typically developed in three ways:
Their Past: What do their previous actions say about them? How have they grown from these events? Are they shaped by their past more than their convictions? How does this affect their relationships?
How much of the past will be included in the story? Are they traumatized by their past? (A great deal of Starlight is about coming to terms with things that happened in the past. Three of the main characters have a form of PTSD.)
Their personality: In effect, their present. This is who they are at the moment and how they are affected by their current events. The personality of each character is fluid, even if it's only a little affected by the change. The main features of someone's personality may never change. Aaron Jaines, as an example, is a relentless friend and never stops caring about others, even as he's tested.
Their goals and desires are tested heavily by the events, even if we never see it. It's important to know that each of my characters is thinking, even if it's not apparent. :P
So how do my characters handle situations? Do they work on them in private, dread over them, internalize them, make a problem out of it, laugh it off, work with others?
How do they dress? Favorite color? Music? What do they like about others? Themselves?
Where do they get their morals and how do they value their morals?
Their potential:
My character's change and their development is important. This section is important not because it serves as a way to gauge character development but is great for characters to see others' potential.
Where do they want to go? Do they want a family? Kids? Love? A good job? How do they value service against how they feel about the world? How do they think their relationships will evolve? (A great deal of Starlight is how to deal with a ruined future as well.)
More about characters in the Meta section.
Universe:
The universe is something that I work on a lot. It affects the upbringing of the characters. It bleeds out what jobs can be done, what the people believe, how exactly they live.
Looking at how characters progress in their past based on their locale is very important. In Istana, for example, there are differences in personality between someone from Torkran than there would be from Kingdom de Dorveir (complete opposite ends of the continent). In the same way there are personality differences between someone from the US and someone from Europe.
So while writing, I consider outside events (events that take place outside of the main characters' frame of reference) as part of the universe. The Belt Incident from Starlight would be considered an outside event because the main characters had no part in it. So far, The Great Divergence lacks current outside events because time has not passed and things have not gone on. However, there are a great deal of past events.
As the universe develops, it's noteworthy to pay attention to static and dynamic objects. It's possible to look at the world in an animistic sense and say it's living. Certain things change. Certain things don't.
Earthmover, from The Warriors of Crystal is a massive example of a static object. He guards Origin and will wreck your shtuff hard if you approach. Origin itself is a permanently static and unchanging location, Eviscerator, the Soul Reaper, is another example of a static object that will also wreck your shtuff if you get near.
Yet, in Warriors, the mountain ranges are as flexible as a limb, since powerful magicians can create them to destroy massive armies or shape the world.
In Istana (The Great Divergence), the location of Myasmorkos is in the middle of a giant meteorite crater, fastened on top of the Hyvrex Nexus, a crystal of great and dark power. This plays heavily into the Supreme Council and the relationship between Torkran and Myasmorkos.
So, how is the universe shaped by events and vice versa? What events were necessary for the creation of the people that live there? What's the scale and scope of the landscape and events? How are they changing? Is there a decay or a construction going on?
The Meta (My favorite)
This is the best section because it looks at every factor. It is simply: how do things fit together and what do they mean?
It is symbolism. It is relationships. It is values. It is universal constants. It is objective. It is relative normalcy. It is more than I can list here.
This is also the vaguest part for the reader. Every story I write is so jam-packed with meta that it's hard to realize all of it. Each story could be read within the context of four or five different metaphysical conceits and not be wrong, and all would be supplementary to each other.
For example, what is the relationship between Aaron and Selena like? Salem and Selena? What does it mean for them to be close? Under what circumstance did they drive each other in their lives but still be distant? How is it that they were driven apart? What does all of this mean?
How does Tanna and Niko's friendship work? What will happen to them? What significance does the Jasper King have above His sea of crystal glass? The pendant? What does the conflict between The Kniessan Empire and the Triumvurate mean? How does it work?
How do the different types of relationship work? Speech acts? Speech dynamics? Affection? Friendship? Love? Romance? Where do each of these originate?
Exactly how does the world fit together and what does that imply?
It is stuff like this that I go through while writing. I'm thinking about it almost all the time because these things mean a lot to me as a writer and a reader.
It's interesting when I see what people glean from the story.
It's nice to have a friend who looks at it all the same way.
Thank you for the insight into your creativeness!
That's how I got into writing! At some point, though, while writing, I just happened to start to think about how I was doing things.
And you should rewrite your story! I'd love to read it!