Author Archives: Poseidon's Scribe

The 10 Most Pioneering Vehicles in Literature

Imagine the joy of blazing a trail in your stories, writing about something nobody has attempted before. Consider the electric thrill when you’re creating, in fiction, a new type of vehicle for your characters (and, by extension, for your readers).

Vehicles hold a special place for all of us, don’t they? The machines that transport us also shield us from the harsh outer world while cocooning us in comparative comfort. They move along at our command, heedless of distance or obstacles, and some of them convey us through places in which our frail bodies wouldn’t survive.

Today I highlight the pioneering fiction vehicles, the ones first taking readers through a particular environment. Look elsewhere for a list of the most popular, or the coolest-looking, etc. Here I’m focusing on the first, the pioneers, and we’ll proceed in chronological order.

First Flying Vehicle

The Hindu text R?m?ya?a, dating from between 600 BCE to 200 CE, mentions gods and demigods flying around in Vim?na. These vehicles take various forms, including flying palaces and chariots. I found no evidence online that these vim?na carried mortal people, or that they traveled in outer space. Still, a flying palace seven stories high sounds great to me. Not all gods owned them, apparently, and some of these vehicles lacked anti-theft devices. Ravana stole one from Kubera, but Rama recovered and returned it.

First Underwater Vehicle

The same character—Alexander the Great—piloted the next two vehicles on my list. Though a real historical figure, Alexander also got fictionalized in a series of tales now called the Alexander Romances. Widely read and translated, they originated in Ancient Greece before 338 AD, but spread across Europe and Asia, changing with every retelling over hundreds of years. One of these tales took him underwater in a glass diving bell lowered from a ship. I’ve written my own fictional account of this trip in my story, Alexander’s Odyssey.

First Flying Vehicle for Mortals

Alexander the Great also flew in the air, according to another tale from the Alexander Romances. He harnessed two griffins to a chair in which he sat. He steered the craft by tempting the griffins with meat on skewers so they’d fly in his intended direction. You can never find griffins when you need them these days, forcing us to fly by airplane.

First Space Vehicle

The first purposeful aerial vehicle in fiction belongs, I believe, to Francis Godwin, who wrote The Man in the Moone, published in 1638. (I’m discounting True History by Lucian of Samosata, since his ship flew by accident.) In Godwin’s tale, his hero, Domingo Gonsales, trained a flock of swans and hitched them to a framework, allowing him to fly. Unaware that these swans periodically migrated to the moon, he ended up there. Little wonder his contraption didn’t catch on—he’s sitting on a slender pole.

First Time-Traveling Vehicle

If you’d care to travel through time, step aboard the conveyance from the 1846 novel Le Monde Tel Qu’il Sera [The World As It Will Be] by Emile Souvestre. This steam-powered locomotive flew through space and time. (And you thought the flying, time-traveling locomotive in the movie Back to the Future III was innovative!) The seat looks comfortable, but it’s atop the locomotive’s boiler, just forward of the smoke-stack—a rather warm ride.

First Multiple-Environment Vehicle

So far I’ve mentioned travel in no more than two modes–air and space, space and time. But the Terror from Jules Verne’s 1904 novel Master of the World combined boat, submarine, automobile, and aircraft. The police might catch you speeding and give chase, but they’d never be able to pull you over. Not available yet for purchase, but my name’s on the waiting list.

First Underground Vehicle

If you’d like to travel underground in style, you’ll need the Iron Mole from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ 1914 novel, At the Earth’s Core. Perhaps you’d better wait until someone develops a steering mechanism for the machine, though. The novel’s heroes couldn’t steer it and they dug down 500 miles and found Pellucidar.

First Intense-Gravity Exploration Vehicle

When someone asks if you’d like to travel to a neutron star (if I had a nickel for every time…) just say no. The intense gravity creates massive tidal forces within any approaching ship. The character in Larry Nivens’ short story “Neutron Star,” published in 1966 (before evidence of neutron stars existed) said yes to the question. He traveled in a spaceship called the Skydiver, a transparent, spindle-shaped vessel.

First Solar Exploration Vehicle

Most of us enjoy vacations where we can get a little sun. But we draw the line at traveling to the sun. I’ve heard of hot travel destinations, but that one melts the cake. The characters in David Brin’s 1980 novel Sundiver make the trip aboard a spherical vehicle called the Sundiver, which enables them to get close enough to the extreme heat. Seems to me they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble by going at night.

First Cyberspace Vehicle

Traveling to the Matrix might seem difficult, but not if you step aboard Nebuchadnezzar, the hovercraft ship from the 1999 movie, The Matrix. In case you’ve forgotten, the matrix is the “simulated reality world” fed into human minds, a sort of dream world far different from the dystopian present. (Yes, I know the 1982 movie Tron included cyberspace vehicles, but they couldn’t travel between cyberspace and real space, as Nebuchadnezzar could.)

Conclusion

If I’ve left out a pioneering vehicle, or if a vehicle predates one or more on my list, let me know. To qualify, a vehicle must travel within an environment or element no other fictional vehicle has traversed before.

If you enjoy writing about fictional vehicles, don’t despair that it’s too late to write a story about a pioneering vehicle. See my blogpost about pioneers and giants. If you can’t be a pioneer, you can still be a giant. For a discussion about how to deal with fictional vehicles in your stories, stay tuned for a future blogpost by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

June 16, 2024Permalink

Shadow Theory—Use and Misuse

If you’re a fiction writer wishing to create vivid characters, you’ll like Shadow Theory. But beware of its major pitfall.

In your first attempts to write stories, you’re likely to invent characters without much nuance. Perhaps they’ll resemble common tropes or stereotypes. Even if you avoid that, your characters may lack the sort of quirks readers enjoy. The characters may seem flat, two-dimensional. Shadow theory can help with that.

Definition

In this post, author K.M. Weiland provides an outstanding, in-depth description of shadow theory. Please read her post, since I’m providing only a brief overview here.

Imagine your character as an impressionable child. She tries to be outgoing in an effort to make friends, but gets snubbed. Reacting to this, she adopts a more standoffish approach and remains aloof from others. This practice protects her from rejection. She has relegated her friendliness to the shadows. Though still a part of her, that trait is something she tries to keep hidden from the world.

The theory says this happens to real people, like you and me. We seek workable coping strategies and push their opposites to the shadows. However, the shadow remains attached, still available. If stress or other harsh circumstances require a change, we can switch to the shadow’s method, though we will find it difficult to break a long-held pattern and leave our comfort zone.

Use in Fiction

You see the powerful potential of this theory in creating fascinating, relatable fictional characters. A strong defining trait coupled with the opposite trait lying in the background—often the subconscious background, even as a suppressed memory—gives a character more dimension.

As your plot inflicts increasing pressure on your character and she finds her accustomed responses failing again and again, you can bring the opposite trait out from the shadows to win the day. This shift to shadow behavior won’t be easy for the character, and that difficulty adds to the drama.

Misuse

As I read Weiland’s post, I loved learning about this literary tool, but saw a danger. A hammer is a fine tool as well, but it hurts when you smash your thumb with it by accident.

If you’re clumsy in the use of shadow theory, you could confuse readers. You shouldn’t show a character acting one way throughout the book, then have her suddenly change behavior without explanation.

If a character acts out-of-character, readers notice and can’t help questioning the author’s competence.

Solutions

You can overcome this problem in a variety of ways, including the following. You could:

  • provide a flashback to show the shadow trait forming in the character’s past,
  • show the character’s thoughts as she realizes the shadow trait exists (She may wonder where it came from, and may even recall its source in her past, but it should still require effort to use the shadow trait),
  • show a second character (B)—perhaps an ally or love interest of A—who senses the shadow trait in A and helps A to see and use that trait, or
  • give hints of the shadow throughout, so the reader sees it but the character doesn’t until the dramatic ending (this may be the most difficult of the four).

If you’re like me, you write descriptions of your major characters before creating the first draft. Consider answering the questions asked by Weiland in her post as you develop these descriptions. You might devise your plot such that circumstances test your character’s accustomed behaviors but those behaviors produce bad, then worse, setbacks. Only when the character, through internal struggle, calls upon the shadow trait, can that character prevail.

As the old radio drama tagline put it—Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows…and so does—

Poseidon’s Scribe

June 9, 2024Permalink

Have Computers Made Writing Easier or Harder?

Unlike writers of the past, we own computers to make our lives easier. But the machines arrived with plenty of baggage. Have they been worth it?

For most of human history, authors wrote by hand with a scribbling implement making marks with ink on some form of paper. (We’ll ignore the ages of chiseling into stone or making impressions on clay.) By the late 1800s, typewriters became commercially available. Only in the last forty years have writers turned to computers.

The Case for the Pen

Consider the ease and simplicity of pens or typewriters vs. computers. No passwords, no two-factor authentication, no need for backups, no pull-down menus, no need to pay for software updates, and no viruses. No chance of some hacker stealing your manuscript. No need to recharge or (except for electric typewriters), plug in to an outlet. Most of all, with pens or typewriters, there’s little to learn first—you just start writing.

The Case for the Computer

To be fair to computers, we’ve gained much in return, compared to previous methods. We see our text instantly, as it will appear in final form. That’s something. We’ve also swept away the piles of paper and books, the fire hazard that used to clutter a writer’s office. Also, we use the same computer for research, mostly eliminating the need to pore through dusty tomes for obscure facts. We can search through previously written text more easily than flipping through pages.

Side Benefits

Yes, I’m aware of studies showing increased brain activity when writing with pen and paper compared to using computer keyboards. But for purposes of this post, I don’t care about brain activity. I’m concerned with overall ease of use.

Summary

Computers render certain writing tasks easier—storing, retrieving, searching, and researching. Pens and typewriters ease other writing aspects—ready access, cost, learning, and security.

Decision

Like so many other facets of writing, different writers find their own methods easier. You must make this decision yourself. Sorry if this seems like a copout, but what’s true for you may not be true for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 29, 2024Permalink

These Days, Character Beats Plot

In a recent post, I mentioned author Shawn Warner said plot-driven stories are dead. Publishers, he advised, want character-driven stories, so, if you want to sell what you write, do the character-driven kind.

Images generated using perchance.org

Definitions

What are Character-Driven (C-D) and Plot-Driven (P-D) stories and how are they different? The C-D types focus on the characters—their personalities, thoughts, motivations, changes, and growth. P-D stories emphasize what happens to characters—the events, action, twists, setbacks, and triumphs.

The Spectrum

Don’t think of these as either-or, binary choices. Consider it a spectrum, with C-D on one side and P-D on the other.

At the extreme C-D end, you have stories with clearly defined and memorable characters, to whom nothing happens. People used to say the TV show “Seinfeld” was about nothing. It wasn’t, but that view of “Seinfeld” may help you visualize the far C-D end of the scale.

At the far P-D end, you find stories with non-stop action, but stereotypical, one-dimensional characters who don’t change or learn anything. Think, perhaps, not about the James Bond or Indiana Jones movies, but the knock-off imitators of those franchises, the forgettable TV shows, movies, and books that tried to cash in on that style.

Near the midpoint of the spectrum you’ll find stories with interesting characters and well-constructed plots.

The Bad News

I grew up loving plot-driven stories. I still love them. That’s the type I write, too. Imagine my disappointment upon hearing Shawn Warner tell me P-D stories are dead.

If that experienced author spoke the truth, it left little hope for me. It meant editors and publishers wouldn’t want what I write. By extension, it meant readers didn’t want what I write.

Yet I sensed the truth of his pronouncement. In recent years, I’ve seen the submission calls. “Give us interesting characters we want to care about.” “Make us love your characters.” No fiction market asked for pure action or intricate plots.

Was I a literary dinosaur, writing in a style gone extinct?

Or should I hope for a pendulum shift? Perhaps a fickle reading public will tire of the C-D fad and turn to my P-D stories as the next new thing.

Causes

What’s behind the trend toward C-D stories? Why are readers preferring them and thus causing editors and publishers to shun my beloved P-D stories?

I can’t say for certain. This blogpost by Abbie Emmons claims character-driven stories are more memorable. We retain memories of distinctive characters longer than we do interesting plots. Maybe, though the reverse may be true for me.

Perhaps, instead, the explanation lies elsewhere. Maybe we live in a more introspective age than did readers of previous centuries. Since the advent of psychology, we’ve turned inward, demanding to know what drives characters, what shapes their personalities.

Or consider a related, but different rationale for the C-D trend. Perhaps readers simply tired of plot-driven tales. After the thousandth car chase, gunfight, starship battle, etc., readers needed a break. Maybe plots had become passe, formulaic, and stale.

Dilemma

Where does this leave me, and all other P-D writers? Should we hop on the C-D bandwagon, go where the market demands, and change our style to the character-driven side? Or should we soldier on, writing the stories we love, suffering low sales, praying for the day when trends shift our way again and plot-driven stories predominate once more?

Solution?

Perhaps Goldilocks was on to something. Maybe the middle of the spectrum is ‘just right.’ Aren’t the best stories really those with engaging characters and intriguing plots?

To attain that ideal balance, writers like me must make the effort to lean toward the C-D side. The fact that I begin with plot and then populate the story with characters doesn’t mean the characters can’t be fascinating in their own right.

Further Reading

If you’re confused about C-D and P-D, don’t worry. Just search the internet for ‘character-driven, plot-driven’ and you can read many blogposts giving complete definitions and examples. I like this post by Yves Lummer.

Now you know what the marketplace wants, at least for now. In your writing, lean toward the character-driven side. As for me, perhaps there’s better balance than I thought in the tales written by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 21, 2024Permalink

Catalyzing Character Chemistry

Forget your high school chemistry classes. We’re talking fictional character chemistry here—human reactions. More complicated, more dramatic, and potentially more explosive.

You know it when you see it on TV or in the movies. Two actors with great chemistry. Somehow, their interaction sizzles and sparks, even ignites into figurative flame.

Written stories, the good ones, portray this chemistry too. When a reader knows two characters separately, and they’re about to get together and interact, the reader anticipates something big will happen.

As a writer, you serve as the catalyst for this chemical reaction. You make it happen, and the only things consumed in the process are your time and some Kleenex.

How do you concoct that chemistry? Author K. M. Weiland wrote a marvelous blogpost explaining the process and giving wonderful examples. After reading my brief summary below, study her post for a better and more complete description. What follows is her process, abbreviated and put in a different order, and in my words.

Connect to the Plot

K. M. Weiland listed this last, but to me it comes first. The scenes where your characters interact must serve the plot. They must move the story along. If you write a scene with great chemistry, but it doesn’t advance the story, you’ve taken an unnecessary tangent and written a darling you must kill. Whether you’re a plotter or a pantser, make sure the scenes propel the action forward.

Put Engaging Characters in the Crucible

The chemistry works best with well-defined characters. If you’ve introduced the characters by themselves earlier, then the reader anticipates the coming interaction. Give your characters different (and very clear) motives, desires, and personalities. These traits needn’t directly oppose each other, though that helps. Perhaps the characters share a common goal, but differ on the manner of achieving it. Exploit all differences.

Alternate the Give and Take

As the characters banter, fluctuate between agreement and disagreement. Give one character the upper hand, then the other. You’re striving for equal yin-yang balance here. Weiland calls it ‘the dance of opposition and harmony,’ a perfect metaphor.

When catalyzing this chemistry, don’t limit yourself to dialogue alone. Give your characters things to do, actions to take. These actions can illustrate and emphasize what they say, or tend to contradict their words, depending on your intent. For example, if a character says something harsh, perhaps she can do something pleasant to soften the impact.

Allow an Out-of-Character Moment

Consider letting Character A say or do something unexpected, beyond A’s usual role. Not only will this surprise the reader, but it will jar Character B, forcing B to adapt to the shifting dynamic.

Let Them Grow

The interaction may well expose character flaws, forcing self-examination. One or both characters may change as a result of their confrontations, which may serve to round out the rough edges of their personalities. A great example of this is C.S. Forester’s 1935 novel The African Queen, and the 1951 movie of the same name. In the course of the story, Charlie Allnutt becomes more confident, daring to accomplish actions for a cause greater than himself. Rose Sayer backs off some of her strict religious intolerance. Both grow as people.

This concludes today’s chemistry lesson. All you mad scientists—er, I mean, budding writers—can now follow the formula for creating great character chemistry, as revealed by K.M. Weiland and—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 12, 2024Permalink

Write With Fervor

You long to write stories like the ones you enjoy reading, but doubt you could. Writing seems tedious and you think you lack the required expertise. You just know you’d get bored and disillusioned after a few pages. The late author Ray Bradbury offered some advice that might help you.

In his 2001 lecture at The Sixth Annual Writer’s Symposium by the Sea, sponsored by Point Loma Nazarene University, he provided great tips about writing, including these two gems:

  • Make a list of ten things you love, madly, and write about them. Make a list of ten things you hate, and write about killing them. Make a list of the ten things you fear, and write about them.
  • Don’t write self-consciously, commercially, what will sell. Find the deep stuff, your inner self. Don’t ask what will sell. Ask who am I?

Exercise

First, you’ll be jotting down three lists of ten items each—things you love, things you hate, and things you fear. No one else will see these lists. Think of ten as a minimum number. Bradbury chose ten to prod you to think beyond the first few easy ones. You’ll be stretching to reach ten, and that’s the point. He’s trying to get you to dive down to your essence, your core.

Given that introduction, I suggest you do the exercise now. Really. Now. Stop reading this and generate your three lists of ten each. I’ll wait until you finish.

Intermission

After the Exercise

All done? Good. You’ve got lists of things you love, things you hate, and things you fear. For every item on all three lists, you feel some level of passion. Positive feelings of adoration accompany each item on the ‘love list.’ Feelings of anger boil up in response to those on the ‘hate list,’ and feelings of dread ooze out of those on the ‘fear list.’

The lists, then, provide two things you’ll need—subjects to write about, and feelings to sustain you while writing.

Subjects

As a fiction writer, you don’t have to write about the exact objects of love, hate, and fear you listed. Perhaps it’s better if you don’t. Use a stand-in, a metaphor, something to represent one or more of the specific things listed.

Say you wrote ‘my spouse’ on the list of things you love, and decided to write on that topic. I’m suggesting you shouldn’t write about your own spouse, but rather write about a character’s love for that character’s spouse. Readers won’t know it’s really your own spouse—they’ll just note the tenderness with which you convey the love.

Caution

I offer a quick note about the list of things you hate. Don’t turn your writing into an angry manifesto. The list should serve as a catalyst for writing, not a prelude to violent action. Take out your vengeance on fictional characters only.

Feelings

The real power of Bradbury’s advice comes from the intense emotions you feel about every item on each list. Those emotions should make it easier (1) to write ‘in the flow,’ (2) to know, at any point, what to write next, (3) to stay enthused about the project until completion, and (4) to infuse your writing with spirit. Your strong feelings about the subject will pass through to readers.

Digging Deep

The other piece of Bradbury’s advice really nails it. “Find the deep stuff, your inner self. Don’t ask what will sell. Ask who am I?” By listing things you love, hate, and fear, you’re getting at your essence, your basic humanity, your soul. Write from out of that core, and your words will ring true. They’ll shine.

Writing from the heart, with fervor, gives you a better chance of reaching readers, too, especially those who care about the same things, readers whose own love/hate/fear lists—if they made them—would reveal some commonality with yours.

Thanks to Ray Bradbury, you’ve got the tools you need. Your lists have fired the coals of an inner boiler. That high-pressure boiler powers a potent writing machine—you. The steam is up, the throttle is open. Go! Nobody can stop you now, least of all—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 5, 2024Permalink

Reader, Meet Character

Time for introductions. When writing fiction, you often must present a character to readers for the first time. As the saying goes, ‘first impressions are the most lasting,’ so make each a good one.

In this post, the team at NowNovel lists six ways to introduce characters to readers, and provides great examples of each from literature. In my post here, I’ll give you my own spin on this topic. Here are the six methods mentioned by NewNovel:

Methods

  1. Relate Backstory. Here you provide a character’s past history, a form of ‘origin story,’ to establish and explain personality and motivation. Take care not to drone on too long, or the info dump could bore readers.
  2. Discuss Reputation. In this method, you cause a known character to think or talk about an unknown character before arrival. That way readers get to know the new character in advance, from another’s point of view.
  3. Show Action. Depict the new character engaged in an activity. The reader then identifies the character with a specific hobby, job, or characteristic gesture or movement.
  4. Encounter Dilemma. You might show a new character struggling with a decision, on the horns of a dilemma. This reveals that character’s vulnerabilities, helps readers sympathize, and moves your plot along.
  5. Introduce Self. In this method, the character speaks to the reader in a ‘Call me Ishmael’ way. Simple and direct.
  6. Present Description. Here the author describes the new character so the reader forms a mental impression.

When to Use

Each method presents opportunities and challenges. You can even use some of them in combination with others. The first and sixth, if too long, can cause readers to lose interest in the characters and lose respect for the author. The second method works well for introducing antagonists, or any character with an air of mystery, and can built tension. You might reserve the third method for action-oriented characters, or those for whom their job or hobby dominates their lives. The fourth method also creates tension and works well for characters whose later decisions impact the plot, especially the ending. As for the fifth method, that works well early in first person novels where your protagonist narrates the story.

If you use the sixth method, consider descriptions beyond the sense of sight. Show readers the character’s scent, and maybe a sound, perhaps a sound other than a spoken voice. Remember, too, that these two senses work when out of sight, around corners, etc.

How to Decide

For your major characters, you may have written summaries (possibly called portraits or biographies) that include detailed descriptions. The summaries help you envision vivid characters with realistic aspirations and motivations. You’ll sprinkle data from these summaries throughout the novel, and may repeat some items for emphasis, and probably won’t use some facts at all. You’ll keep these summaries at the ready as you write the story, to ensure you keep facts straight and stay consistent.

As you create the summaries, give some thought to how you’ll introduce each character to the reader. In each case, which method of introduction best serves the story? If a particular introduction, once written, feels wrong, re-write it using one or more different methods and select the best. By ‘best,’ I mean the method you judge as the optimum for creating a memorable impression on the reader, and advancing (or not slowing) the plot.

Now, get back to writing. You’ve got a lot of characters to deal with, and a world of readers anxious to meet them. As for me, well, you know me already. Call me—

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 28, 2024Permalink

Your Type of Writing

Your personality type determines how you write and what you write. Sorry, but that’s a proven scientific fact (says the guy who’s not an expert on personalities, science, or writing for that matter).

In last week’s post, I cited Lauren Sapala’s claim that two Myers-Briggs personality types seemed most suited to pantsing (writing without an outline), rather than plotting. That got me wondering—does your Myers-Briggs Type Indicator reveal your writing process, and the genre of your fiction?

Kate Scott explored this topic well and I recommend her post. What follows is my whimsical take. To determine your type, take this online quiz. Then skip to my assessment of your type. If my write-up doesn’t ring true, well, I warned you. If you do identify with what I wrote, that proves even a blind pig, etc.

ENFJ

Process—Lucky you keep a notebook of interesting words and phrases. Now post that calendar with the deadline circled, and get ready to educate the world. If you can’t collaborate with a co-author, then at least consult.

Genre—Young Adult, with realistic teenage dialogue

ENFP

Process—Time to brainstorm with fellow writers. Get the feel of each character—know them like family. Let those metaphors and similes flow.

Genre—literary fiction or highbrow romance, where you connect your characters to the big ideas, the eternal aspects of human nature

ENTJ

Process—You joined a writer’s group, and soon became its president. You’ve researched all aspects of your book and could teach a college-level course in each. You’ve posted a mind-map on the wall near the executive chair in your ‘command bunker.’ All that remains is to adhere to your detailed outline.

Genre—technothrillers bristling with advanced gadgets, accurate in every detail

ENTP

Process—Peruse your ‘ideas file,’ now bulging with dozens, even hundreds, of story ideas. Bounce notions off your online fan club, or sit with friends at the coffee shop to discuss the book. Follow the intricate plan you’ve laid out.

Genre—mysteries featuring a clever detective, or other problem-solving stories where your hero contrives an ingenious solution to a bedeviling dilemma.

ESFJ

Process—you take your voice recorder everywhere, ‘writing’ by talking first. Collaboration? Heck, you tell everyone about your book, from the grocery clerk to your co-workers. Outlines bore you, so you write on the fly.

Genre—any popular genre, since you know what readers want, but always in first-person, like you’re telling a campfire story

ESFP

Process—You host a party, and the main entertainment is a freeform brainstorm of your story. A few drinks liven things up. For the actual writing, if you’re not collaborating with one or more co-authors on the effort, you wish you were.

Genre—romance, featuring your clever wordplay. with a huge cast of characters, often attending parties

ESTJ

Process—Somebody’s put out a submission call you like, so it’s time to sit at your well-ordered desk and craft an outline. Soon a theme emerges as you work to achieve each milestone of your plan.

Genre—short stories in any genre, prompted by submission calls, written in clear prose, about characters using logic to resolve conflict

ESTP

Process—Good thing you’ve assembled your collection of note cards with all the facts you’ll need. Now head to your favorite restaurant with your writer friends. Once the outline’s done, get the story written and published, because the real fun is at the book signings.

Genre—any genre where your characters can talk their way out of difficult jams

INFJ

Process—You’ve been people-watching in the park, notebook in hand, so you’ve now formed an image of your characters. You even know which actors should play them in the (please let it be!) movie. No outline will constrain you as you let the characters take the story where they will.

Genre—Romance, of course

INFP

Process—Home now after your daily nature walk, you retire to your writing niche, energized by fragrant incense and stimulated by seeing your favorite decorations. Time to write, unhindered by outlines or any assigned topics, you write what you want. You’re no sell-out to the market.

Genre—literary fiction of a deep, introspective, and moody nature

INTJ

Process—You’ve never shown anyone where you write, and you call it your ‘secret lair.’ A blueprint of your story fills the screen of one of the monitors on your desk. Maybe that first draft didn’t work, but that’s why you edit.

Genre—science fiction, alternate history, or steampunk, but always containing political overtones

INTP

Process—It’s well past midnight, but you don’t care, or even notice. You’re writing what you like. The detailed outline guides you. Thanks to careful research, and your collection of how-to-write books, you’ve learned a lot, and that’s the point.

Genre—mixed-genre novels, the kind booksellers can’t categorize, as well as experimental novels that explore untried plot structures

ISFJ

Process—You’ve done your research and know the plot types and tropes that work for readers. You’ve carved out this time to work without interruption, after first ensuring others in your home don’t need you for anything.

Genre—Historical fiction, in your easy style, all parts in harmony, designed to entertain and educate

ISFP

Process—You’re outdoors, on your deck or patio, or in the park, music playing in your earbuds. In your mind, you picture a reader enjoying your book. You just returned from a trip to the city of your novel’s setting, where you soaked in the ambiance of the place. That brisk walk you took earlier sure stimulated your muse and collected your thoughts about the submission call you’ve chosen to respond to.

Genre—novel-in-verse or literary fiction

ISTJ

Process—Here in your home library, surrounded by reference books (including a well-thumbed thesaurus), outline, schedule, and spreadsheets, you’re set to go. You’ve also hand-built a model of the very thing you’re writing about, to inspire you.

Genre—mysteries with a clever detective

ISTP

Process—Above your desk, you’ve posted a clear, one-sentence goal for your book. Nobody tasked you to write this book, and nobody else could craft it as well. You’re going to work as long and as hard as it takes to meet your high standards. Nothing but the Great American Novel will do.

Genre—any established genre, and you aim for the top spot in it

Eerie, isn’t it, how I knew your writing process and genre from your Myers-Briggs personality type alone? What can I say? It’s a super-power reserved to, (and used only for good by)—

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 21, 2024Permalink

Writing Like I Don’t—Pantsing

Could you ‘pants’ your way through a novel? I couldn’t.

Definition

‘Pantsing’ means writing without an outline—writing by the seat of your pants. That idiom, by the way, builds on the idea of mariners ‘sailing by the stars.’ In the early days of aviation, pilots who flew without instruments or navigational aids were said to be ‘flying by the seat of their pants.’

I’ve blogged about pantsing before, mainly here and here, but those posts contrasted plotters and pantsers. Today I’d like to concentrate on pantsers alone.

To me, pantsing seems strange, alien, almost unimaginable. Being curious by nature, I’d like to try it sometime. I’ve read blogposts by a few pantsers, and it seems like something I might just be able to do. In a short story, maybe, not a novel.

How to

How does pantsing work? According to the Writing Mastery Academy, you start with an idea, get to know your characters, remain open to inspiration, track your story with a simple organizational system, and keep your end goal in mind. The organizational system they recommend is not an outline written in advance (that wouldn’t be pantsing). It’s a very simple outline or set of notes compiled while writing, more like a rearview mirror view to organize what you’ve written.

Ariele Sieling’s process seems similar, but emphasizes different things. She says you should sit down, find your glimmer, say what comes to mind, and don’t stop. The ‘glimmer’ is the starting point, the ‘glimmer of an idea.’ I’d say the ‘don’t stop’ part goes along with ‘keeping your end goal in mind’ from the previous paragraph.

The Secret

But, without an outline, how do you keep your novel from going all over the place, on crazy tangents, or having minor characters start hogging the limelight, or changing your protagonist’s eye color several times? Lauren Sapala’s answer is to trust yourself and your process. It will work out alright. You can fix all those problems in later editing.

Not my Type

In another post, Lauren Sapala explains you don’t have much choice anyway. You can’t choose whether to write like a plotter or pantser—your personality dictates the choice. Using Myers-Briggs Type Indicator terminology, she says INFJ or INFP personalities seem most suited to pantsing. Those stand for Introverted-Intuitive-Feeling-Judging and Introverted-Intuitive-Feeling-Perceiving. Experts often describe these two personality types as the Advocate and the Mediator.

Since I’m an INTJ (Architect), that might explain why I don’t lean toward pantsing.

Point on a Line

Still, there’s hope for me yet. According to Kristina Adams, plotting and pantsing don’t result from a binary choice. They lie on a spectrum, depending on how much you rely on a previously written outline, how detailed that outline is, and how firm you are about sticking to it. You may write at any point along that spectrum.

What Pantsing Isn’t

As you read this post, some of you, no doubt, wondered if the opposite of pantsing is to write without wearing pants. That sounds easier than pantsing (as I’ve described it) and perhaps it’s worth some experimentation by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 14, 2024Permalink

A Sensitive Topic—Sensitivity Readers

You’ve heard of various types of editors. You’ve heard of beta-readers. But what’s a sensitivity reader? Should you hire one?

Societal Change

Let’s set the scene by reviewing recent history. In the past, a majority white and male-oriented culture prevailed in America. White, male writers often wrote about characters of other races, and female characters of any race, in a negative way, with prose full of stereotypes, misogyny, and racism. The reading public accepted this. I’m not excusing this, just stating it.

In recent years, we’ve seen a change. Readers seek stories depicting authentic women and people of color. They’ve rebelled against writing that falls short of that standard, often getting offended by it, and have broadcasted those opinions on social media, giving rise to ‘cancel culture.’

Publishers, noticing the changing market, have sought manuscripts with more realistic portrayals. The pendulum has swung the other way, and publishers often prefer stories with women and people of color as the heroes, and white males as the bad guys. Some publishers have extended this preference beyond the text, to the author. They sometimes favor manuscripts written by writers belonging to formerly marginalized groups out of a belief that only they can portray such characters in a non-offensive way.

Running Scared

For a time, a cloud of fear hung over the industry. White, male writers feared being cancelled, even rejected by publishers due to a gender and skin color they couldn’t change. Publishers, with predominantly white editors, feared cancellation, since even one book not meeting the standard could spell financial doom.

A Solution?

Into this fray strode ‘sensitivity readers.’ Like beta readers, they’ll review your manuscript and offer advice to improve it. But they specialize in identifying stereotypes, offensive phrases, and dialogue, and signs of bias against formerly marginalized people. They typically charge for this service.

The Backlash

A harsh reaction arose over the existence of, and need for, sensitivity readers. Accused of censorship and dictatorial gatekeeping, sensitivity readers would, some thought, act like thought police, rendering all writing bland and dull.

Backlash Against the Backlash

Supporters of sensitivity readers dismissed accusations of censorship, asserting that such readers only make recommendations. The author remains responsible for the writing, and the publisher remains responsible for the book’s publication. A sensitivity reader won’t certify your manuscript as cancel-proof, any more than an editor can guarantee no lingering grammatical mistakes or misspellings.

Rewriting the Past

The advent of sensitivity readers to help with manuscripts before publication coincides with a new and related phenomenon. Publishers now hire sensitivity readers as editors to put out revised editions of existing books, works once deemed acceptable, but now considered offensive by some. They’ve cleansed these revised versions of objectionable content. This has occurred to the works of Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming, and R.L. Stine.

The practice sparked controversy when it began, with critics taking umbrage at altering classics in the name of wokeness.

Today

Much of the uproar over sensitivity readers had died down. They stand as one more resource available to authors. Such readers perform a service, but responsibility remains with the writer and publisher, as it had before.

As for altering previously published works, the outrage here, too, shall pass. So long as (1) the book states that text has been changed from the original to suit modern tastes, (2) the original version remains available for purchase, and (3) no violation of copyright laws occur, there seems little harm. It’s akin to publishing abridged versions of long works, or revising very old works into modern English.  

Readers Rule

To me, it’s all about delighting, educating, or fascinating the reader. It’s always been about that since writing began. (Here I’m talking about writers who seek to have their work read, not those who write only for themselves.) If sensitivity readers help an author’s work connect better with today’s reading audience, I’m fine with them. As a writer, you’re free to use this available resource or not, and free to accept the resulting recommendations or not.

Come to think of it, maybe a sensitivity reader should have reviewed this post before its publication by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 7, 2024Permalink