Yet More Worldbuilding

I've been reading a lot of space opera lately. I enjoyed David Weber's Honor Harrington books, but the later ones really bogged down in all the techno-babble he puts in. Then I discovered Tanya Huff and Elizabeth Moon each have space opera series with female protagonists. I've really enjoyed those. Their writing styles are different than mine, but there's a lot to learn from. The relentless pacing, use of deep third-person POV, giving each character a unique voice, and use of setting to move the action forward, it's all been very helpful. I struggle with those things.

Active setting is a great device I need to get better at. There's sooo much world-building in fantasy. Some is just background the writer needs, but some stuff is important for the reader to know. If done well, an active setting allows writers to inject info about the world into the story as part of the action, without the dreaded 'info dump'. If this interests you, one craft book that's helped me is, 'A Writer's Guide to Active Setting', by Mary Buckham, published by Writers Digest.

Related to my topic; after I finished the Huff and Moon books, I started re-reading Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. I've read through it twice, but the last time was about 10 years ago. Now the TV series has me recalling how much I enjoyed it - at least the earlier books - so I thought why not start book one, and then see how I feel. The biggest thing I've noticed this time around is Jordan's world-building. Oh my goodness, there's sooooo much of it! His world is lived-in, gritty, multi-layered, multi-cultural, and there's 1,000's of years of history, legends, music and art.

Even so, Jordan doesn't put all that stuff in. The books are each about 700 pages long already - imagine what they'd be if he included all the world-building. He uses events and characters that are integral parts of the plot, but also serve as a way to include details that give a sense of the world's history, cultures and legends, without long explanations that interrupt the storyline.

(Side Note: What the producers have done with the TV series is, uh...controversial... at least for long-time Jordan fans. Of course you have to condense the story when converting it to TV. But some changes are, to me, poor choices. There's 18 books of character development, conflict, action, tension, etc, etc, to use, but instead they make stuff up? WTH! But I'm watching the series anyway. Because high fantasy on TV! Nevermind, I digress.)

The point of all this is, a few months ago I found a submission call for an anthology of fantasy stories that involve a tavern and its food, due by March 31st. You can even include recipes as part of the 6,000 words. I had an idea for the origin story of my novel's main character (MC) and wrote a rough draft. 

Now that I'm revising -- focusing on developing character, conflict, and a more active setting -- I've found weak spots in world building. It's so easy to get bogged down with world-building in a fantasy. I try to do *just enough* to let me start writing, do more world-building when needed, and then get back to the story, so I can make progress. And interestingly, when I reach a place in the story where world-building is lacking, that slight pressure helps me come up with new ideas I wouldn't have thought of otherwise.

An example; The MC has just turned 20 years old. It's an important day, she's participated in a coming-of-age ceremony with other young people from her village. Now she and her family are walking through the capital city to a tavern for lunch. Her parents have visited the city many times, but none of the kids ever have. In the rough draft they're just walking, and the kids are hungry and annoyed because they could have shared a wagon with some friends. But no, mother wanted to walk.

In revision, I realized more tension was needed here between MC and her mother, so their later confrontation makes sense. So, as they walk, the parents will point out a few historic landmarks or monuments. It gives a reason for interaction and dialogue between MC and mother. I can't put in huge chunks, gotta make that word count, but a few sentences would fit.

Except....I hadn't fleshed out the capital city at all. Of course a well-established capital city will have landmarks, monuments, and government buildings. Which implies historic and cultural events. And I hadn't yet thought about any of those things. A world-building gap that needed filling.

Monuments typically commemorate important people, or significant events. I needed some for my story. Including some people who lived so long ago that their actions have become more legend than history. That gave me a place to start writing background.

And that led me to think about the tavern itself. In the rough draft it's just a tavern, built about 100 years ago. To us, vaguely late medieval-ish. But this is a fantasy story. A fantasy tavern needs a wider clientele than just humans. World-building gap number two.

I'm still working on it, but I've started building a world history - complete with calendar change, military and civic heroes, and a legendarium. And I've created new races of people I hadn't thought of before.

In the end, I'll only use a few of those details in this story. But I hope they will show the world has a history, legends, a variety of cultures and customs, and increase the feeling of realism for the reader. And all this for a short story.

I know it's unlikely it will be chosen for the anthology. There's so many people writing these days. The numbers are against me. But to me, nothing in world-building is wasted. Even if you don't put all the information in, it creates more possibilities, ideas that beget new ideas. It helps you write a better story.

Nothing is Set in Stone

 

I admit it, I'm floundering. I've reached the messy middle of my WIP fantasy, and it's....hard. What happens next? How do I use action to show the plot difficulties in a given scene? Which character POV is best for each event? And hardest of all, for me, is working out the nitty-gritty step-by-step of those events in each scene.

Yes, I can change all of it. Any of it. The barrier I'm struggling to cross is I edit too much. Sure, I'm improving the prose, sentence structure, blah blah blah. But I need to save my edits for when I actually finish the first draft. That's when the rounds of editing begin. That's where all those edits *should* be happening.

Anyway, I know all the reasons, and I still have great trouble not doing it. So for 2025, I've set some new writing goals. 

- Write an average of 500 words a day, five days a week (about 2500 words per week). This allows for days when I'm not able to write at all, and days when I write more (admittedly less frequent than the zero days).

- At the end of each writing session, set up a new document for next time that includes only the last paragraph as a reminder. Then Scrivener will open directly in that nearly-blank document. Otherwise I get distracted and start editing yesterday's stuff.

- Work on the pivotal scenes first, then fill in the gaps. Some people have a need to write "in order". I don't. Sure, it's possible to forget details from previous scenes that I'll have to add or change  - but *later*. Nothing is set in stone. Get the darn thing written first. You can't edit a blank page!

- Learn about Scrivener's tracking tools and use them. Scrivener is a great program, with a huge set of functions for writing long-form. But you don't need to learn all those features before you start writing. Just learn them when they're needed. And it's time for me to learn about the tracking tools.

NOTE: Scrivener, if you've never heard of it, is a writing program. It's a one-time purchase, not subscription-based. You have 30 days to try it (the 30 days don't have to be consecutive) before you purchase. It does word-processing, but also lets you organize work, including the manuscript, research notes, website urls you want to save, photos, character info, plots outlines, etc.

The left column is like a binder, where you can drag-and-drop documents and folders in whatever way you want them organized. It also has a noteboard view, where you can re-arrange individual scenes/sections (as long as those are each separate documents). The side-by-side display lets you write and see your research notes in the other screen for easy reference. It can save your writing in various file formats, including pdf and .doc., when you want to send your story to someone else. And that's just some of the features.

No, I'm not paid by Scrivener. I just think it's great software for writing novels - especially background intensive work like fantasy.

- Write notes on paper. Writing on paper is a great way to stay focused. It's more work, so I'm less likely to edit as I go. And there are plenty of times when I think of an idea for the setting, or characters, plot, whatever, that I want to remember but don't have time to sit at the computer and type out.

- Lastly, spend one day a week (at least) doing some other kind of writing, or research. Whether it's this blog, a short story, researching publishing markets or agents, etc. It's shockingly time-consuming to look for places to submit short stories. I submitted a new story to two online magazines in December. There are two more places I could submit to, but one only accepts submissions on the first day of the month. I hope to remember it on Feb 1st. The other's submission period ends on Jan 31st. The response time for all of them is literally months long. Sigh.

So, those are my goals for the new year. Still trying to remember to do them, but I'm getting more consistent. My time has become very unstructured since I retired. You think once you're retired that you'll have soooo much more time. And on a daily basis you do. But in the long term, you don't. And that's the thing, isn't it. I only have so much time left, and I plan to write more than one book. So I'd better get a move on!

Writing Workshop Days 2 - 5

 Workshop Day 3, Thursday Sept. 26.

A free morning. Five of us went to Reston to hang out in a coffee shop, check out a used book shop and talk about writing. It was a chance to finish the material Joe asked for, and give him a chance to read it. I also spent more time writing.

That afternoon we had two formal sessions. First, "Dialogue As Action", with Richard Washer, a college professor. He used Hills Like White Elephants as an example of dialogue action. I'm pretty sure I've read it before, years ago. There's a lot to talk about regarding the dialogue in that story, and he lead a very good discussion.

Then we had a discussion lead by Michael. He asked each of us to summarize the first scene of our novels. He actually thought mine worked well. It begins with action, shows the main character's current life situation, ie: her crippled Talent and love for her son. And sets up for the Inciting Incident that causes her to leave home.

After lunch I talked to Joe. He had some suggestions about my magic system and antagonist, and critiqued my pitch. The pitch needed to mention the antagonist sooner than the last sentence. And the way I describe him is awkward and long-winded. So I spent time on the magic, and figuring out succinct ways to describe my antagonist, as homework.

Day 4, Friday Sept. 27.

The schedule was four sessions; Queries, Dialogue, Suspense & Scene Building, and Pitching and Market Talk.

We didn't do Queries. Few of us were ready for that stage. Michael lead sessions on dialogue and protagonist sympathy factors, using material from the workshop's e-book. My notes of that morning aren't very detailed, so I don't remember whose stories we discussed. If I contributed it was only briefly.

After lunch we had two guest presenters, Art Taylor and Emily Williamson. Art's session was about building suspense in the story, whatever genre it is. He used five or six extracts from best-selling novels as ways to discuss various aspects of creating surprise & suspense. Using short sentences to increase pace. Using description to slow the reader down if needed. Leaving out information to increase tension. I took notes on his hand-out. Hopefully I'll remember to use some of it!

Emily Williamson is an agent. In her introduction she said she doesn't handle SF & Fantasy (sigh). She talked about finding agents, what they do and don't do, and publishing in general, and people asked questions. What she said matched up well with other things I've been reading. One things she didn't do was ask us to read our pitches for her -- something Michael wanted us to have experience of.

After the sessions I continued working on my magic system and the antagonist. Joe wanted me to change the names for the magic in my world, because the terms I'm using are over-done. I kept the basic mechanisms but did some re-organizing and re-naming. Even with all the reading I've done in the fantasy genre, I'm behind on the trends in the last 5-10 years. It was a good exercise and I hope the magic system fits better now with the world I've created.

I finally came up with a good "nickname" for the antagonist. With that, I was able to write a better pitch that mentions him sooner, and brings out his importance in the plot.

The other point of feedback was the dragon. Books with dragons have been popular for decades, and there's a lot of dragon fantasy out there right now. Is the market becoming over-saturated? Will readers still want to read about dragons two or so years from now, when I'm (HOPEFULLY!) submitting to agents and publishers? Cross your fingers! Either way, it was suggested I come up with something new and "unique" about my dragons. Michael had some good suggestions, so I'm going to work on it.

Michael's other feedback was I'm not being hard enough on the antagonist and protagonist. They need to suffer more! I do tend to shy away from that. It was good to have someone point it out. Let the suffering commence!

Day 5 (last day), Saturday, Sept. 28.

Saturday was mostly on our own. In the morning I worked on dragon and magic things. In the afternoon I had a consult with Michael. He read part of my first chapter and gave feedback. He was positive about my writing, which was encouraging. We discussed the dragon more. On the fly, using his suggestion, I came up with a background story for my main dragon character that might make my novel's dragons different enough to stand out from the crowd of other dragon fantasy novels. We'll see.

It was our last evening, so we all had dinner at The Old Brogue in Falls Church. I had salmon and vegetables. I probably didn't need the tiramisu for dessert, but it was good! Going home on Sunday was a long day of waiting in airports and sitting in airplanes. At least Minneapolis airport is interesting to hang out in. Ken picked me up after midnight.

All in all, I'm glad I went. There were rough moments, and some things could have been better organized. Being critiqued isn't always fun but on the other hand, to have people actually reading my work and making suggestions based on industry knowledge was great. It's why I went to the conference. My attitude was that it was my responsibility to get as much out of it as I could, and I think I did that. Now it all depends on my ability to execute my revised plan! Ideas are "easy". Writing about them well is hard, at least for me.

Even better, I met some great people! We've agreed to stay in touch, and I hope we'll all be good writing buddies for the future.

Arrival & Day One, Algonkian Writers Workshop

On Tuesday, Sept 24, Ken and I got up at 2:30 am, and left for the airport at 3:45 am. We rarely get up that early anymore. The dog didn't even wake up. Poor Nike, I wonder what he thought later when Ken got him up and I was gone.

My flight to Seattle left about 6:00 am. I had a two-hour layover at Sea-Tac airport, and the flight to Dulles landed at 5:00 pm. By the time I got into the taxi line it was 5:30. I got to Algonkian Regional Park about 6 pm or so, last to arrive. A long day.

The Park has 12 rental cottages along the Potomac river. We took up four of them. #10 was the meeting place. Myself and another woman were in cottage #12. Perfectly nice, our only complaint was the bathroom fan sounded like a jet engine! That evening we went to Lima de Vera's, a Peruvian restaurant. We were a big group, and the food took a long time to arrive. My meal came last, even though they weren't very busy otherwise. It was good food though.

Originally there were 13 of us, plus two leaders, Michael and Joe. But within the first 12 hours two people had to leave unexpectedly, which left 11 participants.

On Wednesday after breakfast we met in a group to read our prepared book "pitches". According to the brief we got beforehand, the pitch should be 150-200 words, and include Protagonist Intro, Inciting Incident, Setting, Stakes, 1st Major Plot Point, and a Cliffhanger. Although they don't have to be in that order.

I should say here that the focus of this particular workshop is to help you write a commercially-viable novel that will (hopefully) get you an agent, and get traditionally published. Agents and publishers are looking for certain qualities in a novel, including a strong active plot with fresh ideas and unique characters that will appeal to readers of your genre. But that is NOT to say you're encouraged to "write to the market". Trad Pub is a long tough road. IF you finish the novel, find an agent, and get a publisher, it could take years for the book to come out in print. Very hard to predict trends that far ahead.

I'm planning to be flexible with this one. I'll try my best to acquire representation and get published, and after that I can, potentially, do things differently. I consider the whole effort a learning experience.

Back to the Pitch. As a former English teacher & recovering rule follower (and retired), I worked on my pitch for days beforehand. It started out long and rambling, but I trimmed and re-worked until it fit the brief. Definitely not perfect!! But it was a place to start.

After each person read their pitch, the leaders spent time asking questions, making suggestions, and helping them think about the pitch components. For example, it can be hard to figure out the required elements if the plot isn't complete, or the "stakes" aren't defined, or the genre isn't clear yet.

A few people at the workshop had already finished their first draft. Others, like me, were some fraction of the way through. But the value of writing a pitch, even at an early stage, is the mental exercise - you have to figure out how to describe the plot and characters in a succinct way, and find a cliffhanger that ties into the plot and leaves the reader wanting to know what happens next. In my case it helped me refine some of my fuzzier plot ideas for the better.

Michael, the organizer, has had a long career in writing, publishing, editing, etc. He didn't like a number of things in my pitch (although at the time it seemed like it was my whole story). He didn't like that I said my Protagonist is middle-aged, and thought dragons, though flying high right now (see what I did there? ;-) are on the way to becoming "over-done". Depending on when I begin submitting this novel, I could run into agent/publishers who say "I don't want any more dragon stories/dragon characters".

The other staff person, Joe, is agented and has published multiple SF/Fantasy novels. He disagreed that dragons are on the way out, so there was discussion about that. Based on experience, Michael said if I want trad pub, there has to be something new/different about the dragon. Fair enough. That's the kind of advice I came for. Homework to do for sure.

The middle-aged thing. Of the 11 attendees, 8 were women in their mid 30's - mid 60's. The others were men. Pretty much all the women said they'd read a fantasy novel with a middle-aged Protagonist. Joe agreed.

OTOH, Michael, having the most experience being in submission meetings with agents and publishers, had a very good point. Publishing house acquisition editors who will hear the pitch are nearly all in their late 20's. They want books that will make money for the company. In that crowd, "older" protagonists are a tough sell. Which brings home to me that I need to keep looking for good comparable books, or "comps". Preferably high fantasy genre with mature protagonists.

In any case, it's not a hill I want to die on, at least not for this particular book. After some thought and discussion, I realized the important thing about my Protagonist is her life experience. She's not a teenage "chosen one". She's raised children, run a farm, and served in her country's military. Her actual age number isn't important. After all, in a fantasy world what does age matter? Humans in fantasy worlds can age at different rates. 51 years old here and 51 years old in my fantasy world are two different things. Different aging rates are something I decided on when I first started writing.

So right on the first day at least two things about my pitch needed fixing. Our pitches took up the whole day, with all the discussion and suggestions. At the end, Joe asked me to send him some material from my novel so he could read it and give feedback. I was very pleased he was there. None of the other people Michael brought in were focused on SF/Fantasy.

I forget where we went for dinner. But afterwards I stayed up until 10-ish, working on the stuff Joe asked for. Not much chance to catch up on missed sleep from traveling, but oh well. I went there to work and I wanted to get as much out of it as possible.

My First Writing Workshop!

 

It's been a tough summer here in Idaho. Weeks of triple-digit temperatures, wildfire smoke from northern Idaho, Oregon and California, and resulting Air Quality readings of 120 - 170. We started getting up at 7am to walk the dog before breakfast. It was too unpleasant outside after 9am. In July and August all I could do in the garden was water, trying to keep the plants alive.

Most of the plants survived, but my tomatoes were a disaster. They looked like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. Only 8 tomatoes from four plants. The fruits turned a weird yellow and stalled-out mid-ripening. Last week I finally gave up on them and picked the fruits, but they haven't got any redder sitting on the kitchen counter. Blech.

And now, finally, it's mid-September. Autumn isn't officially here, and the oak tree hasn't started dropping acorns yet, but it's soooo much cooler! We've even had rain. No more racing the heat to walk the dog, but we'll keep doing it until the days get a lot shorter. It's nice to have time to sit with our coffee after breakfast, instead of jumping up to walk right away.

Another thing about September is we get much busier. Last night our band, The Acrasians, played for the first Boise contradance of the season. September is also traditionally time for the Boise Highland Games - or Scottish Festival, as they're calling it this year. That's next weekend. The band will be playing, and our Scottish Dance class will have a tent and do demonstrations.  It's a loooong day, but usually fun.

But! For me, the most exciting thing in September is I'm going to my first in-person writing conference! Five days of classes, one-on-one consultations, and lots of writing in between. This particular conference also includes pre and post conference 'homework'. You're expected to work hard, and my impression is there will be a lot of individual attention. Hopefully I'll make progress, and my work will be better for it.

I fly out to Virginia on Sept 24, and the conference begins Sept 25. I'm not sure how much time I'll have to post during the event. But I plan to make notes and write a daily diary of what we did, and what it was like.

So far, the pre-conference work has consisted of assigned reading, and various writing tasks. We've done a character study of our antagonist, writing about the novel's conflicts, setting, plot structure, etc. The most recent homework, Assignment 3, is to submit 3-4 pages from our opening chapter to the conference forum, so conference staff can read it and assess our writing beforehand. 

My main task today is preparing those 3-4 pages. I'm trying to decide between the opening scene with my protagonist, or the first scene with the antagonist, a pivotal event in his early life that put him on the path to becoming the dark, evil leader who causes so much conflict in the story. I'd better get on with it.

Following - What Is It?

On my blog page, in the right sidebar under my Profile, there's a small blue button labeled "Follow" that you can click on. It asks you to agree you want to follow the blog and specify what email address you want to use.

Unfortunately, being a Follower doesn't mean you'll receive a notification when I post a new blog entry. I've been searching through Blogger Help, and there's no widget that lets people subscribe and get email notification of new posts.  So I'll continue sending my own emails when I post a new blog entry.

The following instructions are what I found out about "following" a Blogger blog.

If you can read my blog, you have a Google account. To see if there's been a new post on a Blogger blog (like mine), click on the little grid of dots next to your tiny profile picture and choose the Blogger app.

On the Blogger page, in the left sidebar, click on Reading List. This takes you to a list of blogs you're following. If you've "followed" my blog by clicking on the blue Follow button, then Roen Swynford should already be in the list of blogs.

If it's not, look on the right side of the Reading List page and find a blue MANAGE link. Click on that. To add my blog, click ADD, and enter the URL, www.roenswynford.com.

Even after doing this, you still need to visit your Blogger Reading List each time you want to see if I've posted a new blog entry. (sigh)

I've considered moving to another blog service, but those cost money and I'm not yet at a point where that's cost-effective to do.

I appreciate everyone's patience and willingness to stick with me on this. Thanks.

Blurb Writing & Going Public!

Blurbs, those little descriptions you find on the back cover of novels. Writing one is surprisingly difficult!

In 150-200 words the most common form of blurb should state the story's premise in a way that hooks the reader, introduce the main character(s) and their world, and make the conflict and stakes clear without revealing the ending. And, the writing should have the same tone as the novel itself. I'm not sure my writing has a distinctive 'tone' yet, so that part is hard.

And then, there's editing to "pack in" all the info required. I've gone back and forth about the phrase order of each sentence multiple times, and I'm still not sure what's best.

Here's the version I started with today...

"To avoid the shame of being ‘Talent-blind’, 51-year old Seja works the farm and raises two children in solitude, until her grown son is kidnapped and she leaves everything behind to rescue him. When she learns of a dark Talent behind the kidnapping who's plotting world domination, she must find a way to unblock her elemental Talent and work with an overbearing dragon to thwart the dark Talent’s plans."

It's better than the ones before, but still not right. And it's well under 100 words. A blurb isn't meant to be a complete blow-by-blow description, but I certainly have room for more details! 

This is what I came up after a few hours, about 140 words.

"When Seja's grown son is kidnapped from his trade caravan and the Traders Guild refuses to help, 51-year old Seja leaves her quiet farming life behind to rescue him. A choice that sweeps her unknowingly into a desperate struggle against a rogue elemental Talent plotting to enslave the people of an entire continent to feed his power."

"Once a respected earth Talent, Seja's elemental abilities dried up when her husband deserted her 16 years ago. Until now she's lived alone to avoid the stigma of being 'Talent-blind'. Traveling in her country's wild mountain borderlands she encounters an inept young dragon who insists on helping, despite her protests. As they get closer to finding Seja's son, the unwilling partners learn of a merciless dark leader behind the kidnapping,  Can Seja figure out how unblock her Talent and work with an overbearing dragon before it's too late?"

I'm not happy with the last two sentences, but I also don't want to say too much about the ending. I'll have to let this percolate, see how I feel after a few weeks.

You may be thinking - what's the point of writing a blurb before the novel is done? After all, it's inevitable some aspects of the plot will change as I write. But even with changes I still need a story premise, a main character, a primary conflict, and meaningful stakes for the MC and her world. This exercise makes you think. What are the most important building blocks of my story, and how do I prioritize them. If I can't describe them in a succinct way, one or more might be too weak, or worse, missing altogether.

In other news, I've decided to make this blog public, rather than 'invite only'. I've added Followers and Subscribe gadgets to the right sidebar, under my Profile. Please consider becoming a follower/subscriber. I'd appreciate it.

I haven't been posting lately and that needs to change. There's such a long way to go on my first draft, makes it hard to think of topics to blog about. OTOH, not posting regularly means I'm losing audience (modest as it is). 

Also, I'm not sure how going public will change things for you. I'll send a last email saying there's a new post. After that, becoming a Follower or Subscriber is probably the best way to find out there's a new post.

If you have difficulty accessing the blog, please let me know! And feel free to suggest it to friends you think might be interested. Thanks for your support. 💖