Drawing a Line Under Time

Dennis has passed on this questions from the Ask Dennis page, from Dan. Thanks Dan!

 

“How do you create Timelines?
I’m a firm believer in providing historical reasons as to why things are the way they are in the world, but I’m finding myself running around in circles trying to work out what came first – the flow of history or the events and characters that make it? Especially when multiple races (each with their own colourful and blood-spattered histories) exist in said world?”

 

Who Cares?

The first question to ask is whether you need a timeline at all. Timelines are one of those self-fulfilling staples of fantasy and sci-fi perpetuated particularly by miniatures and roleplay games, but usually without adding anything significant to the story or setting. They are often a shortcut for replacing properly thought out and written history. Quite often, especially with near-future sci-fi, they are hackneyed attempts to justify the designer or author’s creation – ‘2018 – the USA is split by civil war while the New European Federation goes to war with the South Asia Dynastic Hegemony’, or whatever…

Having done considerable work on timelines for Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 I would say that the primary reason to create a timeline, as it is to create any setting, is to inspire readers/ gamers. They can be used to get across ideas very quickly. In the case of Warhammer, timelines contain inspiration for armies, characters and battles that players can use to shape their collections of miniatures and provide scenarios for the games they play with them. They are also used to provide context for the armies hobbyists collect. This means that they don’t exist in a vacuum for their own sake.

So, ask yourself why you need a timeline, and secondly whether this is for publication or your own reference.

 

History is People

Real history isn’t something that just happens and is inflicted on people. People, individually or as societies, drive history forward. In the real world, history is a record of events already enacted. The temptation with fictional history is to impose an outward requirement upon it to give a desired result. This goes back to the first point – is the timeline being created merely to justify some characteristic of the story or races you’ve created? This is fine, but in order for it to work there must be a logical process from the event to the characteristic. This logic does not have to be the everyday logic applied by humans of the 21^st century, but it must be generally consistent within the setting or the race.

As an example, let’s take a fairly clichéd fantasy/ sci-fi trope – the warrior people. A race or people don’t just become a warrior culture because the writer desires it. Our own history is full of examples of highly militarised and aggressive societies, so look to these for inspiration. Who were the leaders who created their first armies? Were there pragmatic reasons for their growing aggression, such as powerful neighbours or a lack of resources? Are there spiritual or philosophical drives such as Manifest Destiny or the White Man’s Burden? Did a disaster befall their civilisation and force them to on the offensive? It is rare for a single circumstance or person to shape the entire evolution of a society so some form of sequence will need to fall into place.

This is where the creator can get away with some Deus Ex Machina, as long as it is surrounded by contextual events. For example, the great Martian president Ag’La’Ha formed the greatest empire of Mars. Had it not been for the meteor impact that devastated the heartland of his Empire, perhaps his ambitions would have never reached beyond the surface of his world. His lands in ruins, Ag’La’Ha and his Martians were forced to quit their world and turned their hungry eyes upon their nearest neighbour, Earth.

Obviously the cause-and-effect of historical events can take generations to bear fruit. Perhaps Ag’La’Ha never led the invasion of Earth he so desired, but seventy years later, with the Martians’ discovery of the HyperLogic Drive, his great-grand daughter Og’In’Uk oversaw the construction of the first Martian Armada.

 

Nations Are People Too

Just as good characters should have development and conflict, so too should the cultures/ and or races with which you are populating their world. If you think about your history in terms of a story of these nation-characters you can start to see that when X did A, then Y would react by doing B according to their internal logic. In this way you can apply the same narratives and rigour that you would to the plot of the story, because essentially that is what you are doing. Just as an individual story demands that its events progress in a certain way for it to make sense and seem real, your history will also take on a life of its own and begin to write itself.

This takes me back to the fundamental question author’s should consistently ask themselves concerning characters, or in this case nation-characters – why? If you answer, ‘because that’s what I need them to do’, go back and examine their earlier history and work it so that there is a causal reason.

This is not to say that every event must be dragged down by some interminable logic, and in fact the odd contradiction (generally through a remarkable individual) adds depth, just as the best characters have quirks and failures.

By thinking in terms of history as plot and cultures as characters a writer can avoid the same pitfalls that will ruin a story, or at the least be aware of the decisions being made.

 

Er, so How Do I Create a Timeline?

You may be thinking that this is all very interesting, but how do you bring it all together? So, here’s some practical advice.

Pick a start point – Though your history may seem immensely complex with lots of overlapping threads, it can be broken down into much simpler narratives. Pick one of your races, it doesn’t matter which one.

A Wide Space – Get a big piece of paper. Different coloured pens will help too. Draw a line down the middle and mark off the major events in the history of one race. Don’t worry about how much space is between them yet, just space them evenly along the line. Once you’ve done this, choose another race that has one or more intersecting points with these events and draw a differently-coloured line that crosses over in the relevant places. Mark off the race’s major events on this line.

Fill in the picture – Do the same for all of your races, drawing curving, looping lines so that each meshes properly with the overlapping events. In this way you will create a visual image of how these events entwine. You’ll also start to see which races have gaps or areas where there should be crossover and there isn’t, or points where it may seem too much is happening at the same time.

Do it again – You may need to create several drafts until you get a picture that best resembles the history that you’ve created.

Dates – Once you’re happy with the overall map of events you can start to apply some temporal sense to the swirl of lines. Pick a single point and decide what ‘date’ that is (by whatever scale you think is suitable for the time covered). From here you can work along the various lines ascribing suitable dates to all of the events. Do this in pencil because as you follow one line you may find that a date previously ascribed to an event doesn’t fit. Be prepared to massage the dates until they fit.

Untangle the string – When you’re finished with this it is then a simple matter of taking a given line, writing it out as a series of dates and events on a separate piece of paper. You then have your timeline for a specific race or culture that you can use. It may be worth keeping that map somewhere so that in the future if you wish to add events to a particular race you can check how it interacts with the other histories.

 

Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day

Don’t try to do everything all at once. The history of the Warhammer world, for example, has been created, redrafted and had events added over 25 years! Keep it as simple as possible to start with and refer back to your first question – what are you creating the timeline for?

 

I hope that helps.

 

Mouse Update: Got traps set but no sign of the little cheese-muncher.

 

Books Read: Just finished the excellent Making a Killing by James Ashcroft. This deserves to be a screenplay, I might have a go at writing it.

 

TV Watched: Really enjoying Pushing Daisies. Witty, beautiful visuals, engaging characters. Love it.

Get Your Synopsis Firing

As I promised at the start, I have now uploaded a synopsis of one of my published novels, Annihilation Squad. Lots of first-time writers ask what goes into a synopsis, so here’s something to look at. However, there are some things to bear in mind with this one:

• This gives a complete breakdown of the plot. If you haven’t read Annihilation Squad, there are major spoilers in a synopsis that you might not want to know about.
• This novel was the third in a series, along with some short stories. This means that the major characters, style and themes had already been established in the earlier titles and aren’t covered in detail here. For the same reason there is no writing sample included.
• Things change! Some events are quite different in the synopsis when compared to the final novel. Some of this was pre-planned in consultation with the editors. Some of it was evolution during the writing process. However, if you do find yourself deviating in a major way work out why this is and, if the book is already commissioned, discuss this with your editor. Don’t go off mission without realising it, or you might not get back on track. Also, editors really don’t like you arbitrarily changing a story that they’ve already agreed to!
• There are typos. I get away with that sort of thing these days. Really you should make sure the synopsis is spell-checked at the least. This is especially true of your first efforts – if the synopsis is very poorly writtern an editor may not even make it to the writing sample. Not only does this make a better impression, it’s a good habit to have. Treat all of your writing, even emails and texts, as if they were going to be read publicly.
• Length can vary tremendously. This one is quite short compared to some of the synopsises I’ve written. That’s mainly due to the straightforward plots used in the Last Chancers stuff. A synopsis can be several thousand words in length if necessary. Each writer and project requires its own level of preparation and detail. Even within one novel some parts may be quite well-planned and intricate, others more loose and written on-the-fly.

Enjoy!

PS I now have a new shiny red car. Hurrah!

PPS It is very shiny.

Hamster Advice

Dennis has asked me to post a quick note to point you here.

Doorstep Salesmen

A response to Lost_Heretic’s comments.

Yes, by doorstep trilogy I mean the overblown fantasy sagas that now fill the shelves of most bookstores. Originally the trilogies formed a doorstep when compiled, but over the last couple of decades it seems that the individual volumes must reach this size in order to be published.

 

I have nothing against large books, trilogies or series in general, but very often these works are uninspired, bloated and needless. They are either guilty of the most unoriginal world-building for thousands of pages with little or no plot or characters, or otherwise tell a story that could be much better conveyed in a 10,000 word short.

 

Somebody at Wikipedia has seen fit to write, “Trilogies — and series in general — are common in science fiction and fantasy because of the artistic importance of complex ideas and the commercial importance of brand names.”  I feel the second of these currently far outweighs the first, based upon the general lack of complex ideas or artistry in most of these works.

 

I hold the doorstep trilogy responsible for much of the blandness of the ‘mainstream’ fantasy market. It seems that many publishers aren’t interested in well-told stories that might only be novellas or single novels – after all, if a piece is standalone they may have to go out and find something original for next week and that can be hard work.

 

It’s part of the pathetic fixation with sequels and remakes that dominates much of mainstream media these days. Publishers, movie makers, computer games developers and TV producers want long-term, sustainable mush that revels in its generic characters, predictable plots and formulaic structure.

 

“Comparable to Tolkien at his best” is a hackneyed quote often used to describe fantasy works of this type. I find the word ‘favourably’ noticeably missing from the start of this sentence.

 

Of course, I am guilty here of the utmost hypocrisy, having written the Last Chancers trilogy, the Slaves to Darkness trilogy and now embarking on The Sundering trilogy. That is, of course, because those commercial imperatives apply to writers as much as they do to publishers and I can’t blame either. The blockbuster movie, the fantasy opus in ten parts, the interminable computer games franchise, all provide steady income for their respective creators. What needs to be done is for those resources to be put into discovering new talent, new ideas, and new markets, which doesn’t seem to happen as much as it used to.

 

This is also not to say that trilogies, series and franchises are inherently bad. There are great titles in all forms of media that deserve praise and are actually better for being part of longer bodies of works. I read with interest Matt Keefe’s interview with Stephen Donaldson, and in particular his comment:

 

“I tried very hard not to make permanent writing decisions based on temporary problems. Ten years from now – assuming that I live and I carry out my intentions and whatnot – ten years from now these books will all have been in print for a while. People will have the chance to read them the way I originally intended which is to be able to sit down and, if you want, read straight through all four books – or read straight through all ten books. Those days will come.”

 

This is a great attitude. Rather than seeing a series merely as a conveyor belt of sequential projects to sustain the bank balance, the body of work is considered in its entirety. This is the difference between drama and soap opera – a self-contained work with a definitive narrative, rather than an ongoing telling of events released in chunks to maintain interest. Of course, lots of people like soap operas and very few go to see plays…

 

No one factor or person is to blame, as is often the case with the clash between creative and commercial. It takes a brave writer to say they are going to stop writing a well-loved, successful character. It takes a brave publisher to not ask for just one more novel. It also takes a brave reader to try out something new rather than go for more of the tried and tested.

 

Back to my hypocritical trilogies. I would say that all three are different. The Last Chancers is not a trilogy per se because it contains short stories as well as the three novels. Each work is entirely standalone and there are huge leaps in chronology and characters between them. The Slaves to Darkness are the most ‘traditional’ in this sense, in that they were written as three novels planned from the outset, each sequentially following the next and following the same narrative thread directly.

 

The Sundering is different, and close to what I feel a trilogy should be, from an arty point of view. It is more like a painted triptych in that the three novels do not tell a single, linear story but rather explore the events of the Sundering from three different angles, both narratively, thematically and chronologically. Their plots are not self-contained but nor do they each follow directly one after the other. Once complete, the works could be read in any order, but all three must be read for the entire story to be understood. Whether this appeals or not, only time (and the sales figures) will tell.

 

In conclusion, a story has a right length. If told too short it will be rushed. If it is given too much space it will be flabby. If you have a story, pick the correct form for it. If you are writing to a pre-determined length, make sure you have little or enough story to fill it.

 

Other News

I sadly report that my trusty steed, an aging Rover 216, went off to the big scrap heap in the sky today. In true Old Yella (Yeller?) fashion it simply had to be put out of its misery. Still, in every end there is a beginning and I look forward to acquiring a new automobile very soon.

 

Looking forward to new Battlestar Galactica too.

 

Mouse update: No traps purchased yet due to the aforementioned untimely demise of my car.

An Un-theme-ly Situation

On the Fan Fiction section of the Black Library forums I recently posted in a topic discussing how Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 fiction might be ‘grim and dark’. Looking at the responses, I felt the call to discuss the subject of theme in fiction.

 

I did a cursory search of various websites giving writing advice, but I soon found that theme was often overlooked or misrepresented. A theme for fiction is not necessarily a particular thing or event, but is an over-riding (or underlying) context for the piece. A theme can be broad or specific, although the more specific a theme becomes the more likely it is to be plot rather than actual theme.

 

Theme is often confused with genre, because certain genres depend heavily upon a dominant theme. For example, horror fiction obviously deals with fear, but the theme of fear can easily appear in any form of fiction, including thrillers, war stories, romance. In fact, as one of our most fundamental emotions, fear is pretty much evident everywhere; fear of the unknown, fear of rejection, fear of death, fear of failure.

 

The same can be said of love, hate, joy. All of these common emotions can be found in all types of fiction. What turns them into a theme is the will of the author to create a story and characters that embody this emotion in more than just a casual sense.

 

To continue the fear example, a character could be consistently gripped by fear throughout the story without ever once being in physical danger. Perhaps the character is afraid of being embarrassed, a common fear, and so will always seek to avoid situations that have the potential for embarrassment. This could lead them to ever stranger acts and decisions, harmful and providing conflict for the character, all because of this fear. The plot and characters are thus derived from the theme and embody it.

 

Thematically Thinking

 

I’ve mentioned emotional themes, but there are many other kinds. Themes can be very deep and philosophical, such as the nature of evil, the meaning of life or the conflict between nature and nurture. They can be political, looking at socialism versus capitalism, the needs of the many versus the rights of the individual. They can be about ambition, betrayal, justice, gender issues or technology.

                                             

A short story will tend to have one theme, while a longer work will likely have one or two dominant themes and several lesser themes, either concordant with the main theme or deliberately set against it.

 

The intent of a theme is to stimulate a deeper response from the reader, whether emotional or intellectual. It engages the reader not only with the characters and action, but the story as a whole.

 

When preparing your story, it is simple to ask yourself the following question: what is the story about? This should be the story rendered down to its basic essentials. It is an unrequited love story. It is a story about a man being laid low by his own ambition. It is the tale of a man conquering his fear of failure. If you can answer your story in this fashion you have your theme already.

 

If you find yourself answering with the plot – it’s about a person who does this and that –  the story lacks theme. Or rather, the writer has not yet recognised the theme of the story. I say this because every plot has a theme to it, because the writer is human (or hamster, in the case of Dennis) and so their inspiration for the story will have sprung from some source. This inspirational theme may not be brought forth because the writer concentrates on the surface elements of the narrative rather than the undercurrent of the storytelling.  If you find yourself answering the question in this fashion, then the next thing to do is ask: why? Why does the character do X and not Y? Answer this in thematic terms – because he loves or hates Z, because he is a communist, because he is struggling to find his place in the world, because he is lonely. From this the theme will emerge and as a writer one can then create a more fulfilling story.

 

Theme or Message?

  

A theme may not have a single direct mention within the story itself, but if the writer bears it in mind throughout (and has the ability to bring this into the writing) then it should exist in the story, lurking under the surface. Alternatively, a story can wear its theme like a badge, constantly referenced in the action, dialogue and in the thoughts of the characters.

 

In the latter case, a theme may become a message. This is when the author puts forth an answer or viewpoint through the themes of the story. The narrative espouses a certain belief system to be correct, and is written in such a way that it endeavours to convince the reader this is the case. Having a message is neither better nor worse than a theme; just ensure that it is done consciously. It is all too easy for a writer’s theme to become a message unintentionally, because the writer will have their own thoughts, opinions and experience in real life and this can come through the thoughts, opinions and experiences of the characters. Simply be aware of what you are writing.

 

Mouse Update: Saw him last night. I’m off to get the humane traps today. 

A Tense Situation

As I mentioned earlier, having now finished the first draft of my short story Call of the Lion (watch out on the BL site for news of when this will be published), I am turning my attention to the forthcoming rewrites of Malekith. Yesterday was a relaxed one after a late night/ early morning watching Wrestlemania (of which a more in my next entry!), spent listening to some soothing classical and reading through the current Malekith draft. What I found a little different to my usual editing sessions was that I placed a greater rigour on the narrative styles and devices I was using. This was down to my earlier post and Matt Keefe’s comments (as well as some emails exchanged between us on the subject). If nothing else, by airing my thoughts and concerns it has helped me to take a fresh look at what I had written with some particular points to keep in mind. Although none of our discussion revolved around the specific text, the thoughts and theories still prove useful and so have proven more worthwhile than simple intellectual* discussion. As in all things, a writer should think about what one writes and never stop learning. This confirms one of those other writing commandments: get good feedback. 

Anyway, within the comments in response to Matt’s latest outpouring the subject of narrative tense has arrived. I don’t plan on giving exhaustive pointers on using tense, and how to do it. If you want to know more about the technical side, get your English teachers to earn their wages and explain it to you, or get a book on grammar, or use one of the many fine websites on the interweb. Since I missed the opportunity on the first one, I now regularly resort to the second and third options.

[As a lengthy but hopefully excusable aside, in response to these comments, I should point out that I re-sat my English Literature GCSE once and my English Language GCSE twice – my first English Lang resit was worst than the first! I learnt more about writing in my first three months at GW than I did in my years at school. Cynical critics may claim that it still shows… To that I would say I ended up with an A in English Lang and a B in English Lit, so na-na-na.]

Back to Malekith and tense. Though a fantasy story it is one that occurs in Warhammer history and thus in the context of the universe it has already happened a long time ago. For this reason, I have taken the approach of a narrator relating the events of Malekith’s life and setting the context for his actions from some unknown time in the future, beyond the end of the events described and thus knowing their outcome.                                                    

For me this seems the only reasonable approach. To follow one of Matt’s examples, it seems odd that a writer would choose to write the story of Julius Caesar in a manner that would suggest that the final outcome of the story is not yet known. That many readers will already be aware of the broad events covered is plain and so the excitement comes not from immense history-changing twists but in seeing the story behind the history.

The other necessity of tense brought about by the ‘historical’ approach is that of the passage of time. By acknowledging the existence of the narrator one can pass on the knowledge to the reader that this story only deals with the relevant bits, and can do so in a way that works with the overall flow of the narrative. In Grudge Bearer, which I did not treat in this historical sense, I deliberately avoided this by having time pass by between chapters, a device that some like and some don’t. In my defence it was not done out of laziness but as a means of conveying to the reader that the passage of ten or fifteen years is irrelevant to a dwarf and seemingly devoid of interest to report.

Malekith cannot use such trickery, as not only does the central character have a profound effect upon the world around him, the march of centuries has an equally profound effect upon him; both of which deserve to be noted for the reader’s benefit. One cannot understand the character without understanding these effects, and to do otherwise than to relate these in the manner of the story would be artificial and possibly horrendous exposition. So it is that my current read-through of the manuscript is geared towards the way the narrative style progresses from grand events to the more personal, and in the maintenance of a good narrative voice that links the two together in a flowing whole.

Okay, so that wasn’t really about tense, I suppose.

  

*In the ironic nature of typos, I originally misspelt intellectual… J

Mouse update: No new mouse-sign to report.