What’s the Plan, Stan?

Sometimes when writing one backs oneself into a corner and it’s incredibly difficult to find the way out. I’ve just done that with Path of the Warrior… It’s just entered a vague area between an important character development and the rip-roaring finale, and is in danger of meandering around for its own sake without going anywhere meaningful.

The reason? Well, clearly I’ve gone ‘off mission’. That is, events glibly tossed away in one or two sentences in the synopsis have taken on far more significance, but I’m not sure what that significance is yet. Arse.

The solution? Well, clearly it’s not what I’ve been doing for the last day and a half – distracting myself pimping Space Hulk: The Novel and generally faffing about writing on forums and, well, this post… I need a plan, and I need it pretty quick!

So, I shall explain a bit of my mental process at this stage (in order that writing about it may help me resolve the issues at hand and also mean that this blatant displacement activity ends up with some useful outcome).

The sequence in question is about character relationships, and how they have changed following a fundamental shift in the protagonist’s life. All well and good so far. The problem is, I don’t want this part of the novel to become a simple whistle-stop tour of the other characters, a series of unrelated encounters and conversations that update the reader on the changes wrought but without anything actually happening.

Hmm, what I need is a framework. An excuse, to put it another way, for the protagonist to have the encounters necessary to move his story along and get to the point.

There are a few ways this can be done. Firstly, the protagonist can seek out certain individuals. Secondly, certain individuals can seek him out. Thirdly, there’s always chance encounter (but you can’t really use that more than once in any particular sequence without risking Deus Ex Machina).

Right, so that’s a bit more to be going on with.

I need to outline all of the involved parties: their relevance to a) the protagonist, and b) the plot or sub-plots of the novel.

That’s where the problem might lie, thinking about it. As is my wont, I’ve thought quite a lot about the psychology and character dynamics of the story. What I haven’t quite concluded, and is now becoming apparent, is what relevance those dynamics have beyond themselves. They exist beside the plot, not a part of it.

You can get away with some parts of a story being little side-trips and meanderings, but you don’t want to spend a whole chapter detailing events that don’t actually mean anything to the overall story. And that’s the danger here.

I’ve been going about this the wrong way, trying to tackle the problem head-on. What I need to do is get away from the keyboard, back to the pen-and-paper to come up with something that makes these changing dynamics not only character development points, but also plot factors (or more likely sub-plots).

I’ve avoided doing this because I really want to crack on, time is ticking. As is usually the case, it’s probably cost me more time and distraction trying to come up with a solution through writing than it would have done if I’d stepped back earlier on. I don’t think any of the writing time has been an actual waste – it’s good stuff on the page – but by trying to think and write at the same time, my pace has slowed to a crawl, which really doesn’t suit me and gets very frustrating.

I’ve just realised, this is probably the same sort of problem I discussed in my Converting the Catalyst post, only viewed from the opposite end of the rainbow. That is, my issue at that time was transferring from the opening sequences into the bulk of the story, now I am coming down the other side, getting from the bulk of the story to the ending… Maybe I’ll learn for next time!

Okay, that’s the plan – come up with a plan!

Thanks for listening, you’ve been a great help

Project Ssh Revealed!

Hamsterites may remember mentions of Project Ssh! from posts earlier in the year. Now is the time to reveal all:

Space Hulk: The Novel

This 30,000 word novel (similar to Assault on Black Reach and Battle of Skull Pass), follows the exploits of Sergeants Lorenzo and Gideon of the Blood Angels Chapter, as they attempt to destroy the alien menace of a genestealer nest aboard a massive space derelict.

This was written in conjunction with the newly unveiled boxed game - I wrote the background for the Missions Book at around the same time (the second part of of Project Ssh, so to speak). It’s an interesting evolution of the original Space Hulk story, which was written before some of the elements of 40K evolved into those now recognised (for example, the nature and names of the Blood Angels was nowhere near as developed in the first edition of the game).However the basic story remains the same, and I kept as many of the old quotes as possible.

In writing, I keptto the themes of the game, so that the two both give a similar experience but in different media – the claustrophobia of the space hulk , the tactics of the Space Marine Terminators, the sense of tension and the unremitting speed of combat. It’s a fast-paced story, but not entirely restricted to the simple matter of man versus alien in desperate battle. There are a few twists and turns along the way, not least in the experiences of Sergeant Lorenzo, a survivor of a massacre by genestealers some six centuries earlier. Lorenzo battles his own fears and memories even as he must bring the fight to the loathsome xenos. And if that’s not enough, the Blood Angels’ exploration of the space hulk uncovers something incredible from the Chapter’s past!

Order your copies, or come along to Games Day UK, where I’ll be signing Space Hulk: The Novel and my other books.

Crunch Time!

As you may have guessed from my relative silence of late, I’ve been busy working on Path of the Warrior. Now officially announced for next summer, this is the first in a trilogy entitled The Eldar Path, the later two books being Path of the Seer and Path of the Outcast (yes, I know being an outcast is technically not part of the Eldar Path, but continuity of titles trumps pedantry in this case!). I’ve still got a couple more weeks of intensive writing to finish the novel, and then a we break to plan a couple of projects before getting stuck in to The Crown of the Blood.

It’s tricky sometimes keeping one’s mind on the project at hand – I keep thinking about those future projects, blithely assuming that Path of the Warrior is done and dusted, when in reality there’s still plenty of thinking and writing to be done to make sure it’s up to scratch. It’s also been tempting to distract oneself with blog posts – people keep asking for advice on writing, which leads to me concocting new posts in my head. Time, though, is of the essence, and for the moment Mechanical Hamster will have to wait a couple of weeks before I can add some more posts.

It hasn’t helped that there’s not been much to tell recently. No signings of late or other announcements. It’s also possible to veer into some serious displacement activity writing a running commentary on the current project, all of which may seem like a good idea, but ends up taking even more time away from the primary task of getting a novel written.

I haven’t forgotten my hamsterites, there’ll be plenty to come in the future! If you’re after random titbits, you can follow DennisHamster on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.

Event News – Along with many other Black Library ‘names’ I shall be at UK Games Day on September 27th, and I’ll also be signing books and doing other authorly things at GamesFest on 24th October. More details to come…

Addendum – In Path of the Warrior news, you can now check out this utterly awesome cover! This is Korlandril, the main character from the novel. I guess the title and picture give you a clue what he ends up doing!

Rejoice!

It is with great pleasure that I can officially announce my forthcoming fantasy series The Crown of the Blood. You may remember mention of this from posts long past. The series will be published by HarperCollins through their new ‘F, SF & WTF’ imprint Angry Robot, headed by the worthy Marc Gascoigne.

I’ve been working on and off with the first book, also entitled The Crown of the Blood, for more than year, so it is with some excitement that I can make this announcement. I’d describe the series as a mature swords-and-sandals fantasy epic, charting the fortunes and (more commonly) misfortunes of Ullsaard, a powerful general of the Askhan Empire. Expect lashings of bloody swordplay, vicious battles, sex and manipulation, and no shortage of politicking, betrayal and dark sorcery.

Here is the full Angry Robot press release.

Thanks for your continued support, I hope you’ll enjoy The Crown of the Blood as much as my Warhammer novels.

The Walls Have Ears

Well, perhaps not quite. Following rumours that Dennis will soon be making a proclamation concerning his plans to take over the world, enemy spies have been gathering. Furtive glances in the streets, strange clicks on the telephone line, and I’m pretty sure the same old lady walked past my house three times yesterday.

If further (or any) proof is needed, only this morning I caught one of the Squirrel King’s minions keeping Dennis’ base under surveillance:

Brazen espionage!

None other than Foxy McFox! Wanted in four counties following the whole Badger Incident.

Playing it cool

This ruthless agent tried to pretend there was nothing untoward happening, just a morning sunbathe, but Dennis and I know different.

Foxy spots Phalanx on a counter-espionage sweep.

Dennis despatched Phalanx to deal with this interloper, but the sly spy slipped away before he could be apprehended.

World Domination Continues Apace

As part of Dennis the Hamster’s quest to control all of humankind via the global communications network, the insidious mechanical deviant has now plugged himself into Twitter. You can find him there masquerading as DennisHamster (he never was never any good at coming up with aliases). So that we can all keep an eye on what he’s up to, I despatched agent Phalanx to insert a feed into the sidebar just to the right.

On a vaguely related note I’ve switched over to using Firefox as my web browser and I must say I’m enjoying the change. I was sceptical at first – I wasn’t sure all of the additional functionality and whatnot would make any difference to my meagre browsing routine – but so far it’s working like a charm and I’ve already noticed my browsing has become a much smoother and pleasant experience.

They All Look The Same To Me…

I’ve run into something tricky in my last few pieces, and it comes down to character description. I’m generally a ‘broad brush’ sort of writer when it comes to characters. A few pertinent physical details can be given, but it’s just as important to give the impression of characters, giving a glimpse of demeanour, gait and overall appearance – sly, shabby, aristocratic and so forth.

You just want me for my body

Which is all well and good when one is writing about the fabulously diverse human race. However, it tends to be the nature of SF and fantasy that other races/ species tend towards a grouping of one particular physical type. I’ve recently written two novels about Warhammer elves, I’m currently writing Path of the Warrior which deals with Eldar (the Warhammer 40,000 equivalent of elves) and of course there are plenty of stories about Space Marines. In these cases it isn’t really appropriate to talk about fat elves, short Eldar, wrinkly old Space Marines. Sure, there are some physical descriptors of eye colour, and hair colour, and a character or two can be outside the racial norm. In this last case though there’s the danger of the niche cliche – ‘tall, even for a Space Marine’ or ‘more graceful than most elves”. Such comparative descriptions only help if the reader can picture the norm being compared against.

This is where description has to tend towards behaviour and demeanour, and it’s not just enough to say ‘he looked shifty’ or ’she was arrogant’. When trying to subdivide what is basically a trope or archetype, a writer really has to concentrate on expressing the personalities of the characters through their actions and dialogue. If the character strays too far from the norm, the essential ‘elfiness’ or ‘Space Marine-ness’ can get lost; on the other hand, if every character is the same, there’s very little dynamic in the relationships to be exploited – narrative is conflict, after all.

I’m a non-conformist individual, just like all my friends.

I find it best to think of these sorts of characters in two ways – exemplary traits and dissident traits. Exemplary traits are those aspects of the character that embody the wider image of the race. Dissident traits are those that are outside of the normal scope, or at least on the boundaries of what is consistent.

Some characters can be pure exemplar, totally embodying the culture and ideals of their species. Often the protagonist will be such a character, though I find it more appealing if the main personality of a story is a little different from the norm. A character that is nothing but dissident is probably an outsider, standing  apart from the beliefs, traditions and society from which they sprang. Such characters can be very interesting adjuncts to other characters, acting as a foil for their more traditional personalities. However, the writer may be prevented from giving the reader a deeper insight into those racial characteristics because their main character merely observes them rather than experiences them. This might lead the reader to be divorced from the culture being portrayed, associating strongly with the dissident character and having no empathy for the wider society.

When looking at the exemplary and dissident traits of your characters you’ll see where they mesh and where they differ, which leads to a social dynamic that can be explored in the writing. The differing levels of adherence and divergence from the usual racial characteristics need to be expressed through the characters’ behaviour – with each other and with the wider society. This gives you scope to explore the race from a slightly skewed perspective, highlighting some aspects through dissidence and some through conformity, leaving the reader in the position to make their own judgements (if they feel like it).

Dour Dwarfs are sooo last week

For some writers, the thought of having generic racial traits might seem a little narrow-minded. After all, isn’t it a bit old-fashioned that non-human races all conform (to a greater or lesser degree) to some personality template? If we put aside any physical differences between or human and non-human characters, and instead think of cultural personality rather than racial personality, it’s possible to see that all societies have distinctive traits and characteristics.

The trap that many fantasy and sci-fi worlds fall into is the assumption that physical race equals society, rather than incorp0rating the idea that just as human societies can be diverse, so too can non-human societies (Fantasy Novelist’s exam question 68). Different nation states may exist, they may even have several languages. Rather than seeing racial characteristics as boxes to confine characters, it can be worthwhile taking those benchmark traits and seeing how many different ways they can be expressed through action and personality.

For example, The Sundering deals with the elves of the Warhammer World. Not only that, it deals with them in their early history, before and during some of the great divides that later separated them into the distinct kindreds of High, Dark and Wood Elves. In writing the two novels so far, I’ve imbued different parts of elven society with different traditions and values, so that the elves of Ellyrion are distinct from the Caledorians and the Naggarothi and Tiranocii. They all embody the essential elvish traits – aesthetic, sophisticated, intellectually and cultural evolved – along with threads of arrogance, self-righteousness and overly emotive reactions. Yet the way they interact with each other, their environment and other cultures can be quite diverse.

All of which brings me to my final point (congrats on getting this far). All of this is just as true for human characters! Characters from different societies should have diverging cultural values expressed in the way they behave. It’s not enough to simply give them different styles of names and some exotic clothes if they all actually act and speak the same. Personality is influenced by culture, upbringing and environment and the same should be true of your fictional characters, whether human, elf or flangaloid.

Back in the real world: I’ve been beavering away on a couple of projects for the Black Library. The first is related to the Horus Heresy series, the second is my next 40K novel, Path of the Warrior. In addition, I’ve been contract-wrangling and will have some very exciting news soon. More to follow in the weeks and months to come!

More Horror!

Further to my own ramblings on writing horror, here’s a link to a great essay on the subject. Thanks to Sholto on the Black Library forums for sharing it!

Thinking Ahead

Unfortunately, being an author isn’t just about swaggering around conventions and having glitzy signing tours. Sometimes you have to write books! Writing a book takes time – perhaps one of the reasons writers’ blogs can be a little slow on the updates, there just isn’t that much to say on a day-to-day basis. As a writer there are two things that you must develop. The first is your craft, the ability to spin a good yarn and write it in an involving fashion. The second, and equally important to publishers, is doing this on time.

If a writer can build a reputation for delivering manuscripts to schedule, it makes the whole process a lot smoother. Manuscripts are a publisher’s stock, and any good business depends on having  a pretty quick turnaround from receiving stock to being able to sell it. A publisher that pays larges numbers of advances a long time before it sees any returns is risking some serious cash flow problems. On the flipside, nobody wants to rush the editorial process so it is important that writers deliver their manuscript on time to the editors to allow them to do their jobs properly.

This means that one of the most important lessons of experience is learning one’s writing practices and speed. For some writers this won’t be an issue – they may have a completed manuscript to sell to a publisher and all they have to worry about is any possible rewrites. For most, what they will have on offer is a synoposis and possibly the first few chapters of the book. Knowing how long it will take to finish that book is vital to keeping your editor happy and your mind in one piece!

What is true for a single book also applies to the longer term. Unless one already has the luxury of an established catalogue or an indepedent source of income, a full-time writer needs to be working all of the time. Not always every hour of every day of every week, but a steady flow of jobs to keep the bank manager happy and to generate a presence on the shelves. For most of us it is the breadth and depth of the catalogue – the royalties coming in year after year – that will keep the wolves from the door. This means multiple books in a year, which need to be coordinated in your schedule.

Unless something shocking happens – a meteorite strike or invasion of frogs – I will hopefully be signing a new book deal in the next few weeks (an announcement to come when this actually happens). Added to commitments already agreed with the Black Library, this will means that I have eight novels to write over the next twenty-four to thirty months! This is a good thing, but in order to pull it off I need some fairly thorough planning in place.

It is not just a question of how fast I can type, there are other considerations. There are several stages that each novel goes through – conceptualisation, synopsis, writing, editing and rewriting. In order to get the work done, there needs to be an overlap between these projects. It simply is not practical to work on one thing at a time. Insert your own analogy about irons in fires or juggling here. At the moment I am currently writing a novel, have a finished synopsis for the next one, a commissioned short story and some broad proposals for the other six novels. When Novel A is finished, I’ll begin writing Novel B. Around the same time I need to work up the synoposis for Novel C. If the timing is right, Novel B will be finished, or at least well underway, when the rewrites for Novel A come back. While rewriting Novel A I’ll send the synopsis for Novel C to the editors for their consideration so that when Novel B is finished, I have an approved commission for Novel C and can begin writing. At some point I need to flesh out my ideas and spend some time thinking about Novel D…  And so on over the months and years! And here and there one finds time for a short story proposal, or perhaps a weblog entry. All well and good so far, but once we get to Novel’s D and E, we have to start thinking about Novels I, J and K. What are they? Who are they for? A continuation of existing series, one-off books, or a new series? With Black Library that is more of an ongoing process, as one book hits the shelves another one or two are usually added to the end of the queue. With the other stuff, we’ll wait and see how things turn out.

Each of these different stages requires a different thought process, and sometimes even a different environment. Conceptualisation, for me, is usually done out of the office, either in my lounge with a flip chart, or driving, or walking through the park. It acts as a nice break from the more grindstone-like work of putting words on a page. Likewise, while a book is being edited, it’s not wise to simply sit around twiddling one’s thumbs waiting for the feedback. When the schedule is working well, several projects move forward on their own streams, complementing each other rather than competing.

Fortunately my background as a games developer has given me a good grounding in the sort of project management needed for this sort of thing. This past year of full-time writing has now also provided me with more accurate data to input into that process – how long each particular stage of the book creation will likely take. From this, I can sit down with my publishers and arrange delivery dates that enable me to meet my commitments.

The truest thing that I have learnt is not to skimp on the front end of the process. The less preparation I have done, the longer the writing takes, disproportionately since I am having to break from ‘writing mode’ to ‘thinking mode’ at inopportune points in the writing process. This means that my schedule includes plenty of time that isn’t directly allocated to a particular book, but is creative free time, either to come up with proposals for future books, to sort out niggling issues with a synopsis that hasn’t been finalised, or, if things are going well, to goof off for a few days and recharge my batteries.

And to go back to the first sentence, never underestimate the amount of time and effort needed to market a book. Double-check your dates to make sure that a release period isn’t slap-bang in the middle of a highly productive period in the writing process. Writing can often be about momentum, peaks and troughs of productivity that can all too easily be put off-kilter by having to go and do something else. Having to stop and start, particularly at the beginning or end of a novel, is a surefire way to get disjointed and out of sorts, requiring more time to regather the momentum lost.

This may sound terribly dull and detailed for a creative, but it doesn’t have to be. My schedules are pretty rough and ready – and they have to be, you never know when things might change. I allocate chunks of time – three months here, a week there – rather than worry about any particular daily plan. If I need to write 15,000 words in a particular week and I happen to do it by Thursday afternoon, all the good, I’m ahead of schedule. If I don’t finish it by Friday night then I make sure I start bright and early on Monday (I almost never work weekends on principle, and often I won’t even turn on my PC so as to avoid any temptation).

A good, flexible plan keeps me sane! In order that I can let my mind wander free in these fantastical realms , there needs to be a foundation of order to build on. Not all writers are the same, but I bet the ones with a dozen novels on the shelf of your local bookstore had a plan.

Addendum: I covered some aspects of this last year in this post.

Musing on the Muses

A question frequently asked of writers is “Where do you get your ideas from?” Sometimes the question asked is “Where do you get your inspiration from?” My stock reply is “All sorts of places”. Though they may seem to ask the same thing, these questions address two subtly different points.

Ideas are ten-a-penny, relatively speaking, and range across lines of dialogue, interesting themes, plot concepts, visualisation and fully-formed scenes. Ideas can be stolen (or “borrowed” to be more politic), adapted or externally generated. For example, I find Seventh Sanctum an interesting and amusing site. Most of it is tongue-in-cheek, but there is an accepted form of story generation based upon pulling together random elements, whether it is through an online database, the more traditional ‘plot cards’ or a ‘plot finder’ as discussed here. One can also hone the ability to do this mentally, simply sitting down with a pen and paper and jotting down a few random ideas and then creating conceptual and thematic links between them. In this last case, such things are not really that random at all, since it’s the human brain that is generating the words. Often it is as simple as transposing an established idea into a new arena, or combining disparate characters and places together.

Anyway, it is relatively simple to generate ideas if one has the correct thought processes:

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in space.

A Rabbi and a Immam trapped in an elevator together.

A schoolgirl somehow elected to be president.

The property developer that can hear ghosts.

A cowboy transported through time to ancient Egypt.

And so on… These ideas are not much use in themselves, one-line pitches that are the start of a process not the end. Which brings me to the second question – which of these ideas inspires a story? And, during the writing itself, what inspires new ideas that can be added to the story?

Inspiration comes from an idea that generates further ideas, setting off a chain-reaction in the creative process. Sometimes you have to go through a lot of ideas before you come across one that inspires. It is a fallacy to believe that you can write a story about anything. In theory it is possible to generate a plot and narrative about pretty much any subject – we all do so on a daily basis without being aware of it – but as individual writers the ideas that get the juices flowing are particular to each.

Sometimes one needs inspiration at the very outset, dealing with the broadest terms of the possible story. At other times - either whilst writing the piece or creating the synopsis - one needs inspiration to solve a particular issue that has arisen, or to add something extra to a part of a story that seems a little flat. Now and then inspiration comes unlooked-for, in the middle of scene, or whilst writing a piece of dialogue. The synapses flare, a particular word or phrase conjures images and possibilities. Those moments can turn a good scene into a great scene, a decent plot or sub-plot into a fantastic plot or sub-plot. Those are the moments when it is great to be a writer!

I’ve been asked to propose a story for an audiobook based within the Black Library’s Horus Heresy series. I’ve not had time to follow the series with the dedication of many fans, so I ran into some real problems trying to generate the right inspiration. I had plenty of ideas, but wasn’t sure whether they were appropriate, delivered what the readers (well, listeners) would be expecting and yet give that something extra that the Horus Heresy fans want from the stories. This was different from the usual blank-sheet-of-paper that all writers must face; I was looking for a very specific inspiration. I suppose one might think of it as needing to be inspired-to-brief.

My first port of call was fellow author and good pal Graham McNeill. As a writer who has been heavily involved in the Horus Heresy development, he was a natural lodestone of ideas, themes and style. Sometimes it is not enough to sit with your plot cards or your coloured pens and paper; sometimes you need to vocalise ideas in order to help visualise them. In doing so, idea becomes inspiration.

Good things came out of that lunch. Although I didn’t quite have the specific ‘thing’ that I wanted to write about, the ball park was a lot smaller and my thought processes moving along more productive lines. I let it lie for another couple of days, scribbling ideas on the pad, making links between different concepts and characters and established events.

I narrowed down my possible arenas, focussed on some characters or character types I was interested in, and even came up with a rough plotline. All that was missing was the mystical ‘thing’ that would propel a functioning story into one that came alive in my head.

I found it reading an internet discussion. I can’t say what it is (as it would not only be a spoiler but also the idea hasn’t yet been approved and may never see the light of day). It was one of those bolt from the blue moments though, that the ancients used to attribute to the mythical Muses.

Sometimes we all need the intervention of the Muses to jog us along, but I find that with experience, they visit a lot more… It’s a bit like the phrase “The more I practice, the luckier I get”. Inspiration isn’t a divine, external force embodied by nine goddesses, it’s the culmination of a thought process and the ability to observe and integrate the influences around us. It may well be a subconscious mechanism, but the fertile ground for inspiration is created by a much more conscious process. It is not enough to simply sit around and wait for the bolt, one has to pave the way to allow inspiration to emerge.

Don’t take the Muses for granted. Make them welcome, have a chat and a cup of tea and listen to what they have to say, and they’ll be all the more likely to visit again in the future!