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Wednesday, September 29, 2021
Wednesday, September 22, 2021
The Gift of Beta Readers
The Gift of Alpha Readers
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The following is a transcript of this episode. For the complete transcript, please visit the show’s website.
[00:00:00] So you did it guys. You have written the next best thing and you are so eager to get this out into the world that you have revised it, you have combed through it, and you have all of these things ready, but nobody has read it yet. So what do you do next? Well, let's find out today on Writing and the Tiny House.
[00:00:26] Hello. Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the show. Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy in the tiny house who is here to show you, you busy adults working a nine to five like me, that it is completely possible for you to write that work of fiction that you have always wanted to do.
[00:01:06] And you should. I just recorded 20 minutes of audio and didn't actually record any of it. So we're starting over and it's fine. Because now I get to say the things that I didn't save very well the first time, and it's okay to start over. We're still learning some of this new recording equipment and that's okay too.
[00:01:26] But many of you know, because I announced in last week's episode that I have been working on some smaller things as a way to get my writing more available, to get my writing into the hands of people who are eager to read it and to do it faster than I could do if I were to just write a book just because the time to produce a book is much longer and there are a million different ways to share your writing with other people.
[00:01:57] So I have been working on some smaller things and I am working on them in conjunction with Krissy Barton from Little Syllables Editing. She is going to be the editor on call or whatever, the editor in this whole project of writing a collection of short stories or novelettes. And so with this, I am writing these smaller works, and I'm going to be releasing them on a schedule, provided all of this works out okay. Right now we are on track with this first thing. And so I expect everything to be okay. And I think that this is something that we can reproduce right now. All of this is tentative stuff though. Like this is not gospel truth yet, but in doing these shorter things, I still need to go through the different steps of writing and revising and cleaning up these smaller works of fiction as I would have to do with a book.
[00:03:07] But because the thing is shorter, all of those steps don't take as long to do, which is kind of cool. It's fun to blaze through some of these different steps a little faster, and to get that progress done faster, to arrive there more quickly. And with this, I also hope to have myself on a regular releasing schedule, which means that there is kind of a stopwatch going for each of these projects.
[00:03:35] And for this first one, I am hoping more than anything. And I am taking a leap announcing this on the podcast that this will be ready for sale by the end of October. I'm going to post it on amazon.com and it will be available to purchase there. It'll be affordable. Don't worry about that. But I wanted so badly to share my writing and I think that I'm going to do it.
[00:04:00] So what I'm doing is this collection of short stories ties into the larger books that I am also in the middle of that I have set aside for the moment. So the world that all those things take place in these smaller short stories will tie into that same world. And this collection is called Tales from Vlaydor, and this is Installment One, which is entitled Brigitte.
[00:04:29] And so, yeah, so we did it. We've written a manuscript. We've gotten, you know, a few revisions under our belts, but if you are like me, perhaps you don't outline things very well. I surely don't, I don't like to outline. I like to write and then make huge revisions to what I've written because I don't like to outline, but for this first installment, I did not get any feedback to begin with on the story itself. I wanted to sit down, I wanted to write the story, revise a couple of things just because I wanted to present it in a good way to a small group of people. So I sat down. I wrote the thing. I revised it a couple times. I sent it through Pro Writing Aid, which by the way, Pro Writing Aid is amazing.
[00:05:19] Especially if you are using Scrivener as your word processor, because it integrates into Scrivener. It was the easiest thing to do. I recommend sending anything you are working on through Pro Writing aid before you let anybody read it, just because the edits were easy to do. And because Pro Writing Aid made it easier to read.
[00:05:42] Everybody seemed to have a better time. Pro Writing Aid does not replace a professional editor, but it is a very good tool to use along the way. So I wrote the thing, I sent it through Pro Writing Aid, and then I gathered in a way, a group of people that I would want to get feedback on this first draft, I guess we can call it a first draft. On this first revision, I guess.
[00:06:09] And this is what we do, this is how we approach this. So I needed to get feedback because first of all, I needed to know if this was a story that anybody wanted to read. I wanted to know also if this was a story that people would be willing to buy, and I needed to know if after reading this, they would be interested in reading more.
[00:06:35] And if the results were such that, no, this story idea is not a good idea. You need to switch to something else. I didn't want to spend so much time and energy on something that nobody would want. And so I would sooner scrap the whole idea and start a fresh with a new story idea rather than try to simply make something work.
[00:07:04] And so, because I'm writing to market because I want this to be sold. And so I want there to be a certain audience appeal. I wanted to make sure that I was on track and on base with the very foundation of this story. So that's what I did first. And I recommend you doing the same thing with your shorter works of fiction also, or with your novels.
[00:07:29] So here's the deal. I'm sure that you have heard the term beta readers a million different times if you are engaged in the writer, community. Beta readers are basically the people who are doing product testing for your book. They get your book and you need to know that the book is working for them as books need to work for readers. Does it keep their attention? Is it easy to read? Is it entertaining? Can they keep track of characters? Can they keep track of places? Do they have a good experience? Are they surprised during the surprising parts? Are they scared during the scary parts, all those things.
[00:08:10] That is what beta reading is for, but there's a big step before that. Some people call it alpha readers. Some people call it, I don't know other stuff, but. I had this concept and I needed to make sure that the concept was okay. So I selected a few of my close friends and another person that I'll get into in order to share ideas.
[00:08:36] So I wrote this novelette called Brigitte. It is about 9,000 words long, and I included just some questions at the end as a prompt, as a way to help people give feedback. And I recommend that you do the same. In a novel I recommend actually that you include things like that in sections of the book, rather than just a big, long list at the end of the book, just as a way to get the gears moving so that people can be inspired or understand how to give feedback, just because, especially in this most recent round of feedback, I have found that so many people read just to be entertained and they don't read critically. And that is fine. And so the little bit of help for that is really good for them. And it's good. It's good to hear all sorts of feedback. I've also found that for many people. So with this story, the vast majority of the feedback was positive.
[00:09:45] People liked the story. It was pretty middle of the road, which is okay. But people liked the story. They thought that it was easy to read. It was easy to get to the end. They weren't confused by people or names or places. And so I took that as a good affirmation or confirmation that I was on the right track with this, and I should move forward.
[00:10:14] And that is great. With many of the people though, the feedback was simply, Hey, this is great. I like it. I would want to read more of things like this. And that feedback is valuable for a specific reason. If that is all they're saying, this is great. I want to read more. While that feedback is not going to help you iron out the kinks and dings and dents in your manuscript. And it's not necessarily going to help you with your craft. It can show you that producing work like this. There are people who want to support your craft. And that is very valuable. So even though the tools aren't there, even though the feedback isn't there to help you get better as a writer, it is really cool to know that people are there to support you as a writer.
[00:11:12] And like I said, that is valuable too. However, with a lot of people, they responded to the questions. And I liked that and I took notes and I paid attention. With those questions though, I found that with many of them, I didn't require seven people to answer each of those questions just because the same answers for many of those questions ended up showing up like seven different times.
[00:11:41] That's okay. We live and we learn. However, there were a couple peers a couple people that read it, took notes, re-read it. And then had a really long conversation with me about how it went about, what was working and what wasn't working. And I'll come back to that in just a second, just because people who are willing to put that type of attention and energy into my work, those are people that I hold near and dear. I mean, everybody who is supporting my work is held near and dear, but those are the people that I will go to with the first ideas, with the baby ideas that I need to grow from, the really underdeveloped things that need to grow that are still vulnerable and still scary and still underdeveloped. And working together we're able to come up with some cooler things for the next revision of this story.
[00:12:47] With this, and I recommend this thing until the day I die. It is important to send your work, especially if you are writing to market, it is important to send your work to someone you don't know, or to many people that you don't know.
[00:13:02] When you are ready for that, you will know. I sent this first revision. I will likely try to find another person that I don't know to read this after this next round of revisions, but here's the reason why. The feedback that a stranger gives you is really hard to take, but it is super honest and it's usually really direct and it's really easy to understand, and that matters my friends.
[00:13:30] These people are not preserving a friendship. And so there is no holding back when it comes to what isn't working, what is confusing, what seems silly, but seems banale or stupid. I mean, what other words did this nice person include? But the points that this person brought to my attention were good points. It was clear that I had not conveyed so much of this story clearly.
[00:14:01] And like I said, because we weren't already friends, there was no reason to pretend like we were friends and try to sugarcoat anything. Most of the stuff that this person told me was really good and really valuable feedback. And so what I was able to do is take the key points from her feed back and talk about them with these other friends who were interested in helping me develop the story.
[00:14:29] So they didn't have to worry about stepping on eggshells. They didn't have to worry about offending. I got to say, oh, this other lady said this and this and this. And they're like, oh yeah, I guess that makes sense. And then we were able to discuss together ways to make it better. So with these conversations, some people tend to kind of freak out about it because they don't know how to have a critique conversation. So with these conversations, it is you and somebody else. And maybe a third person who are trying to improve a specific work. They're trying to make things better. If you or someone is coming to the table just in the attitude of saying this sucks. You need to leave it alone. You need to throw it away.
[00:15:16] Then you're not going to have this conversation with that person, but everybody has the common goal and the common understanding that this work is not finished and we are joining forces to make it better. The way that this conversation unfolds is much of the time the person will have notes. The person will have some ideas, but they don't really know how to get started about it just because Cohesion and hoping that everything links together and thoughts and different things like that.
[00:15:50] But this conversation is not going to be a dissertation. This conversation is not going to be like baring of souls. This conversation is largely brainstorming, which means a lot of the ideas and a lot of the topics don't have to mesh in the most beautiful way throughout the conversation. It's okay to jump from topic to topic.
[00:16:15] It's okay to say, oh, are we done with this? Because on the next page, this completely different problem is there. Let's talk about that now. And through those, I had two friends who were very interested in helping me improve this work of fiction. And that is exactly how the conversation went. They put aside an hour, we had a phone call and we talked about all the things that didn't work.
[00:16:42] And we talked about the things that this stranger critique partner brought to my attention, and we were able to iron out things and bring up some different ideas and some different approaches that I should try to incorporate into the next revision of this work. And that happened to me twice and it was beautiful and I felt enriched at the end and they were excited that they were included with this.
[00:17:11] And it was a really good thing. So I guess the takeaway here is when you are searching for feedback, it is important to help by supplying a list of questions. If it's a person who's already experienced with giving feedback, they likely won't pay much attention to those questions, but a lot of people don't read fiction critically.
[00:17:35] And so they they may need a little help with that. And that's great. Also, if you find those friends who are so engaged and so interested in helping you develop your craft, make sure to keep them near and dear. Take care of those friends. And lastly, If you have the people who say this is good, I want to read more, and then don't say much more than that. That means that you're on the right track and that what you have written is good. And while it may not improve your craft, it shows that there are people in the world who want to support your craft. So that's the quick take home for today.
[00:18:24] Thank you so much for tuning in and listening to this episode. If you wish to become a patron of this writing in the tiny house podcast, go topatreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse. And I will have links to that in the show notes of this episode. Go ahead and follow me on Instagram. My handle is @authordevindavis and on Twitter my handle is@authordevind. And have fun writing. We will see you next time guys. Bye.
Wednesday, September 15, 2021
Order of Dust, with Nicholas J Evans
Follow this link to check out Order of Dust:
Follow this link to check out The Ones Who Could Do Anything:
The following is a transcript for this episode. For the complete transcript, please navigate to the show’s website.
[00:00:00] So I have a very important question for you, my dear friends, and this is how we're starting off this episode. Are you passionate enough about the things you like to do? And because this is this podcast, are you passionate enough about writing to be able to release something bad at first, knowing that you will get better later that going through those trials and going through the process of releasing something is part of the experience of getting better. Then you need to take a second and listen to today's guest, Nicholas J. Evans, who went from writing a collection of short stories in high school that he was convinced nobody would want to read to landing a three book deal today on Writing in the Tiny House.
[00:00:58] Hello. Hello. Hello, and welcome to the show. Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy living in a tiny house who is here to show you that you can write that work of fiction regardless of how busy you think you are. And the perfect example of that is today's guest Nicholas J. Evans. He is 30 years old. He works full time. And in his spare time, when he's not playing with his kids, he writes. And he has a beautiful message to share. And we will get to that message here in half a second.
[00:01:58] As far as announcements go with this podcast, I have teamed up with Editor Krissy Barton, from Little Syllables Editing. She was on the show back in March, and we had a wonderful show. I fully recommend that you go back and listen to the final show that happened in March. She was here with me in the tiny house, talking about the process of editing. Anyway, I have teamed up with her to roll out kind of a new program. And I say that as a way to kind of tease.
[00:02:35] I apologize right now, but I want to let you know that fun things are rolling out, provided things work out according to a specific schedule. Sometimes I get some hairball ideas and sometimes the execution is kind of hard to do, kind of impossible to do at other times. And so we are discovering different ways that I can share my writing with you, my listeners, and also with people who don't listen to this show.
[00:03:10] So basically I have started writing some smaller things. I have blabbed on and on and on about my book about my works in progress, and I still have those. And those have certainly not been like thrown in the garbage or something stupid like that. They have been put on the back burner for a second, just because I am eager to share my writing. On this podcast I blab all day long about the tips and tricks to do it. And so I actually want to show examples. Release something for people to read sooner than a book, sooner than a full blown novel, which can take up to two years or longer to write or produce or whatever, especially if you're not already published through a major publisher.
[00:04:03] And so I have started doing some shorter things. They all tie into the books that I'm writing. They are short stories set in the same world as the books that I am working on too. And these, I am going to put on a schedule. I will tell you more about what that whole schedule will look like in a later episode of Writing in the Tiny House, but be excited.
[00:04:30] This whole process is so fun. Writing something according to a schedule is hard and awesome. And it really gets me excited about writing and it gets me more eager to share it with you, my listeners, what I can do, what I have done, some of the ideas that are in my mind. And so it's not just about advice or guidelines anymore.
[00:04:59] Now we are going to actually have the real written word to share with you on a regular basis. So I will touch base on a later episode to give better explanation and better description as to what all of this is actually going to be. But I wanted to share with you today that things are in the works. And so that's super exciting.
[00:05:26] So without further ado, let's go ahead and meet our guest. Nicholas J. Evans.
[00:05:35] I'm originally from New York and I've moved a lot over the course of becoming an author, and I'm writing novels and writing short fiction, so I lived in Delaware for a brief period of time. And I currently live in Maine with my wife and our three very young children. We have three daughters, all under the age of five and I work full time.
[00:05:56] I travel for work which means I, am not home as much as I would like to, be, but I try and use that time to my advantage. And that's where I work on a majority of my stories. So I work on them when I'm in hotels. I work on them when the kids are asleep at nap times, pretty much whenever I get the opportunity. Even going as far back as to when I started writing short stories, I would work on them on my phone, just so I would have the time during brief periods of the day.
[00:06:22] As you can see, Nick is a busy man and the idea of fitting in writing where you can fit it in is not new to most writers. Most writers do not support themselves with their craft. And so to be working a job and to be cranking out novels in his spare time is something that a lot of us are doing, which is so cool and so admirable.
[00:06:44] And so I wanted to find out a little bit more about his published works and what he's working on now.
[00:06:52] I began writing Order of Dust, which was my debut novel all the way back in 2017. I actually was working on a different novel at the time and I had hit writer's block. It was a completely different genre too. And I was like, I need something to work on. What am I going to be working on, while I'm just sitting here staring at a screen not knowing what to put down?
[00:07:11] So I began writing something that I originally thought I was going to release as a graphic novel. Actually, I began writing it in a script format with the hopes of sending it out that way. and I found that might've not been the right medium. So I turned around and started drafting it into a novel. And then around 2018, I was finished up with the second draft of it. And then I had started sending it out to publishers directly because it was my first work. I didn't want to get anything agented. I didn't think I was there yet. And I was lucky enough to get picked up by the Parliament House for a trilogy for my series. So I was very excited about that and I mean, that led to where we are now with the novel release in 2020, which was a weird time for books to release. It was a little bit of a different experience because everything had to be pushed digitally. We couldn't do signings. We couldn't do cons. We couldn't do anything. so a lot of it had to be just reaching out to different digital agencies to take care of things for us and hope that things were going to go well. Luckily enough, they did go well, which led to me working on throughout 2020 after we were already edited and everything was finished up for Order of Dust. I ended up working on the second novel of the series. And I had just finished a different novel, that I'll go into in a little bit that is actually releasing this September for a different publisher. COVID was very, very unfortunate and working from home was very difficult, but at the same time I was able to try and use as much downtime as possible to really hammer this out and give what I feel like is even a better product than the first novel.
[00:08:48] So the name of the trilogy is For Humans, For Demons, which will make sense in the grand scheme of things? So it's For Humans For Demons. The second, book comes out January of 20 22, no release date on the third, but I am halfway through the first draft of it and very excited. And then, Like I said, I do have another novel coming out with a different publisher in September of this year.
[00:09:11] The For Humans For Demon series is essentially about what if modern religion collapsed Similar to what we've seen in history where different religions end up taking the forefront. And this is about what if it's turned on its head and what if in a modern society what everybody believed to be true ends up not being? And everybody finds out about that truth and the chaos that ensues.
[00:09:36] So bringing that as the larger universe, it focuses on the story of one character Jackson Crow who dies at the hands of the Unascended, which essentially to bring it to better terms a soul in this universe is called a Dust and sometimes they do not ascend for different reasons. So they end up remaining and taking on a host basically. They take over a body of a living person and they hide among people. Jackson was unfortunate for him and his fiance, were assassinated by one of the Unascended, which leaves him with a little bit of a grudge, and he gets the chance from the true higher beings to come back and basically work for them to take care of the issue, which is these Unascended who are hiding as normal people are committing heinous crimes that they are not actually being targeted for.
[00:10:28] So it's all about his story, about getting revenge. And then it slowly opens up to this bigger issue at hand, which is the world around him that is essentially collapsed because people do not have a belief structure anymore. And that goes for all of the different religions and how it affects the different groups of people, which really ends up coming out in the second and the third books
[00:10:52] So I have read Order of Dust and it is a wild ride. It is fast paced. It is exciting. It is filled with action and all of the things you could hope from a book like that. And so I wanted to figure out what was his inspiration to write a book like this.
[00:11:10] I wanted to write something That was, based on religion. I wanted to go that route. But originally when I was doing this, the only idea I had was what if somebody had to hunt people? What if somebody had this job where they had to hunt people cause they were different? And it just kept breaking down until I was like, well, what if he's also different? A lot of the influences for that book came right from graphic novels from monga, from old scifi, noire stories. So things like Philip K Dick or even things like Alan Moore or Neil Gaiman. A lot of inspiration from Yasuhiro Nightow who is best known for writing Trigun in the nineties and Gunn Grave. So a lot of that I want it to kind of mush together and I was like, this would just be something fun. And, and that's what I did.
[00:12:00] Book number two was Wing Clipper, that one releases in January of 2022. And that one is going to break into the larger world. The first book was very focused on Jackson, focused on introducing characters and introducing some antagonist, but the second book really opens up. It is longer. So it won't be as fast of a read. But that was the goal. I wanted to introduce people in a way, almost like what Stephen King did with Gunslinger, the dark tower series. The first book gunslinger is very short. It's a very quick read and then slowly gets longer.
[00:12:31] That was my goal here is I want to get people drawn in and then really open it up in the second and say like look how everybody else has been affected by this. And then the third book right now is called The Arm of the Savior. In the third book, we'll close everything out in a very large scale. I've been building up to something with these hoping that it ends in a larger way than it started, where it starts very narrow, very singular, and it ends more global. And that one does not have a release date as of yet just because the second book's not even out, but I would say that's probably going to be somewhere around, early to mid 2023.
[00:13:07] Now while his trilogy for humans for demons is with one publisher. Nick has done what many successful writers have done. And he is publishing another book under a different publisher. Another publishing house picked him up for this book for this idea. And so. Just depending on contracts and agreements, it is entirely possible for a person to put out work under various different publishing houses.
[00:13:39] And Nick has done that too with his upcoming novel that releases this month, even though in the dialogue here in the audio, it says it releases in September. We get to remember that it is now September and this interview wasn't recorded this month. So please don't get confused.
[00:13:57] The book releasing in September is with a different publisher, Black Rose. What ended up happening was I was working on another while I was doing the editing process for Order of Dust. I wanted to work on something else, but I didn't want to dive into the second book without first working with the different content editors, the line editors to kind of get their idea and feedback on that first book. But I wanted to work on something.
[00:14:19] I had been writing a lot of shortstories, and I wanted to break it up from the normal. And at the time I had just come up to Maine for work. So I was very far away. My wife and kids were down in Delaware. On the weekends I was driving down there 10 to 12 hours to see them and then driving back So it was a lot of alone time for Monday through Friday. And I just felt like I needed to do something with this time, so I wrote the book.
[00:14:43] It's called The Ones Who Could Do Anything. And it's an urban fantasy, but it's mainly just about dealing with struggles. I don't want to give too much away, but surviving after something terrible happens. And it follows just a group of young people who find each other because of their misfortunes and discover that they have some innate abilities that lend themselves to each other. So it's, again, it's something that at first, and this is, this is what I loved when I had brought up to the publisher at first, they were like, this sounds like, like the premise of it, like something that we've read a hundred times.
[00:15:21] And I was like, I know, you know, I'm not trying to give you something that everybody already knows just by looking at the cover of the book. But luckily they were like, you know, We read the first three chapters of it. Can you send us the rest of the manuscript? And when they did, they really like, they're like, this is different.
[00:15:37] As many writers bring out a certain work or certain ideas or bring these different things to life. Oftentimes there are specific goals that they have with these things. And I wanted to find out what was the reason behind four humans were demons and this new book, because they are so different, different publishing houses.
[00:16:06] Different ideas, different concepts. And so I wanted to figure out more about that.
[00:16:11] One thing I would love for everybody to know is everything that I write and put out. I want to be very different. And I think the people who enjoy For Humans For Demons and enjoy that series, maybe would read The Ones Who Could Do Anything and feel like, this is different. It's a little bit darker and more base of reality rather than something that's completely scifi.
[00:16:33] But I want everybody to be open minded to that. I think some of my favorite authors branching from every different medium, have always tried to dabble in that a lot of their books are not linear. Obviously there are authors out there who do release very similar books and they do very well. But when I think of my favorite Neil Gaymon I don't feel like his books are the same. I feel like I pick up any of his books and they're different and that's my overall goal. And I wanted to let people know that right from the start, because I want people to pick up different books and be like, this is different from that one. And I love them for what they are.
[00:17:06] And so came the big question. How did any of this get started? How far back does this go for him? When was the first time he put pen to paper in a creative way? And how did all that go?
[00:17:24] I appreciate this coming up because I don't get to share this a lot because I don't want them to intertwine, but I've been in bands my entire life. I was a musician for most of my life. I'm 30 now. I was in bands all through high school and everything.
[00:17:36] And then in 2011, I was in a band called Nora Stone, and we were a post hardcore group. I say we were, but they're still together. A hardcore group. And we ended up releasing a short EP and it got us on a label. We did a lot of traveling. We did a lot of touring. So were on the road, a good amount. We did Metal Mayhem Festival.
[00:17:56] We did Crowd Surf America with CHODOs and Blessed the Fall. This is all a bunch of Warp Tour bands. But we did a lot of that for a very long time. And after the birth of my first daughter, I realized I had to start dwindling it down. I had already started the career I'm in now.
[00:18:11] And I was like, what can I do? And back in high school, and when we're on the road, I would just write short stories. A lot of it, I'm going to be honest with you. If anybody remembers my yearbook shout outs to to New York, if anybody remembers my yearbook, it asks something about what do you want to do?
[00:18:26] And at the time I want it to be a graphic novel writer. And that is in my yearbook. So I would just create characters, write backstories for them. And that's what I would do on my phone to pass the time is what I thought was fun. So when I moved to Delaware and parted ways with the band, I needed something to occupy my time and I did not want to dive back into music.
[00:18:45] I had done it for too long. I didn't want to start over. I ended up just writing short stories again on my phone for fun. And my wife had actually read one of them and she was like, how come you never release anything? Like, how come you just sit here and write in the notes section of your phone and then delete it.
[00:18:59] And I was like, I don't know. I don't think I have anything people want to read. I worked on something and she read the first draft of it and was like, I really like this. Like, you should just try and get this published. And I was like, I don't think people are going to like it, but okay. And then it got published.
[00:19:13] And then all of a sudden I have my mother, my friends, my family, who were like, you know, I like this. I don't understand why you didn't do this sooner. And I'm like, I, I don't know. You probably wouldn't like what I wrote in high school.
[00:19:23] And so this is actually the take home, this upcoming little statement that Nick makes for me during this interview. And this is why I opened this episode with that question of, are you willing to release something bad or at least release something that requires some refinement and requires some work in order for you to get better?
[00:19:45] My biggest piece of advice, would first, I guess we'll start with one. Right. Even if it's bad, even if you just have a story in mind and you're like, I'm not going to put these words together properly, and people are not going to like this Cause that's where I was at. Write. And then just send it in. Have faith in yourself, send it in and trust me, trust me When I say the publishers are going to tell you when it's bad I've had a lot of publishers. I've had my own publishers tell me it's bad. And that's just part of the process is how you get better. And I've said this in the beginning, but I feel like every time I write something new, it gets better.
[00:20:24] And for new writers, that's going to be the case. The first thing you put out there might not even get published. And then you have to really look at the feedback you got and say.
[00:20:31] Okay. They didn't like it for these reasons. Is it the story? Is it me? Is it something I need to change? But at the same time, you want to maintain your own voice and you're not going to please everybody.
[00:20:42] And eventually you'll get good enough. And eventually the right publisher will come along, have faith in your project and really carry you through the way. And second piece of advice, listen to your publishers. If you're going that route, if you're going self published Listen to your beta readers and listen to the editors that you bring on.
[00:20:58] But if you're going a traditional or an indie publisher route, listen to them. Because most of the time, 99% of the time from my experience so far, they want what's best for your book without removing the parts of the book that make it yours. So definitely just write whatever you can send it in. They're going to tell you it sucks and then listen to them when they tell you it sucks.
[00:21:22] And that is the biggest lesson with developing any form of talent, just like learning to play the piano or learning to play a musical instrument or learning how to paint or draw or whatever. It may be different skills that you have at work. So wing. I don't know. All of these things are talents and talents require practice and paying attention to feedback.
[00:21:49] And so that means that sometimes you get to be brave and you get to write something that may not be great. And you get to give it to a few trusted people in order for them to find the holes in it that you don't see. And in order for them to pick apart some of the clunky things and to offer some guidance and some advice.
[00:22:10] So that, that bit of work can be even better than it was when it, when you began it. And so that is the take home from me to you. If you are looking to seriously get into writing, and it's not something that you do all the time, just start, write anything and then give it to somebody to critique.
[00:22:34] The feedback is the most important lessons. With writing so that you can get better hearing how your work can improve is a very vulnerable space to be in. But it, like I said, it is the biggest lesson on how to do it better and on how to make that specific piece better. So that is it for today. If you are interested in reading Order of Dust or The Ones Who Can Do Anything, go ahead and follow the link in the show notes and you will be able to check those out.
[00:23:09] Otherwise, thank you so much to my patrons who donate to this show every month without your generous donations, the show could not be possible. Go ahead and follow me on social media. My Instagram handle is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is @authordevind. Thank you so much for listening and have fun writing.
[00:23:33]
Wednesday, September 8, 2021
Character Dev 101: Personality and Morality
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The following is a transcript of this episode. The complete transcript can be found on the podcast’s website.
[00:00:00] If your character were a puddle of water, could you splash around in that puddle and not even get your feet wet? If you think that your character is pretty shallow, then let's talk about this second installment of Character Development 101. Today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello, hello, hello! And welcome back to the show.
[00:00:46] Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy living in a tiny house who is here to show you that you can write that work of fiction regardless of how busy you claim to be. Last week, if you remember very well, last week we talked about the importance of names. We talked about the importance of if you're writing a work of fiction that takes place in current times, or if it takes place in other times, but in this world, it's important to do some research, to make sure that the name makes sense, to make sure that the name fits. I said points like if your character is 37 and make sure that you choose a name that came from the eighties, likely.
[00:01:38] Also, I invited you to explore the possibilities of what your character's parents might be like. You may not have to do a big character profile thing for them, for this character's parents. But knowing who the characters parents are and knowing a little bit about how they might make decisions can lead you in the right direction toward finding a good name for your character.
[00:02:13] If you're, if the character is parents are conservative, they would likely choose a common and popular name. If the parents are progressive, it might be a different name. If the parents are super religious, it could be a biblical name, different things like this.
[00:02:30] So this allows us to better understand the character because to have a believable name is important. I also said that if your character's name is completely original to you and completely original to your world, please make sure it's not impossible to pronounce. Just because if it's hard to pronounce, a lot of us are not even going to try and that can affect our relationship with your character.
[00:02:59] So it can clue us into the character themselves. It can clue us into family dynamics. It can also clue us into the culture that they were raised in and the world that they live in, if you put thought into what their names are and how you formulate names. And if you think about the names of the other people they live with or see on a daily basis, all of that is important.
[00:03:28] Today we are going to go beyond the name and we are going to talk about personality of your character. So what makes them interesting. What makes them deeper than a puddle of water, that if you step in it, you don't even get your feet wet? Because it is important to have a good, well thought out character who believe, who acts in a well thought out manner and does things in a consistent and believable way. Sometimes we can be surprised. Sometimes it's fun to be surprised by the way a character is behaving. It can sometimes be a part of the plot. If the character kind of goes AWOL and does things out of character, it can be interesting for us to read that and figure out why.
[00:04:28] However . we have established that the character is reserved and shy and suddenly she is taking off her shirt and dancing on the bar top for no reason at all, we can see inconsistencies there, and that can pull us out of the story and it can affect the relationship that we have with that character.
[00:04:51] So one of the things that comes to mind with figuring out who your character is. When we start to write a story, oftentimes we will have a sort of a profile or a document that will give us the important information on who this character is. It's called a character profile. It can include their name, it can include their hometown. It can include their vocation.
[00:05:25] It can include their interests and maybe their manner of behavior. It can include anything that the author claims is important. And usually the author will reference this sheet or at least come to memorize this sheet, especially if the character is in the book a lot. But another approach that we can do is we can take this.
[00:05:50] Person that we have created, and this is actually a very good idea, especially if you have a character that just came into your world, came into your book and you still need to figure out who they are. It is fun to take this character's personality, and to pretend to be them sort of, and take a personality test for them.
[00:06:18] That way you can learn about who they are by answering the various different personality questions on their behalf. You can think about the way that they would react to this or that situation. You can think about their preferences. You can think about what makes them excited. You can think about what makes them scared.
[00:06:40] You can think about all those things. And as you answer those questions, regardless if at the end of the personality test they end up being an INFJ, or whatever personality test you choose to do. I mean, even if it's like, what spirit animal are you, or if you were a color, what color would you be?
[00:07:02] Or one of those aura tests or whatever funny thing. What candy bar would you be? Just responding to those personality questions as if you were that character will make you understand that character better. And it's a fun exercise to do, especially if this character is new to you and you need to get to know them in a hurry, just sit back and take a personality exam for them.
[00:07:31] Having a good deep character is, if we were to look at this kind of many years ago, good character development was usually typical of specific genres and not very typical of other genres. There has since been really a lot of crossover and a lot of, you know, prove them wrong type stuff throughout all genres.
[00:08:00] But there are still some ways that this holds true. There are still some genres that focus more on character development. And there are still some genres that focus more on the plot. If you think about romance, most romance stories have a plot that's pretty basic.
[00:08:21] They have a plot that is not the point of the story. The point of the story is to build the relationship. And the point of the story is to discover who these two people are and how they work together. Usually the plot is simply an engine to get to that type of self discovery and the events themselves kind of don't matter a lot.
[00:08:47] Sometimes it's a war story. Sometimes it's enemies to lovers. Sometimes it's a lot of different things. There are plenty of romantic tropes that we could get into where they're focusing on people more than they're focusing on events, because that's the point of the genre. Another one that can kind of fit into this category of focusing more on characters rather than plot can be a coming of age story.
[00:09:17] You have a person who doesn't know who they are. You have a character who is uncomfortable in their own skin, perhaps they're quirky. Perhaps they have interests that they don't understand, or that makes them not fit in with their peers. And we go through this type of self-discovery process in order for them to come out a normal or an exciting, or an admirable human being at the end, in order for them to be comfortable with who they are.
[00:09:46] Self-accepting, self-love, all that stuff. The plot itself is just the engine to get to that feeling of self love or self-acceptance or finding that chosen family or whatever it might be. If you look at the other side of this coin, there are still genres that are far more focused on the world and on the plot. These tend to be adventure novels, and they fit very well into science fiction and fantasy.
[00:10:22] These also tend to be really biggish books. I mean, you can look at any genre and find huge books. I'm not saying that is different or weird or unique only to these genres, but if we are going through and placing such importance on the world and on events, oftentimes it can lead to the description or the creation of entire cultures or entire people, or the stories of several different people in several different families, because the plot is more complicated and has so much more nuance and so much more facets to it than these other examples that I shared before with romance and sometimes coming of age. So with this, the reader is usually looking for this out of this world experience. They are looking for something. I mean, all books should be immersive. I can completely get that, but the reader is not usually looking for some type of moral lesson or some type of like self-discovery oftentimes with science fiction the hero is already chosen and serves the plot. The hero ends up being the engine for this amazing, beautiful creative plot line to take place, the hero and their friends or the hero and the villain and their friends. And so with science fiction and fantasy, which is what comes to mind, it does not have to only be science fiction and fantasy.
[00:12:17] We focus more on the plot and sometimes the characters and the importance of the characters fall by the wayside. And so I invite you and I definitely do this throughout the drafting process. If you are writing science fiction or fantasy, and you are writing an adventure novel and your main character has one emotion, and that is stoic, which isn't an emotion, but you get what I mean.
[00:12:51] the big muscly guy who beats the crap out of everybody. And doesn't get excited. Doesn't feel sad. Doesn't show emotions because I don't know. That character shows up a lot. And I'm going to invite you to find ways to show that character or to show another side to that character.
[00:13:17] If you are writing a fantasy novel of the farm boy who was orphaned and discovers that he is the chosen one, I invite you to find creative ways to show multiple sides of that character. Sometimes it's like the character gets locked into the storyline and then the story happens to them. And they're just kind of on this roller coaster car with this seat belt that won't come undone and they go and the storyline starts and it goes, and it picks up and then it's over. And. They were kind of just along for the ride. So I invite you to all of the main characters in your book, go through and think about the big things that they are going to do, or that they are going to be involved in and ask yourself why.
[00:14:15] And if you did subject that character to a personality quiz, go ahead and try to integrate that into the way you are outlining your story. And you can do that with any genre. So, if you are focusing more on romance or coming of age, or these other things where character development is kind of the idea, or like literary fiction where you are teaching this really big life lesson or life theory through story, then you really need to nail the character development. That's the whole point of books like that. I just recently read a book that talks about the difference between surviving and living, the difference between simply staying alive and actually doing the living and enjoying life.
[00:15:13] And it was this huge elaborate, beautiful description of these older siblings who have grown up. And it concludes with this very moral related question that you ask yourself, am I simply surviving or am I living?
[00:15:33] If you are shooting for things like that, and you are hoping to demonstrate life lessons, you need to have believable characters do that if you want your readers to continue to read your stuff. However, with fantasy and with science fiction where things are more plot driven, and I'm not going to say that my books are not plot driven, cause that would be a big fat lie.
[00:15:56] I can tell you one thing though, if your plot ends up being weak or if your plot ends up being kind of predictable or if there ends up being some holes in your plot, oftentimes those things can be overlooked a little bit, or at least forgiven, and you can keep the reader interested in your book if the characters are awesome.
[00:16:26] If you have 100% believable characters, sometimes the weaker points of your book can be overlooked or at least forgiven so that you can secure a better readership or a more loyal readership. Right now I'm reading a book called the lies of Locke Lamorah. It's a heist story, which is so fun. It's pretty long-winded, but it has been so fun to be a part of the story.
[00:16:56] The story itself is interesting. But the thing that I love the very most about the book is actually not the exciting story. I mean, the heist is fun and to see the development of a thief and a thief's friends is also really fun and the community has been exciting to kind of be in. But the thing that I love the very most is the beautiful friendship that the main character has with his best friend. These are super morally bankrupt or morally gray people. They're all thieves. And like I said, the entire story is a heist, it's swindling people out of their money, but the beautiful friendship between the main character Locke and his best friend Jean is so lovely. It is delicious. And it is unique and it is special.
[00:17:52] And so even though parts of the story are kind of filled with hot air to an extent, and they're a bit long winded. I like to stick with it because the friendship there is so wonderful.
[00:18:09] So friends go out and with your current work in progress, find the main characters, find the people and the personalities that you are bringing to life in your prose and put them through a personality test and then find ways to subject them to many different emotions, many different emotional triggers and many different ways for us to see more than one side of them. It's okay for a character to trip themselves up. It's okay for a character to not choose the right choice. It's okay for the character to be a jerk sometimes. And to be short-sighted. It's also okay for a character to be wise. All these different things. And so I encourage you to take that and to apply it to your work in progress today.
[00:19:06] So that's it for today, a big thank you to my patrons without your generous donations, this podcast would not be possible. And if you. Would like to become a patron to writing in the tiny house, go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and sign up today. Also be sure to follow me on social media. My tag on Instagram is @authordevindavis and my tag on Twitter is@authordevind. Thank you so much for your time. Be sure to tune in next week and have fun writing.
Wednesday, September 1, 2021
Character Dev 101: Names
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The following is a transcript of this episode. The complete transcript can be found on the show’s website.
[00:00:00] Devin Davis: All I'm saying, guys is that if your one character is Glorfindel and your other character is Ratagast, there had better be a damn good reason why the woman's name is Brenda. Today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello, hello, hello! And welcome to the show. Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy living in a tiny house who is here to show you that the fictional book that you have in your mind is a thing worth doing. And it's completely possible to do no matter how busy you claim to be.
[00:01:02] So if you compare-- just some side stuff, cause we get to do announcements first. If you compare the sound quality of this episode versus the previous episodes, you might notice that it is different. The reason why is because I have new.
[00:01:19] Sound equipment that I am still getting used to. So while I am figuring out how all of this works, we get to kind of work together and to be patient and kind and all the rest until I have all of this figured out. I'm excited for it. It also means there are a lot more chords on my counter, but it's okay. We're doing it. Over the past few episodes that have been just me, I have realized that there gets to be kind of a workshop or at least a lecture series. I mean, I don't want you to think that we are in school, and that we are here to study, because I am not. However, sometimes with specific ideas, I know that a lot of the people who listen to my podcast are fantasy fanatics, but a lot of the other people who listen to my podcast simply write general fiction. And I believe that some of the things that I'm going to be sharing in these like 101 episodes that I'm going to be putting together over the next few weeks, over the episodes where it's just me, I'm going to be putting together some guidelines and just some thoughts and feelings and just some general directions on where to go with specific things while you are developing the bones and the base of your novel.
[00:02:51] And one of, as one of, one of the points to talk about, which we will be talking about today is names. When we go to write our book sometimes, especially if we are pantsing, if we have not outlined very in depth, sometimes characters seem to just pop up as a way to solve a problem or to create a problem if we need that.
[00:03:17] But sometimes characters just pop up and we don't know who they are. We don't know their names. This happened to me a couple months ago when I got to rip my work in progress in half. And now I have two half finished books. I got to include a new main character as a way to make this new storyline or what used to be a subplot and is now a main plot, in order to make it work, I had to introduce a new main character or at least a new supporting character. And I didn't know who he was. I didn't know his name. I didn't know things about him. And so over the course of several days, I got to kind of imagine and think about him, about the culture that he might've come from. And granted, I'm writing fantasy.
[00:04:12] And so the culture gets to be whatever I want it to be. However, it still gets to be something believable. I'm going to be doing a 101 episode on world building. And part of that is culture in the world that we are inventing. And we'll dive into how the culture ties into characters and how it ties into the overall feeling of towns and villages and family dynamics and different things like that.
[00:04:41] But for the sake of this episode, let's get into the importance of names. And we're going to stick to contemporary fiction or urban fantasy first, and then go into high fantasy where we get Lord of the Rings names and we get dragon names like Ingeloacastimizillion if you are an RA Salvatore fan, and stuff like that. With names, this is my opinion, but I feel that it is a very good opinion. With names, they get to be something that is at least easy to figure out. Mind you, most of your readers are likely going to be American and they are going to be native English speakers. And so it is always helpful if you stick to American English pronunciation guidelines. And the tongue twisters and things can sometimes distract us from developing a relationship with the character.
[00:05:45] I have found that in many of the fantasy stories that I have read, if the names are completely new and foreign and strange to me, I usually just forget them. Especially with audio books, if it doesn't strike a chord with me, I'm not going to keep it around in my mind. If I am reading a printed book or an ebook, if I can't figure out the pronunciation, I am the type of person who hates to pronounce a name wrong.
[00:06:18] I hate that more than anything else. More than a lot of things. And so quite frankly, when I was in high school and Harry Potter was becoming more and more famous and picking up steam, I did not know how to pronounce Hermione's name. And it seemed that nobody in my hometown actually did. And so I would go around asking people for guidance with this. Like, what do you think it's supposed to be? So many people thought that her name was actually "Hermy-un". Her her, her Meehan Hermie own various different, weird things like that. And so I think that is why J K Rowling chose to include in the body of her story some pronunciation parts with Hermione's name, just because I think she realized that many of her readers had no idea how to pronounce her name.
[00:07:19] If you remember, there were some exchanges between Hermione and another student from a different school. I forget which book this is in, but this guy was not a native English speaker and he wasn't pronouncing her name right. And so she got to help him out by pronouncing her own name and spelling out the words as sounds in the text of the story.
[00:07:43] By having her do that, JK Rowling gave us a tool to realize how the flip we're supposed to be pronouncingHermione and how it is not in fact Hermiun. So it's useful to include basic spelling rules, basic pronunciation rules, and tailor them to your target audience. Be mindful that it is likely American English speakers who will be reading your book and it's okay to help them out.
[00:08:13] It's okay to throw them a bone when it comes to developing names. For instance, a good example of this, I was going to include some names in my book and I was going to spell them. So I, I don't like to make up too many names. My names tend to be traditional names. If they belong to one family, then I'm going to go like traditional Roman, or if they belong to another family, then I'll usually pick kind of a different origin for those types of names and try to keep things cohesive and sounding like they belong. But I don't like to make up too many names just because my setting is Victorian. And so I like to have more familiar sounding names. Victorian and we go into Edwardian. And so I like things to be more predictable like that and more familiar.
[00:09:09] But I personally have a love for the traditional spelling of some of the Celtic names like Shivonne and Alva, and some other things like that. There is a character in my book named Alva, but I chose to spell her name A L V A just because American readers are the people who are going to be reading my book. If I were to spell it A I L B H E nobody would know what that is. They would think it would be Ail-buh-huh or Ailby or some unpronounceable problem. I also love the name. Siobhan. Siobhan is traditionally spelled, if you go with the Gaelic spelling, it is traditionally spelled S I O B H A N. I have an old friend named Siobhan who lives in Southern France.
[00:10:11] And it was the first time I had seen her name and I wasn't familiar with Gaelic pronunciation when I first met her. Just the rules for it are different, but I don't expect people to know the rules for Gaelic pronunciations. I don't expect people to know that S I in Gaelic spellings is pronounced Shh, or B H is pronounced with a V sound. I don't expect people to know that. And so if I choose to include the name, I do my best to Americanize it just so people don't have to worry too much about what it's going to be. Or they don't have to worry too much about pronouncing the name wrong. If it's pretty easy to figure out, even if it is a little bit different, I've found it's easier to connect to a character if I can say their name. If you think differently, please go ahead and send me a message on Instagram and we can have a discussion, but that is certainly a guideline that I would choose. Also, if you are writing urban fantasy, or if you are writing contemporary fiction, we can move away from fantasy for a little second.
[00:11:38] A good idea-- and I picked this tidbit from the author Alexa Donne. She is a YA thriller author. And she has some brilliant advice on her Booktube channel on YouTube. She brought a thing to my attention that I wouldn't have thought of before, or I wouldn't have put together the logic of it before.
[00:12:03] If your character is 21 years old, living in a modern time, living in, you know, New York or wherever they are, it means that their name was likely popular when they were born. If you choose to consult like a baby name book, and you choose to look through a baby name book for today, for 2021, those names are for today. Those names are for 2021. If your character is 21 years old, it means that they were born in the year 2000. And the baby book names would likely be sorted differently and chosen differently. If your character is 37, they would have been born in the mid eighties and it is entirely possible that they could have a different name than if they were born in the year 2000 or if they were born in the year 2021. In modern days, I have noticed that there is a resurgence right now of some names that were popular and common when my grandmother was a little girl, which is awesome. But that's how the trends are right now. And so it's important to pay attention to that.
[00:13:32] Also with the names, with the things, sometimes it is also very valuable to think about who this character's parents might've been. It's okay if the parents aren't in the book and it's okay if you don't focus a ton on developing like a character profile for the parents and like giving the dad a job and an address and those different things. But if you picture this kid being straight laced and a rule follower, and always telling the truth, it's possible that character's parents might've been strict or conservative or whatever. And the reason why is because if the parents were more traditional, they would likely name them a more traditional name.
[00:14:26] If the kid was born in the eighties and their parents were more traditional, this kid might have the name of Brittany. If the kid was born in the seventies and the parents were hippies, it might be like Rainbow Star or something. Knowing how the parents would have approached that can be valuable as to how you would name them.
[00:14:47] If the parents are conservative and you want to name the kid like Spike or Blade or something, there should be a very good reason for that. It's just because conservative parents, aren't very likely going to name their kid Blade or Spike or things like that.
[00:15:09] Moving over to high fantasy, I personally like to mimic regions of our world to include in my book, just because of the familiarity of it. I like names to resemble each other. I like family names to resemble each other or a certain culture to kind of have all of the common sounds of names. So the one island village that I have, to me, the culture itself represents to an extent some Japanese village fishermen culture. And so I chose to have all of the names be traditional Japanese. For a family that lives on the mainland on the main continent way further north, for the main family of my series, I have chosen those to be more traditional Roman or traditional Greek. And so we have names like Demetrius and Brontes and different things like that.
[00:16:14] When we're doing that, it is okay to have your names be as off the wall as you want. I mean, heaven knows Lord of the Rings, J R R Tolkien invented like new languages and stuff for the world that he was creating. And the names certainly add to the immersion of that world. Having names, having them all sound the same, having them all be like the Elvish names are absolutely beautiful to me.
[00:16:44] They're very sing song. They're just lovely. They roll off the tongue if you know how to pronounce them. And that's fine. Tolkien is a little bit different. Odds are you are not Tolkien not because of your capacity to write, but because you were not born at the same time that Tolkien was born. You are writing to a modern audience, and a modern audience has different expectations than the audience that Tolkien was writing for back in the day.
[00:17:19] And so things get to be a little bit different just because different people are going to be reading your book. And so if you wish to, it is okay to have some different things resemble things in this real world, just so it can be a bit more approachable and more digestible to your reader, just because remember your reader does not live in your world. It's okay to help them out. And it's okay to have an amount of familiarity with whatever sometimes. If absolutely everything in your manuscript is brand new and requires a ton of explanation because there's nothing in it that is just inherently knowable or inherently understood because it's not common in this real world, then odds are your manuscript will be filled with a lot of info dump. It would be filled with a lot of exposition and it will be really heavy to get through and really hard to kind of wade through. It'd be like wading through like heavy sticky mud.
[00:18:36] So that's it for today. That is this character development 101 episode on characters and names. A quick shout out to my patrons. Thank you so much for your generosity. This show could not be like this without my patrons giving like they do. If you wish to become a patron, go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse, and you can get early access to these episodes. You can get an additional episode every month and you can spend quality time with me on our private chat rooms on Discord.
[00:19:10] Again, follow me on social media. My Instagram tag is @authordevindavis, my Twitter is @authordevind. Thank you so much for your time, guys. We will see you next week and have fun writing.
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