Writer's Block, Part 2

When writer's block happens because the characters arcs don't make sense anymore.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:00:00] So we were talking about writer's block and let's talk about another thing or another type of writer's block. Sometimes it's not so much that we don't understand the events that happened; it's that we don't understand our characters. So as we carry on with our second part of this writer's block series, we are going to delve into story arcs.

[00:00:30] Today on writing in the tiny house. Hello? Hello. Hello, and welcome to today's episode. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy who lives in a tiny house in Northern Utah who writes things and then likes to share what the writing process looks like. The whole point is to give you the tools and the inspiration and the knowledge necessary for you to start and finish a short story in three months, or to start and finish a novel in 18 months and above all to give you the wisdom and the foresight to understand that sometimes that timeline will need to be adjusted.

[00:01:32] I would dare say almost every time. Sometimes not understanding the time commitment that something like this has, can deter us from even getting started. And so understanding that it is something that can clip along at a fast pace if we want it to, and if we are prepared to make that happen can be valuable for a lot of us to even get started.

[00:01:53] So last week we talked about our cold hard outline. We talked about the scenes and we talked about reorganizing scenes. Revisiting and revising our outlines as a way to combat writer's block. Especially if we are writing a plot heavy book. If we are writing something super plot driven as fantasy and science fiction tend to be, sometimes our outlines need to be a bit more dynamic.

[00:02:23] And sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to take a day off of our word count goals in order to revise the map of what our story is going to be and where things are headed. So today, and this is a situation that I ran into pretty recently. It is not so much that we don't understand the structure of the story itself.

[00:02:47] It's not so much that we don't understand the roadmap. It's that as we get into the story and as we start composing and drafting, and these characters come more to life, sometimes we don't understand our characters very well. And so we get to a point where we simply don't know where else to go just because what is on our outline no longer matches our characters.

[00:03:17] I mentioned last week that I am in a lot of different Facebook groups, all geared toward creative writing. And the idea of writer's block comes up a lot and I like to pay attention and see what people suggest and see what people are doing as ways as a way to combat writer's block.

[00:03:37] And one thing that some people suggested recently that I really liked was the idea of sitting down and feeling out your characters. So the lady in the Facebook group suggested interviewing your characters. That can be whatever you want it to be. If you want to actually sit down and talk to a person or whatever, or if you want to like, say things in your character's stead or perhaps write out a script, whatever things look like. The point is to sit down and feel out your characters.

[00:04:20] With a work in progress, it can be very valuable to actually keep a running outline of where you have been so that you can remember where things went and where things are going and where some of the character things where some of the huge developmental character things happened and how they happened and what they were for.

[00:04:41] It can be really valuable to tease all of that apart into the separate character arcs so that you can see that if your main character is a woman named , which is the case in one of my books and you see that Hoshi co makes it to the main island and does the things, and gets in touch with an art collector and whatever else.

[00:05:06] you can see where the big important events happened and you can see why, and you can ask yourself does all of that make sense and does all of that support where the character needs to be now and where the character needs to be here in half a second when I keep writing. And oftentimes the answer is not quite yes.

[00:05:33] So it's important to do this with all of your characters that you are following through your story. All of the main characters, sit down and see where they're going. See where they have come from the big stepping stones that they stepped on or stepped over in order to get where they are now.

[00:05:51] And now as a character who is well developed and more into this story, because the story is more real to you at this point. And. You can further flesh out and further develop things in a different way, from a better informed stand point than you did before you started. Just because, I mean, if we're getting writer's block, odds are we're a chunk in, we're a chunk into the story.

[00:06:19] And we understand the story better than we did before we started. And so it is better to start making decisions like that at this point. Sometimes the inspiration or the solution to the writer's block can be that a character needs a specific thing or a certain event that isn't in your outline right now, needs to happen in order to get your character into a more believable place or some of the things that you wrote already may not have built up your character or your scene to a place where it needs to be.

[00:06:59] I experienced that pretty recently, actually I was getting to the end of a scene. I felt pretty good about the way that I had written it up to that point. And yet here I was standing. So I have a standing desk in the tiny house, right now I don't have an office chair. I've been meaning to buy an office chair for like seven months and I still haven't done it, but I was standing here.

[00:07:24] Dumbfounded mouth agape sort of staring at my computer because I could not figure out what was going on next, what needed to happen next. And what I came to realize was the source of the writer's block wasn't so much what was coming next. The source of the writer's block came from the previous couple of pages that I had written didn't build up the characters and the scene to a place where it needed to be.

[00:07:53] It had been a slightly different direction. And so I needed to go through what I had already written and revise stuff and delete stuff. And add some stuff in order to correct the course that the story had already been going. And once I did that, the writer's block was gone. I was able to get back into the flow of writing again, and I was able to touch base with the characters and see where they needed to be and plug in the necessary things in order to have a good story.

[00:08:26] That is just a simple, but a very good thing. It ties back into outlining, but you can see that it's bigger than just outlining. I mean, writer's block is bigger than just simply not being able to write. There are a lot of facets that go into writer's block and I wanted to touch on some of these things that go into that. So last week we talked about just structure of the story this week. Sometimes it's the character arc. Sometimes the characters need a thing, and sometimes what you have written does not support where they need to go. And so some revamping or some adding or some deleting or whatever is the right call to make that change and to get the flow back into the story.

[00:09:13] And next week as we conclude this series on writer's block, we are going to talk about your inner environment. Sometimes it's not actually about writing sometimes it's about you. So be sure to tune in next week, as we wrap up this little mini series on writer's block, on writing in the tiny house. Thank you so much, guys.

[00:09:36] Bye.

[00:09:37] 

[00:09:37] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time. 

Check out this episode!

Writer's Block, Part 1

One way to get over writer’s block is to outline! Part 1 of 3!

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

 

[00:00:00] We've all been there before that moment where you're sitting in your dark room. And you have your outline ready. You have your character maps ready, and you have been plugging along your work in progress without any problems at all. And suddenly you get to a point in your manuscript where you simply cannot write more words, even though the story isn't finished. Today we are starting our three-part series on an in-depth look at writer's block. Today on Writing in the Tiny House. 

[00:00:38] Hello. Hello. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of writing in the tiny house. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy who lives in a tiny house in Northern Utah, who likes to talk about creative writing.

[00:01:15] And I've done an amount of creative writing in my day. I've also done a lot of other types of writing. Anyway. The whole point of this podcast is to give you the information and the tools and the motivation for you to get started on a short story and have it finished in three months, or to get started on a novel and have that finished in 18 months.

[00:01:38] And to give you the wisdom to adjust that timeline, if you need to. I mean, if we look at last fall, I finished the short story, Bridgette from beginning to end, including edits, including beta readers, including first, second drafts, all the things clear to the copy edits in eight weeks. And it's a good short story.

[00:02:02] It's still available on amazon.com if you want to check it out today and it's a process that can be done again. However, most writing projects take longer than that. But it's good to know that it can be done quickly if it needs to be. And it's good to know if you are not an experienced writer, it's okay to have an idea about how long things can take, if you develop more experience.

[00:02:26] So today we are starting a three part series on the dreaded writer's block. I have touched on writer's block a very little bit in previous episodes. And up until very recently, I had the false notion that in order to get over writer's block, you need to simply outline better. I have since come to develop a new attitude toward writer's block.

[00:02:55] I am a member in many different Facebook groups that are all dedicated toward creative writing, and writers block comes up a lot. And I pay attention to some of the things that people suggest and some of the things that people say they do in order to overcome writer's block. And that's why I'm going to be doing this three part series, just because writer's block is more than simply, you need to outline better.

[00:03:21] It can be various different things. So with this episode today, we are going to be talking about outlining. We're going to be talking about the sequence of events in your novel and some different things to look for and some different ways to approach that. Next week we are going to be looking at some of the bigger picture of your novel, specifically the character arcs.

[00:03:44] We have focused a lot this year on character arcs, which is super cool. Character arcs are awesome. And sometimes it can be the way that the characters in the story are developing that can lead you to be in kind of a tight spot where there's no wiggle room. And sometimes things need to be reworked. And some elements of the outline need to be changed in order to get yourself out of that bind.

[00:04:10] And then the third part of this series is going to be a look at your internal environment. How are you feeling? What are you thinking? What is going on in your personal life? Just because so much of that can lead to writer's block. So much of that can also get you out of writer's block. Right now I have been taking a bit of a hiatus from writing. I'm still doing the podcast just because I have a good routine going. I have a lot to say. The podcast brings me a lot of joy, but when it comes to creative writing, I have also been being a lot more social recently and I have been dating a little bit. And that takes up a lot of free time, especially when you live in the middle of nowhere in Northern Utah, it is hard to casually date.

[00:05:04] And so a lot of my free evenings are spent being social right now. And then on the weekends I have my kids. So that is my reasoning for my hiatus presently, but we'll pick up the writing again when it is time and I feel that things are going to be calming down pretty soon. I just kind of feel it, just one of those spiritual, energetic things, I guess.

[00:05:29] And I have a lot of works in progress anyway, and I don't feel that I need to abandon them, but we're going to revisit just some of those things in the third episode of this series. Let's delve into this thing. One of the most common reasons that writer's block comes up is simply because,

[00:05:52] like I said at the very beginning, simply because we have not outlined. We have drafted and we have developed all of these fun scenes and now we're in a spot where we kind of don't know how to proceed. We don't know the very next step. We might know the step after that. Or we still might know the ending of our story, but we have not tied together how to get from right here right now to maybe the end of the next scene.

[00:06:24] So one person suggested in this situation, you just power through and you write, and I feel that there is wisdom in that. The thing is with your work in progress, writer's block comes during the first draft. Or if you are doing some like super big revising where you are rewriting entire swaths of your work in progress, then it could come at that time too.

[00:06:48] But to simply have the creative process stop, and then you're left a bit dumb founded is what happens during the first draft. And my friends, I am here to tell you that the magic of writing comes after the first draft. I mean, there there's magic to be experienced in the first draft too. Don't get me wrong.

[00:07:08] But as far as coaxing out the beauty and the imagery and the poetry of your writing, that is kind of not what the first draft is for. That's what the revisions are. That's what the revisions help you do is to get to the, the golden nuggets in your story, and to bring them out and to refine things and to bring shine and glitter to your writing, where it may not exist in the first draft, because in the first draft, you are simply getting it done.

[00:07:41] You're getting it out of your brain and into your computer or down onto paper, whatever your processes. So. There is wisdom in simply powering through and writing something that sucks so that you can get to the rest of the story where it all makes sense again. And then you can get back into the flow of writing.

[00:08:04] Another thing can be. if you are drafting a fantasy novel, or very often a scifi novel. These books tend to have a lot of plot. They tend to be very plot heavy and they tend to have a lot of subplots too. And so that means that sometimes the way that the plot and the subplots and all of those different parts weave together can get confusing and they can trip you up.

[00:08:36] And so sometimes. It is valuable to step back and to review what you have already written and where you need to go if you are writing a very plot, heavy book, it can be very hard to pants that book. It can be very hard to simply draft by the seat of your pants a lot of people call that discovery writing.

[00:09:00] I attend a lot of people tend to do a blend of both discovery writing and outlining. I think it's impossible to simply only do one and not the other, especially if you're writing a plot heavy book, a plot driven book, but it can be really valuable to simply step back. I mean, Especially when we're in drafting mode, we set aside time every day and we have like a word count and we have these goals that we want to achieve.

[00:09:28] Sometimes it is absolutely worth the hour or two to give yourself permission, to figure out your outline again, instead of achieving a word count, sometimes you need to simply step back and see what you've done and where you need to go. Especially, if you have a lot of plots that you need to weave together, it is important to have a board of some form or whatever system you choose to do.

[00:09:57] You can do something like melanoma. You can do a cork board on your wall, whatever, but with the subplots and with the plots, you have the big events and where they need to fall. And it's important to organize them in the way that they will. Be presented in your story, be presented in your text, just because it's important to write things in the order that they're going to be read.

[00:10:21] Sometimes if that's not possible, then you kind of gotta do what you got to do, but it's important to know that like if this big event happens here with this plot, Then this other big event in subplot B or whatever, can't happen on the very next page, that would be too much, or it needs to come sooner just to pick up the pace and give us something exciting to read or whatever it's important to feel out and orchestrate those big events and those things.

[00:10:52] So that first of all, it is easier to write and then it will be easier to revise and easier to read. So having an outline, if you are doing a plot, heavy book is super important. And if you are choosing instead to do the discovery approach with a plot heavy book, I mean, best of luck to you, but. Don't be afraid to, you know, jot down notes, especially if all of your subplots and stuff are becoming confusing.

[00:11:21] So Sometimes we get writer's block because it is unclear to us what happens next, or it is unclear to us how things need to happen next. And so one approach is to simply power through so that you can get to an area in the novel that is more clear to you right now. Another option is to skip and then write.

[00:11:44] The next part of the book that is clear to you now, but I don't recommend doing that. I like to write things in order. And the third thing is to give yourself permission to step back and to reorganize your outline. I have found that with my outlines, my outlines tend to be pretty spot. And the more that I write, the more I can fill in with my outline, just because things become better.

[00:12:07] I understand my characters more. I understand the plot more than I did before I started. And so now there is more, there's more to flesh out. There's more to develop. And so it's okay to have your outline be somewhat dynamic. And if you need to revisit that and revise and tweak and rearrange. That can be an excellent way to combat writer's block.

[00:12:35] And so thank you for joining me on this week's episode of writing and the tiny house. Next week, we will go on to part two of this series with writer's block. So please join me next week. We'll see you then.

[00:12:49] 

[00:12:49] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time. 

Check out this episode!

Believable Change, Part 2

How to build a story arc, and then ruin it. It's a cautionary tale, my friends.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:00:00] Last week, we talked about character arcs, especially transformation arcs, and how we need to keep the essence of the character still intact, even though they are making different decisions. And today we are going to talk about how to ruin all of that just by the reaction or how the other characters in the story behave.

[00:00:24] Today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello, hello, hello. And welcome to today's episode of Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy who writes and talks about writing. The whole point of this podcast is to get you to write a novel in 18 months and to have the wisdom to adjust that timeline, if you need to. So today we are talking about character arcs again. Last week, we talked about how to make a good character arc, how you need to preserve the essence of that character.

[00:01:20] And reflect that while they are still making better decisions or worse decisions, depending on the direction the arc is going. And today we are going to talk about how to ruin all of that based on the reaction of the other characters in the story. So I told you last week that I have been reading the book of Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders.

[00:01:42] And this book is one of the best references on developmental edits. It is the deep developmental edit. It is meat as opposed to milk. He takes the very underlying, the really deep, the really thoughtful, amazing parts of a story and brings it out and shows you how it worked or how it didn't work.

[00:02:05] And it is astounding. It is incredible how he is so in touch with his craft and so in touch with the way that storytelling happens, that he can simply share with you how to do it better by breaking apart seven classical Russian short stories. In the one that we focused on most recently, it's the story of a man who sacrifices himself to save another man while they are trapped in a blizzard.

[00:02:36] And because of his sacrifice, this other man survives while he dies, he perishes in the blizzard. This is where we take this wonderful transformation of this selfish ornery man who is focused on himself, who loves money and whatever. And we take him through this cool arc of self-discovery sort of, and better choices in order to sacrifice himself to save this other character.

[00:03:04] And we love that. And it is cool to see that demonstrated in this short story. However, then we have this other character who is saved, who is written in more of a two dimensional way and who represents kind of this idealistic arc type of a surf, like just kind of the idea that the working man is the best man that a simple man is the good man that we all need to aspire to become.

[00:03:36] And it's interesting because in the rest of the story, this man does not reflect on that sacrifice. That sacrifice is not brought up again, it doesn't stir up things within him and it doesn't inspire him to live his life in a different way. The sacrifice happens, this guy survives and the savior like this other guy--the guy who saved him-- is largely forgotten in the rest of the story. It's a moment where you kind of get to sit back and wonder what happened. And so we can question the story arc of the one character of the savior and ask, why did we even do that? And we can question, why do we have this simpleton who just got saved and it didn't seem to matter to him. So why does it matter to me and why did it matter to the author or does it? And just in doing that, it cheapens the experience of the savior, of the guy who sacrificed himself to save this other guy from a blizzard. I once read a story, just to demonstrate this point, I read a story. It was kind of like portal fantasy, I guess. So the guy found himself in a new and a strange world with magic, and there were some differences in his body just because in the real world he had a specific sickness that made his body function poorly. He couldn't feel things. He had a hard time just living a normal life and suddenly he wakes up in this magical world and that condition doesn't exist here.

[00:05:19] So he has this strong body. He can make these really cool things happen. And he is feeling things again, unlike he has felt them in a long time. with that in mind, this is what happens. And in this story, this is pretty gross anyway, but it was more confusing with the way that it was handled.

[00:05:41] So toward the beginning of this story, this middle aged man befriend. Or something is discovered by this woman in her late teens, early twenties, I believe was her age and she's beautiful and she's attractive. And he now has this body with new found senses that he has not lived with in a very long time.

[00:06:03] So a new discovery of this vigor and this attraction to this woman anyway, there comes about a sexual assault and it happens by the main character, which I cannot handle reading anyway. But. The thing that happens later or immediately after, and then throughout the book. So in my mind, sexual assault is very important. It is always a very big pivotal moment in a story, and it needs to be treated with sensitivity and it needs to be given very sensitive. Proper attention in order to make sense that we are including such violence and such horror in our stories like sexual assault needs to be there for a reason.

[00:06:55] And it needs to be a damn good reason. With this story there was the sexual assault, it was done by the main character, which is already a hard thing to figure out why that happened. And then this young woman kind of disappears for the rest of the novel. And her mother immediately comes into the story and serves as the guide to this man to get him to his destination.

[00:07:25] Now if we're talking about choices and dealing with things and cheapening experiences and making things unbelievable. In my mind, if a person just had a violent sexual encounter with a woman and then is now forced to be in the company of that woman's mom for kind of a long time and to have to trust her and to have to like, trust his safety with her and trust that she's going to like lead him to where he needs to go and whatever else.

[00:07:59] There would be certain internal monologue going on. There would be a certain mannerisms. There would be paranoia. There would be something, there would be a reaction to that strange and awful situation. In this story that didn't happen at all. This mom came in and the sexual assault was never mentioned again.

[00:08:25] The mom came in and led this man to his destination. And she was actually with him throughout kind of a big chunk of the book. And then the book ends and we have no idea why the sexual assault was even in there to begin with why it needed to come about that way. Why a rediscovery of this body that could feel and lust and

[00:08:50] perform and whatever else needed to be explored and rediscovered in such a violent way. There were so many questions left unanswered, and because of all of that, instead of me hating the character, I mean, I wasn't terribly fond of the character anyway. What it instead made me do is question the author.

[00:09:17] Like why, why, why was this the way that we did it? So I read this book back in college and one of my best friends at the time also read the book. I recommended it to her. Not because it was good, but because it was bad. And we spent an entire evening in village in eating pie and ripping up hard. This book, I'm not going to mention it, what the title of this book is, So much of the believability of the story stemmed from that choice of inviting this horrendous, active violence into the story, and then responding in no way at all to that act throughout the rest of the story. And as a result of that, it cheapened the story and it made. I believe the main character less and it made us not too interested in the author from then on, that is how. We take these really big moments and it can be a big achievement. It can be a big act of violence. It can be good. It can be bad. It can be a great many things. That's how we take it. And we ruin it by letting it fall flat with the other characters in the story or with the main character itself.

[00:10:37] Let's remember the gravity of the choices that we put our characters through. Let's remember everybody's reaction to the things that they are exposed to and let all of that to build your story. When you include everything. If this horrendous act of violence had been fleshed out and there had been attention brought to this character's thought process or an encounter by the mother or anything, if anything at all had come about.

[00:11:06] the entire story would have been better Revisiting the short story that George Saunders analyzes in a swim in a pond in the rain. If the simpleton who was saved had allowed that sacrifice to change his life and make him a better person, the sacrifice itself would have been so much more meaningful and it would have been better, but because none of that happened, the sacrifice ended up feeling ch.

[00:11:35] Be sure to tune in next week with another episode of Writing in the Tiny House. Thank you so much for your time. Have a good day.

[00:11:45] 

[00:11:45] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time. 

Check out this episode!

Believable Change, Part 1

How to make a character's transformation arc believable.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:00:00] Last week, we talked about languages, sort of, I guess the title of last week's episode was a bit misleading because it said all of the languages. And I realized that I probably should have included a list of languages, which is what the title implied. Anyway today, we're going to be talking about character transformation and how to make it believable today on Writing in the Tiny House.

[00:00:28] Hello. Hello. Hello, and welcome to today's episode of Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis. And I am the guy living in a tiny house who writes things and tells you about how writing works and what to do and how to do it. The point of this podcast is to empower you to be able to write a novel in 18 months and to have the wisdom to adjust that timeline if you feel you need to.

[00:01:17] So today, We are going to be talking about transformations. We are going to be talking about taking a character who's kind of awful or kind of persnickety or kind of negative or something and changing them in a believable way. So one of the most famous story arcs or at least most known story arcs that follow something like this is the story of Scrooge in a Christmas Carol.

[00:01:46] It is the story of a man who sees his life and then sees what all of that is going to lead to and decides to change. Right now arcs like that are really popular. An arc that I also love instead of a redemption arc is also a corruption arc where you take someone good and because of circumstances and because of personal weakness and because of things like that, choices and events and trauma, you turn them into a villain.

[00:02:18] One of my very favorite corruption arcs is actually not in literature. It's in TV. Well, it's on Netflix, it's in the series arcane. The corruption arc of the character Powder is fantastic. If you are not familiar with the series Arcane, I suggest that you watch that series today. But all of these things require a character to start out one way and to turn out another way.

[00:02:47] I've been reading the book, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders and this has been a completely transformative thing for me. As far as learning how to developmental edit in a more grown up and in a more meaningful way, it has been the best resource I have read in a very long time. George Saunders is freaking amazing when it comes to simply knowing his craft and how to explain how he knows his craft.

[00:03:21] If you are unfamiliar with the book, with the way that it's structured is there are seven classic Russian short stories. I don't fully know why Saunders chose to stick with seven Russian short stories, but they are some of his favorites. I don't fully understand the choice of that, but whatever.

[00:03:42] And he goes through and he picks them apart and he shows you what the author is doing. He's showing you what they did well, and actually what they didn't do well. And he picks each of these short stories as a way to demonstrate craft, as a way to demonstrate something awesome. And talk about it. So what I recently read, it is a story about these two men who get stuck in a snow storm and one of them sacrifices himself in order to save the other.

[00:04:13] And it's one of those things where the snow storm, they can't get away from it. And the man uses himself as a shield against the weather to save the other man. And the thing that Saunders brings to light in this short story, that makes the transformation of that man so believable. So this man starts off as a very self-centered person and he is distrustful. He and the other main character or the person that he saves, don't have a super great relationship. And he's complaining about things like money and whatever else. He's not a warm, fuzzy kind of guy. As far as the universe goes, he is in the center of his own universe. And he is the hero of his own story.

[00:05:06] I mean, yes, we can say the same thing about each of us, but t hat's how this character is. And so the whole point behind this episode of Writing in the Tiny House is to touch on what a good arc or a good transformation arc does, what it looks like. Just the mechanism behind all of that. What I mean is it is important to understand how your character makes choices that energy behind their day to day. Their thought processes, the way that all of these things are formulated so that you can understand how they make choices. And the cool thing about a believable arc that leads to some form of transformation is

[00:05:58] all of the choices that lead to this better outcome are still done in the manner that this person lives their life. That means that if a person is paranoid and they tend to obsess and they tend to stew, it is more believable for them to simply take that energy of obsessing and stewing and still do all of that, but point that energy toward better choices.

[00:06:27] So with Ebeneezer Scrooge, he was a person who is short. He lacked understanding. He also was quick to decide And quick to make choices to bring about a resolution. And so that's how he ran his business. Everything was decided on the spot. His word was always final. And so even while he visits with the spirits of Christmas, past, present, and future and all of that stuff, and in the end, he is a better person with a better outlook on life and a better outlook on the meaning of life and the meaning of Christmas, which is the whole point of a Christmas Carol. He still is making decisions the same way he made decisions. He commands a boy to go buy a Turkey. He is still, you know, bossing people around.

[00:07:19] I mean, still in the spirit of Christmas that he is still himself. So if you have a person who tends to be loud and ornery and uses colorful language. Odds are, even though they are going to be making better decisions in the end, they still will use the same language. They will still be loud. They will still do all of those things.

[00:07:44] If you take a person who is a rebel and then turn them into a priest. I'm not saying that isn't believable because we've all read stories where it is. You need to pay attention to how that rebel made his decisions, even while he was in the throws of maybe breaking the law. Was he following his heart?

[00:08:06] Was he still standing up for what he thought was right? Was he still standing up for himself. Was he using aggressive language and a lot of self-confident stuff. Was he physically aggressive, things like that. And if you can tie all of that back into how he is as a priest so that we can still see that he is there.

[00:08:28] That's what makes it all more believable. So again, with this story That is mentioned in A Swim in the Pond, in the Rain, this guy who is self-centered, who is kind of the hero of his own story. he still makes those decisions. He decides for himself that it would be best to use himself as a shield against the weather for this other man, so that this other man can survive.

[00:08:56] It's still done in kind of that self centered way, but in one of those ways that we still see the change, but we still see the person. If that makes sense, it's important to include the essence of the person as we bring about this arc.. If we want to visit this corruption arc that I mentioned there is a girl in the story of Arcane.

[00:09:22] Her name is Powder. She is tinkery. She likes to make things. She is very submissive and moldable and she doesn't want to be a screw up and so bad things happen. And the bad guy is able to capitalize on those things and bring her to do bad things. And so we still see the same girl.

[00:09:49] She still makes decisions the same way that she always has just in this other framework of now she's a bad guy and now she's like this henchmen to the bigger, bad guy. And so we see this corruption arc, but we still see the character. So. This is kind of a shorter episode today, but the next episode. So I'm going to make this into a two part series.

[00:10:16] The next episode is actually going to be kind of the sad side of this, how to take all of these important redemptive qualities and how to make them fall flat. Bye reactions from other characters in your story. So we need to remember that the character is all tie into one another and sometimes because of.

[00:10:46] Overlooked something we can make this transformation, or we can make these choices or the impact of these choices fall flat, just because of how the other characters behave. And that is next week on Writing and the Tiny House.

[00:11:03] 

[00:11:03] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time. 

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All the Languages

Let's talk about made up langauges and SPELLS!

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:00:00] last week, we talked about the beauty of including open empty space of not using too many words in your manuscript. And today we are going to be talking about languages about fantasy made up languages today on writing in the tiny house. Hello. Hello. Hello, and welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am Devin Davis.

I am the guy living in a tiny house who writes things and tells you all about them. The whole point of this podcast is to give the tips and tricks and a little bit of guidance so that you can produce a short story in three [00:01:00] months. And you can produce a novel in about 18 months or even shorter.

And you will have the wherewithal to adjust that timeline if you need to. If we remember back in October, I released Brigitte, which was Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, and it went from drafting to publishing in eight weeks. And if you read the short story, it's a great short story.

It is something that can be done. And a lot of people don't know how long different things take. And this is why a lot of people don't write, is just because they don't know how long it could take for them to get started and finished. And so. The whole point of this podcast is to shed light on that entire process.

Today, we are talking about fantasy languages. I have been giving some different insights from George Saunders. I have been reading his book very closely, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, and I have been sharing some of the things that I [00:02:00] have gleaned from that.

Today we're not going to do that. Next time we will, though. Today we're going to be talking about made up languages. With this, we think of things like Klingon and we think of things like the Elvin or Elvish. I don't remember languages from the Lord of the rings and a Tolkien making up an entire language That's really cool and super admirable that somebody did that. At the same time, though, when I approach my writing, it is hard for me to just make up things that people are going to say and pretend that those things are going to be meaningful. Also, when I include what would be a foreign language in my book,

I know that I talked about this in a previous episode, but I want to mention it again. I really like to include another language from this world to be representative of another [00:03:00] language of the world that I'm creaing. So that means that I fully understand that my people and the people in my world don't speak English and that English is already kind of representing whatever language they would be speaking otherwise.

Therefore, if they meet people who are out of town and those people are speaking something else, I think it is perfectly acceptable for that out of town language to be French. If you have red Bridgette, you totally understand that's what I did with the people who live in the city of Brianne.

They speak a different language that is represented by French. And I have another short story stewing in my brain that is going to be from another region of the world that I'm creating that will be represented by Spanish. And so I think it's kind of fun [00:04:00] if the reader already has some background in French or Spanish or whatever other language that they'll be able to kind of pick out what this foreign language is and kind of know things before the main characters know them. It's a real language and it's something that the reader might already know. And I like that. I like the idea of that.

If you want to make up your own entire language, you absolutely can. There is certainly nothing wrong with inventing a language, however, with including it in your manuscript, a lot of people tend to not focus very hard on things that they don't know how to say. And in an adult book to have a grown up reader, to expect them to slow down and sound out whatever you are trying to create as far as a new and a unique [00:05:00] language,

it is something that a lot of your readers may not do. And it affects the flow of the story. Most people read fiction for entertainment, and that means that when they sit down, they want the reading experience to be pretty straight forward. And so to pick apart and to sound out a bunch of words that they don't know, and a bunch of words that are likely not real anyway, it can come across as a pretty big ask.

so if you are working on an entirely new language, good for you. I recommend though limiting how much you're going to have in your manuscript, just because your reader is not really going to pay close attention to it anyway. Also what about spells? Because spells in many books, Their own language.

And a lot of [00:06:00] people like, well, spells are kind of their own unique thing. I guess a lot of people like to have spells be a form of poetry that rhymes, or a bunch of like really powerful statements of truth or commands that could be in English or whatever. and then a spell happens because that's how the magic is working, or it can be a bunch of chanting and nobody ever actually spells out the words that are chanting.

It is just like incoherent noise, like other worldly mysterious, strange syllables and sounds and different things that the magician is producing. A lot of other people like to spell out the command words, they like to spell out the spells. They like to have key phrases that actually represent something.

And so, I mean, if you pay attention to Harry Potter, there are a certain number of commands that come up all the time. And so [00:07:00] even though a lot of them are derived from a Latin word, they at least sort of They come up over and over again, and they are short it is a fun way to world build with something like that, because it's something that we can pay attention.

And it's something that we can learn. And it's something that adds consistency and a certain feeling of familiarity as future books come as additional things happen later on in the story or in the books, especially if you're writing a series. And that can be super fun. If you choose to spell out your spells, I recommend keeping them to maybe one word or as specific phrase and bringing those phrases up more than once or finding ways to include them. Throughout the book or throughout your story so that the reader can come to recognize them [00:08:00] and come.

understand them and really like that type of familiarity that comes with it. So that is very much in a nutshell, my 2 cents about languages today. Like I said, in my short story, Bridgette, which was installment, one of tales from Vlaydor the local yokels of Brianne, which is the city that it takes place in speak.

Or there is a very heavy French influence on their language, even though France doesn't exist in my world. And in a future short story that I will likely be composing later this year, it is going to be focusing on a different area of the world with a different culture a different language that I am likely going to represent with Spanish.

So do what you want. Let me know what you do and what works for you. And yeah. Thank you for joining me today with today's episode on languages. [00:09:00] Next week, we are going to dive back in to George Saunders, A Swim in the Pond in the Rain and dive into more ways to do development. It's on Writing in the Tiny House.

Devin Davis: And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.[00:10:00]

Check out this episode!