Coming Up Blank

The wonderful thing about writing is that you can always make something out of nothing. It really is the original perpetual motion machine!

If you have a bad day, or a crap interaction, it immediately becomes fodder for your work. Inane conversations on the bus become a lesson in realistic dialogue. Annoying health problems or injuries suddenly manifest in your character and increase the depth of characterisation.

Today I was really stuck for something to blog about, then I realised I could blog about the fact I could not blog about something:)

All writers seem to approach their work from a different angle, and be inspired by different things. So what to do when you come up blank?

Some writers are inspired by natural settings, by the feeling of the landscape itself. I know for myself, some very weird characters and magical ideas can emerge from a quiet natural landscape, especially during storms and at twilight. At the very least it injects some reality into descriptions of scenery and setting.

Others are driven by the ideas themselves (this is very true for me). I can get inspired by interesting non-fiction, good books, films, and other weird ideas or what-ifs that occur to me in my more wistful moments.

Another thing that often gets me going is to plot out maps and put together drawings of the cities where the story takes place. Others might paint characters (I am total crap at drawing) or spend time imagining the settings of the story to get enthused. You can look for movies, books, pieces of music or art that inspire you for the piece you are writing.

I know many writers who write to music. Many take it even further than this - one writer friend of mine has collections of music for different types of scene. If there is an action scene coming up he puts all his 'action' CDs into the player.

Of course to be creative, you also need enough sleep (a challenge for me I can tell you) and to be in good frame of mind. The quality of your food, the amount of rest you get. Health is often neglected by writers, but has a huge impact energy levels. What do you do for stress reduction? That's important as well. How about exercise? Small amounts of low impact activity have been well demonstrated to have large positive effects. Walk the dog.

What do you do when you look for inspiration? Or do you subscribe to the notorious Idea of the Month Club?

So just where did that come from?

"Am I a plagiarist?"
It's a question which I think every honest author thinks somewhere down the line (the dishonest ones I assume know they are, and lie about it). I recall an unlikely Indian name in a 1970 sf novel. It stuck in my head. Years later I came across it another sf book (which bore no relation to the first book in content) I asked an Indian friend of mine - he said it was so implausible it had to be a made-up name. One British, one American Author - both people I respect, both people who would be shocked at the idea of idea-theft, let alone plagiarism. I think it was a name that stuck in your head, whereas the book was non-memorable to be honest, and was purely accidental (in both cases the character was a minor redshirt). But I think if we had to be truthful withour selves all our work (and I mean ALL of us) builds on the foundations of past sf/fantasy. The genre has its own conventions and shaping influences - it's why the work of some the 'literati' who pour scorn on sf and then write it, claiming that 'it's not science fiction' often read rather like 1930's fan-fic with literary pretentions. (Jeanette Winterson and Margaret Atwood spring to mind - actually, Margaret, Squids in Space represent less than 0.0001% of the sf books I've read. Precisely 2 books, one of which, Mother of Demons, where the squids are not in space, is a better philosophical / sociological piece of sf than just about anything else written in the last 40 years) And - with the exception of sf-writers who have developed that terrible ailment Literaripretentitus themselves - only read and enjoyed by the sort of reader who would never lower themselves to sf. In other words, unsophisticated sf-readers without a background in the conventions of the genre, so they think these works good and original. I suppose this might imply that someone who came at this afresh from a non-sf background might produce something new and exciting. I've seen a few non-readers attempts over the years. (I used to be a fairly active member of Critters.) In most cases it is very easy to ID the movie/TV series that they were drawn from - or the youthful brush with HG Wells or Verne or a cheap pulp story. (You can't escape some form of sf. It is pervasive, often in the worst form.) Where I think there really are some exciting possibilities is where writers learn the conventions and foundation of the genre, but also cross-fertilise from others (yes, unlike Ms. Winterson and Atwood, I think one can learn and adapt a great deal from other genres, and one should read a fair selection from them, rather than sneer from ignorance. Each of them has value. Romance, Mystery, Horror, even modern literary novels. To believe otherwise is akin to xenophobia, which is fine for stupid bigots, but not really something to aspire to). Or where they draw a different cultural background into the mixture. We've seen a little Japanese and Chinese creeping into fantasy particularly, but I think the sleeping giant is probably India, where English is widely read and understood, and is often a first language, but the culture is as unique as European or Chinese or African - without the language wall.

Anyway - I've strayed from what got me onto this topic - I was working on a proposal for a fantasy story... and getting the cald grue. It all worked. It actually seemed to be fitting into a pre-ordained path. I knew precisely where the story was going.
It's an unusual aspect of a very well-known mythology- but we know it from its derivative or its medieval derivative of that derivative version, and the authors that went there went down one layer, not two (at least as far as I know). But I felt I was borrowing a narrative from something else I'd read. When Kate gets here, her even more extensive knowledge of fantasy than mine is in for a grilling. I've had this before - where I thought I had a great idea and story line and several people told me 'that's Stargate' - which I had not at that stage come across. What I had come across and been influenced by is what I suspect was at least one of the original seeds for that - ONE STEP FROM EARTH.

So: how do you stop yourself from doing this? I'm a mass of the imprints of several hundred thousand books inside that gurgling splurting grey goo I call my brain. They muddle and mix and churn. And, duh, sometimes I swear because of the influences you find yourself 'channeling' other writers (I wrote something - far less well - than Sir Terry Pratchett, that he published 10 years after I'd written it. No. He DID NOT STEAL MY IDEA. We just obviously had some of the same influences. I was pleased.) And do others of you channel yourselves deliberately down a style and voice by immersing in that author or authors? (ie for the WIZARD of KARRES - I read (surprise) nothing but James H Schmitz, for several weeks before and for the duration. For DRAGON'S RING, I 'coloured' myself with Scott Rohan, Zelazny, Beagle, Nix and DWJ, for SLOW TRAIN, Heinlein (duh, surprise) Clarke, Niven, Simak and Harry Harrison's CAPTIVE UNIVERSE)

These Boots Are Made For Kicking

So you want to write short stories. Or you don’t. Couldn’t care less. It is my considered opinion – and as everyone here knows I am a moderate and ponderous sort of person, mild-mannered and calm – that all of you need to write a lot more short stories, so you can submit it and get over this namby pamby fear of submitting your work. Because I can’t be having with that and I don’t want to call y’all sissies. (Even if you are.)

What I most often hear is "But I don’t like writing short stories." Or perhaps "I’m a natural novelist." Or yet "I don’t have short story ideas!"

The fact I normally hear these pronounced in the tone my kids used for "but I want a cookie" normally means I roll my eyes and go hide somewhere with a book. But leaving aside my excellent parenting skills, my general answer to these is "cry me a river" for the first two and "You can learn" to the last. I too am a natural novelist, I don’t generally like writing short stories, and heaven knows I don’t even have SINGLE NOVEL ideas, but more like a six book series.

You see, there are reasons to learn short stories – beyond the fact that you need desensitizing. Once you’ve made it and you’re a big name (shut up. The alternative is I keep kicking you. ALL of you will become major names by default) people will ask you for short stories and short stories are your cheapest means of self promotion. Write short stories for as many anthos and mags as you can – chances are people will find them and then look for everything else you wrote. At least if you do a creditable job. So... about learning to do that job.

Ideas are the easy part. I have a friend who routinely tells me "I have this idea for a short story" – when in fact he doesn’t. What do I mean by that? His "idea" will be something like "What if squirrels discovered electricity?" That is not an idea. It is the rawest glimmering of what-if. And it’s certainly not a Short story idea. Maybe an essay.

Could it be a short story idea? Sure. Follow that life line. So, squirrels discover electricity. Do they discover how to create electricity or how to steal it from homeowners, with tiny wires so they can watch squirrel porn on their tiny laptops? Let’s say they steal it. We have Mary. She lives downtown and suddenly her energy bill skyrockets. The landlord/energy company doesn’t believe her. A quick investigation finds that squirrels have found some discarded computer parts, assembled them, and are stealing electricity to watch Nutkin does Norway. Mary solves the problem by teaching the squirrels to distribute their electricity theft. She perhaps furnishes them with bigger screens, or something. In return they do something else for her – perhaps fill one of the electricity company’s trucks full of nuts. Or take nude pictures of the landlord and paste them all over the neighborhood.

Now what you must resist is the impulse to figure out how this will affect university at large. Will Mary’s boyfriend who is a biologist want to study these newly sentient squirrels? Will the squirrels become partners with humans in space exploration? Will there eventually be a tiny twitch of the tail for squirreldom, a giant step for the species of Earth? No. Don’t go there. Drop it. I mean you, Chris. You don’t know where it’s been, and besides you’re borrowing trouble. Short stories by definition take a smaller slice of the pie, usually concentrated on one person’s problem and its more or less reasonable solution. Yes, there are a few short stories with a cast of thousands and dancing elephants, but they’re rare, far between and require consummate skill.
I will confess part of this is weighing "what is a short story idea" and part of it is habit and practice – like everything else.

So, grab a couple of short story anthos (the Greenberg themed anthos are actually pretty good for this) and read a couple of short stories, it might help.

In any case, shoot me a few ideas in the comments. I’ll weigh in, as will the bunch that hangs out here, and we’ll discuss whether they’re short story ideas or not. If it makes you feel better shoot ideas you never plan to use, just so we can argue if they’re short story ideas of not. Just post them, we’ll discuss them, and your understanding will improve. (Grasshopper!) Of course, you might also want to tell me how insane my squirrel idea is. ;) Or your alternate ideas for Squirrels Discover Electricity. (Ah, like any of you is as brilliant as I am. Whole cities are powered by my shining intellect. In fact squirrels would probably steal me... er... um... WHAT is in those cold meds?)

I know you have questions: So, you have this idea, but is it YOUR idea to write? What is a satisfying end for a a short story, versus a satisfying end for a novel? And where the heck do you find all these ideas, anyway? Will you give me the address in Kansas where they send you ideas if you send them a SASE?

All this and more will be answered when you tune in to the next episode of "Boots, Stories and tired writers!"

Care and Feeding of Plots

The last few posts have sent me cycling back to thinking about plots (as opposed to plotting, which involves ultra-secret societies and if I told you I'd have to... Oh, sorry. Wrong kind of plot): where they come from, how they grow, and of course, the question that makes every writer cringe, "Where do you get your ideas?"

Me, I get ideas and plots everywhere. The problem is keeping the beggars from metastasizing, not finding them. It helps that I read widely, all over the spectrum. One of my recent idea-fodder scores is Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku - who is a theoretical physicist and one of the founders of string theory. In this book, a whole range of science fictional staples including force-fields, teleportation, FTL travel and the like get the "Okay, so how would we do this?" treatment.

It turns out that everything needed to make a force field has been manufactured in some form. Some of the components are still very much experimental manufacture, while others are mature, but they all exist. As such, it's feasible that somewhere within 100 years you could be able go to the store and buy yourself a force field.

Levitation (yes, I want my flying car, damn it!) is in the same range.

Now, watch those neurons fizz at the thought of flying cars equipped with force fields to prevent collisions. Add a hot guy, preferably partially clothed, and we're in... ahem.

Leaving aside fond lewd imaginings, I take a whole bunch of ideas like this, mix and match to get some idea what my world looks like and what it's like to live there, and figure out the overarching motivations of all the major players in that world as they relate to my setting. I don't usually go for complex, intertwining skullduggery for the simple reason that my plots have a tendency to do that to me anyway while I'm working out what's going on.

Often all these ideas (did you know that the founders of the USA wanted to set a fixed-value currency that could never inflate or deflate? Imagine a world where someone did that...) don't go anywhere (Oh, and did you know that relativity is implicit in Thomas Young's equations related to light - and if he hadn't died at 55 it's possible the Theory of Relativity could have been proposed before 1850? Nuclear steampunk!), at least not at first. So I keep reading all sorts of stuff, fiction and non-fiction, and strange and occasionally wonderful things emerge.

After all, the seed of a plot is an idea, and good plots usually have several ideas lurking in the background fraternizing and mixing things up - and breeding - strong characters to drive them (often the disguised spawn of yet another idea), and lots of fertilization to make them grow. Yes, this does mean I throw a whole lot of crap at it and hope something works.

How do you feed your plots? What are your idea seeds, how widely do you cross-breed and how much control do you try to exert over them as they grow?